Does your company have a plan for complying with the EU’s upcoming Accessibility Act? Coming into effect on 28th June 2025, it requires any business that wishes to trade in the EU to provide accessible digital services. For eCommerce websites, complying with the EU Accessibility Act is going to be essential – and it could mean big changes to how your website operates.
In this blog, you’ll get up to speed on what the Act is, why it’s being introduced, and how you can start preparing.
What is online ‘accessibility’?
Accessibility is not a new thing. The World Health Organisation reports that 16% of the world population (1.3 billion people give or take), live with a disability. However, there has been a noticeable uptick of interest in the topic among companies recently (that interest should have always been there really) – and particularly with regards to the accessibility online.
When people think of accessibility online, they tend to think of people with visual impairments. Most other disabilities are not usually considered at all.
People don’t think about how people with dyslexia deal with the web, or people with epilepsy, autism, cognitive impairments, mobility issues (the list could go on).
Yet despite the fact that about one person in six lives with a disability, relatively few websites are truly accessible for all. There are many reasons for this – from cost, to lack of awareness, to companies simply not prioritising the issue.
Whatever the reasons, the EU Accessibility Act aims to change all that.
What Is the EU Accessibility Act?
The EU Accessibility Act (EAA), which is set to come into effect on the 28th June 2025, is a huge development for any and all businesses that operate in the EU. This means websites too – and especially e-commerce sites.
The EAA’s aim is to make all products and services (from e-commerce sites and mobile apps, to train ticket machines and everything in between), accessible for all, but especially for people with disabilities.
It also applies to any company based outside of the EU – if you operate, sell products, or have services or a website available in the EU you will have to comply.
Non compliance can damage a company’s reputation and lead to penalties (more on this below).
Why Does Accessibility Matter?
Making your E-commerce website accessible is important for several reasons.
The moral argument for accessibility
I always go back to a quote from Tim Berners-Lee (you know, the guy who only invented the world wide web…):
“The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability is an essential aspect”.
Making the web accessible for all is about ethics and the kind of world we want to live in. Just as we expect bathrooms for people with disabilities or ramps for wheelchair users in public spaces in the ‘real’ world, we should also expect the virtual world to be accessible to all.
Hard-nosed business reasons
Globally, the disabled community accounts for a $13 trillion spend each year. That is a huge amount of money for you to give up on because your site isn’t accessible. Research also suggests that people with disabilities are more likely to spend money on websites that are accessible.
EU fines for non-compliance
The fines for not complying with the EEA will range from €5,000 to €20,000 per violation (depending on severity, size of the organisation and more).
Your risk damaging your reputation
In the EU alone, it is estimated there are over 135 million people living with a form of disability. If your site has accessibility issues, those EU citizens are going to struggle to use it and will be likely to stop using your site. They will then likely tell their friends, their families, and more people will stop using your site.
Overall usability
All accessibility improvements throughout history (not just the web), have benefited everyone in the long run, not just those with disabilities.
For example, the electric toothbrush was invented in 1954 for people with limited strength and mobility. A study in 2019, found that people who use electric toothbrushes have less tooth decay and healthier gums (that’s a win for everyone). In a 2023 survey, 67% of adults (34 million people) said they use an electric toothbrush today.
Accessibility improvements can also be framed as usability improvements – meaning everybody benefits.
The more your site is accessible, the more user friendly it is for everyone. For example, clearer product descriptions help people understand what they are buying, or simplified check out processes reduce shopper friction.
SEO benefits
Most accessibility practices align perfectly with SEO best practices. Does your heading structure make sense so that, at a glance, you could understand what your entire content structure is about? Do h2s follow h1 tags? Or do you use whatever headings you like the look of? Do your images have image alt attributes (that actually explain what the image is?). Or do your alt attributes just have a single keyword in them (nearly every SEO has been guilty of this).
SEO is accessibility is usability.
Key EU Accessibility Act requirements for E-commerce websites
To be compliant with the EAA, your website will need to meet several requirements. Below, I’ve highlighted the most important things your website will need to do.
Meet web accessibility standards
From June 2025, your website must meet WCAG 2.1 compliance at level AA as a minimum. This means:
- Keyboard navigation: The site must be navigable without a mouse. All users should be able to navigate the entire site using only a keyboard.
- Text alternatives: Provide alt attributes for all images so that screen readers can interpret what the images are.
