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Despite the gloom on the high street, UK supermarkets are seeing a boom in the number of consumers shopping online. Tesco's website registered 7.3 million visits in the run-up to Christmas, according to figures from Nielsen Online. The e-commerce portal saw an 18 per cent rise in unique users during 2008, making it the internet's most popular supermarket. Meanwhile, Sainsbury's saw audiences dip by 2 per cent during the same period, though the brand maintained its position as the third most popular supermarket online behind Tesco and Asda.

It's hardly surprising both Tesco and Sainsbury's are investing heavily in their e-commerce operations. Tesco is launching an online clothes service to rival the likes of ASOS later this year, while Sainsbury's plans to roll out a non-food offering in 2010, providing customers with a range of products. According to Malcolm Pinkerton, senior analyst at Verdict Research, this service will cost about £15 million in the 2009 financial year and a similar amount the following year.

"Tesco.com continues to set the pace for the market and has become a compelling destination for most household needs," he says. "Sainsbury's is making improvements to its online home shopping service to capitalise on the fact that more consumers are buying food and groceries online."

With Tesco and Sainsbury's ramping up their e-commerce activities, Revolution commissioned Fadi Shuman, co-founder and e-commerce director at Pod1, to see how their sites shape up against each other.

Criteria under the spotlight include homepage, user experience for first-time customers, navigation and product listings, as well as trolley capability, registration and checkout process. Overall, Sainsbury's came out on top, scoring higher than Tesco in a number of key areas.

According to Leigh Rengger, Sainsbury's head of online marketing, the aim behind the site is to ensure the supermarket is as customer-friendly as possible, regardless of whether users are browsing or buying. "We have chosen to allow full access to the groceries area of the site and we only ask customers to register when they want to book a delivery slot," he says. "This avoids the barrier of asking customers for their details before showing them the content of the site."

AKQA, which is responsible for Sainsbury's website design, claims that full, unregistered access to the groceries section enables customers to use the e-commerce experience as a planning tool for their in-store shop. Frank Pedersen, Sainsbury's client partner at the agency, says this is particularly important in this economic climate, as consumers increasingly want to go online to gather information to ensure they are getting the most for each pound they spend in-store.

"Sainsbury's e-commerce offering provides an intuitive user journey, from inspiration to product selection and through to checkout, enabling customers to get the products they need within a minimal number of clicks," he says.

The fact that the shopping trolley is on constant display and records any savings made by the customer is a feature that Rengger says is also important. "The trolley and total price so far is prominent and always on-screen as customers go through the shopping process," he says. "This allows them to stay in control of their spending."

Search and functionality are two areas where Sainsbury's performs less well. Rengger says one of the main e-commerce tasks the supermarket faces is utilising advances in web technology to improve the online customer experience.

"The challenge is to ensure the developments are meeting a customer need rather than just clever pieces of technology that make no difference to customers," he says. "Most crucial of all is fulfilment: customers want what they ordered delivered in full and on time with great service."

Tesco, which designs and manages its site in-house, comes out strongly in areas such as functionality, search and categorisation. Loraine Paterson, usability consultant at User Vision, points out that each section on Tesco's website opens a sub-menu with additional detailed links.

"Using such navigation methods allows customers to drill down into the site quickly, which is often very important to users," she says. "Getting the navigation right is vital and, the bigger the website, the greater the challenge."

According to Sanjay Vadher, client services director at Tangent One, one of the key challenges supermarkets face when selling online is presenting their product categories effectively.

"The supermarket giants have perfected offline merchandising by ensuring their customers are presented with relevant up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, such as tactically placing 'necessity' items such as milk and bread at the back of the store to entice customers along with promotional offers," he says. "Managing categories online is also just as important. They need to be intuitive for users. An e-commerce site's structure and flexibility should be balanced in a way that allows users to quickly scan and find their next step."

Tesco's registration and checkout process is below par, however, as according to Shuman, both areas of the site take too long to complete. "You can't browse unless you register. The very wordy and seemingly lengthy registration page before you've even added anything to your basket, was painful and felt unnecessary," he says.

Verdict's Pinkerton acknowledges that Tesco has the largest and most advanced multi-channel food operation among grocery retailers at present, but with the likes of Sainsbury's and Asda upping the ante in non-food sales online, Tesco's current lead will inevitably be reduced.

"The growth potential in groceries online is still huge, and more people are turning to the internet to do their food shopping as they become increasingly time-poor," he says. "It is not an option to do without an online presence."

With wider product offering expected to expand further for all supermarkets, it is more important than ever for them to ensure their online presence and e-commerce operations are effective and support the overall customer experience.

SAINSBURY'S

HOMEPAGE: The site has a well-branded homepage with good signposts, making it relatively easy to begin your shopping journey. It seemed very busy though. 5/10

USER JOURNEY: I was dealt with in a relaxed way, and allowed to browse before committing to signing up. It was only when I added an item to my basket that I was asked for my postcode to check availability. 8/10

NAVIGATION: Good, easy-to-understand labelling of categories. I was able to find what I was looking for without having to think about it too much. Adding to my always-visible basket was also a cinch. 7/10

PRODUCT LISTINGS: The site uses a detailed row-by-row view with the ability to turn images and recommendations on or off. Easy on the eye; does the job of displaying many items very well. 7/10

DESIGN: On brand throughout, but loses its way a little in product listings and detail pages. It is far away from being perfect though; could have done with some more love in the detail pages. 6/10

SEARCH: No predictive search. The top result for 'organic beans' was for Heinz Baked Beans Organic Range. But a search for 'olive oil' returned Olives in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Not bad. 5/10

FUNCTIONALITY: Both sites had similar features for recent orders, but nothing else stood out for Sainsbury's in terms of useful functionality. 5/10

TROLLEY/BASKET: The always-on 'trolley' was neat and had all the features I could have wanted available to me. Also displayed my savings as I went along. 8/10

BOOKING DELIVERY: A key requirement when grocery shopping online, Sainsbury's provides one-hour slots, giving you a streamlined response to your booking. 8/10

CHECKOUT: The layout was clean but not overwhelming. Once basic details were entered, payment only required card details to be inputted. The whole experience was pretty user-friendly. 7/10

OVERALL TOTAL (analysis provided by Fadi Shuman, founder, Pod1): 66/100

TESCO

HOMEPAGE: Very similar in style and structure to that of Sainsbury's with a little less clutter. 6/10

USER JOURNEY: As a new user, I was unable to browse without first registering. This irked me straight away, and would have put me off for good if I had been a normal punter. 3/10

NAVIGATION: Nice and clear. Broken down into fewer top-level categories but still took me the same number of clicks to find and add the product I wanted. 7/10

PRODUCT LISTINGS: The site uses a grid view with no other options. It took much longer to locate what I was after, even though more products were showing above the fold. It felt very cluttered. 3/10

DESIGN: Hide the logo, and you couldn't miss the fact that this was Tesco: fonts and buttons were bold - fitted my idea of what Tesco stands for. But the design felt like it was put together by techies. 6/10

SEARCH: Again, no predictive search. Same search criteria, with spot-on results. However, due to the layout of the results page, it didn't seem as easy to select what I wanted. 8/10

FUNCTIONALITY: A neat feature allows me to write a note to the picker under each item in case of replacement. Also the express shopper option where you type what you want on a notepad was great. 8/10

TROLLEY/BASKET: The basket was OK but lacked the nice touches of Sainsbury's. The mini banner ad within it was annoying. No obvious way of saving basket for later or emptying with one click. 5/10

BOOKING DELIVERY: The lack of graphical elements on this page, old-school click and wait for next page to load, coupled with only two-hour slots make this the lesser system. 4/10

CHECKOUT: The wordy registration page - before you've even added anything to your basket - was unnecessary. However once I went to the checkout, I simply added my card details to finish. 6/10

OVERALL TOTAL (analysis provided by Fadi Shuman, founder, Pod1): 56/100

SUMMARY: SAINSBURY'S

The overall experience is certainly not unpleasant, with the brand trying to keep its e-commerce offering in line with its offline approach: friendly and welcoming.

The site's design and layout make for a positive user experience, which is hugely important when all that is actually separating one player from the competition is its brand and possibly its price points.

The site does all the basic e-commerce elements very well, but Sainsbury's should add more functionality to attract its customers online.

Overall, this feels like a 'phase one' website, lacking in many of the new user-centric features that would have made it a class act. Sainsbury's could consider adding reviews to its products and its navigation could be more visual, alongside adding predictive search and generating more accurate search results.

SUMMARY: TESCO

The site delivered on the basic functionality of enabling the purchase of groceries online without needing a PhD in maths, but consumers will come away feeling a little jarred by the experience.

Perhaps it's the brand colours that don't sit well or the overemphasis on the low prices, which seem to take any sliver of fun out of the experience.

Design-wise it is poor, and looks like it was put together without much thought for the user experience. The site should allow customers to browse before making them register, and copy could be trimmed to something more manageable. The 'note to picker' and 'express' shopping functions are decent, but again poorly executed.

Having now experienced both sites in detail, neither Sainsbury's nor Tesco can claim victory in the online grocery-shopping category.