- Colour contrast: Check your colour combinations against contrast checkers to ensure they are readable for users (but especially those with visual impairments such as colour blindness).
Accessible checkout processes
- Forms: Are you form fields easy to identify? Are they clearly labelled and are the instructions clear? If not, they need to be.
- Error Messages: Are these clear and easy to understand? Does it explain what the error is (“please enter your postcode in the postcode field” for example, instead of a generic error message).
- Payment Options: Are your payment options accessible? You need to ensure that all payment methods available on site are compatible with any assistive tools (like screen readers).
Clear product descriptions
Is your product information accessible? Have you used clear, simple language to describe your products? Make sure you avoid any jargon, or country specific sayings or really technical terms where you can.
Making sure you use schema markup on your product pages can also improve the site’s accessibility as well.
For example, on an E-commerce site, using the Product schema can make the page easier to navigate for assistive technologies, because the product name, description, availability and other things are clearly labelled.
Inclusive customer support
Does your site currently have a chat functionality? Well, by June 2025, that will also have to be screen reader compatible and also be accessible with keyboard navigation only.
How do I ensure compliance with the EU Accessibility Act?
5 practical steps for EEA compliance
1. Conduct an accessibility audit
One of the first steps in making sure your website is accessible is to conduct an accessibility audit. This involves checking your site against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to find any barriers to access, or anything that could prevent users with disabilities from interacting with, or using, your site.
Most blogs recommend automated tools like WAVE at this point, and don’t get me wrong, WAVE and AXE are good recommendations and are commonly used to audit accessibility. But, it is important to know their limitations.
These are automated tools that can find issues that a script can easily identify (anything that can be detected programmatically), but they are not foolproof. They may miss nuanced accessibility issues, as well as issues with forms and media content.
Manual testing is so important. Hands-on testing with assistive technologies like screen readers (JAWS & NVDA for example), performing keyword only navigation tests, to ensure that any and all users can access and interact with content.
Manual reviews by experienced testers can uncover accessibility issues that automated tools simply cannot find.
2. WCAG 2:1 AA compliance
Once an audit is done, the next step is to implement whatever fixes are required.
To comply with the EEA, you will need to ensure your e-commerce website meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards. These ensure your site is accessible for users with accessibility issues (they’re the bare minimum).
This could and will more than likely cover:
- Text Contrast and Readability
- Ensure all text contrasts its background (5:1 for regular text and 3:1 for large text).
- Keyboard Accessibility
- Any and all elements that are interactive (buttons, forms, inlinks etc.), must be navigable with a keyboard by itself (and be usable).
- Form Field Labels
- Are all your form fields clearly labeled? Do they provide error messages if something is incorrect (not just a colour box?)
3. Review third party tools
It is crucial that you review all third party tools and integrations on your site. Do you have AI chatbots on your site? What about your payment gateway?
Your AI chatbot should offer keyboard only navigation and should be screen reader friendly. Any and all plugins must also comply with all accessibility standards (colour contrast etc). Make sure you regularly audit any and all third party tools to make sure they don’t affect your site’s accessibility (and be prepared to find alternative plugins and extensions if needed).
4. Monitor progress
Once you are finished, and everything has been audited, and all the fixes made, that doesn’t mean you are done. Continue to test and audit your site. Maybe aim for the next WCAG standard. Why not reach out to an accessibility specialist and get disabled users to test your site and give you feedback?
Start preparing for the EU Accessibility Act today
At the time of writing (December 2024), there are just over six months left until the EEA comes into effect. If you run an e-commerce website, this should provide you enough time to make the necessary changes. But making a website accessible is often time consuming, complex, and there’s always a risk of unexpected surprises.
So, it’s essential to get started as soon as possible.
It’s dangerous to go alone, take this
Checkout the WCAG 2:1 AA standards to see what amends you may need to make today.
Useful tools and resources
- Google Lighthouse – An automated tool that audits web pages for performance, SEO, accessibility and more. You can use it to gain some insight into accessibility issues with some actionable insights to improve user experience.
- WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker – This tool helps you verify if your colour choices meet WCAG guidelines by ensuring your text has sufficient contrast against its background.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) – These are internationally-recognised standards for making websites accessible. These are a must-read to understand accessible web design.
- A11Y Project – This is a community driven initiative, offering an amazing wealth of resources, best practice guides, and guidelines for building accessible sites. This is a great way to stay up to date with anything new in the accessibility world.
