Online retail accessibility is failing disabled customers

More than 80% of customers with disabilities are unable to complete an online retail journey without help due to accessibility issues, according to research.

Design firm Nexer Digital found 81% of disabled shoppers have issues buying online, with 55% saying things such as navigation and pop-ups are causing a lack of accessibility when browsing retailers and other services online.

This lack of accessibility also crosses into physical stores, with 87% of consumers with disabilities stating they can’t complete a “typical retail journey”, whether that be on or offline.

Hilary Stephenson, managing director of Nexer Digital, said: “Too many disabled customers are still being forced to work harder than everyone else just to do ordinary things such as browse, compare, buy, pay and get support afterwards.

“This is not a marginal issue,” she said. “It is a design failure with real human and commercial consequences. What this research shows clearly is that when accessibility is overlooked, customers do not complain, they leave. And when they leave, they often do not come back.

“Many of the issues we see, from missing alternative text and inaccessible forms to poor colour contrast and keyboard traps, are not new,” added Stephenson. “The issue is not a lack of solutions. It is a lack of prioritisation. Accessibility is still too often treated as an afterthought, when it should be built in from the start.”

There has been a longstanding issue with retailers overlooking those with disabilities when developing their online journeys, but there have also been moves made in the past to try to make e-commerce more accessible for those with any kind of disability aiming to shop online.

Of the sectors Nexer Digital’s report looks into – retail, financial services and travel – retail presents a problem to the most shoppers, with 65% having had a problem with accessibility in the past year.

Some of the ways in which a website can be inaccessible for those with a disability include not having descriptive text for images that could be picked up by a screen reader, pop-ups and cookie banners that cannot be interacted with via keyboard, poor colour contrast choices, and a lack of clear instructions in forms or on buttons, the report outlines.

Sometimes customers are faced with several barriers across the duration of a retail journey, from browsing, to choosing an item, to checkout, and then to post purchase help and guidance.

When it comes to online shopping, all stages of the purchasing process includes barriers for those with disabilities – more than 60% of people said they had encountered websites with inaccessible content, 79% found browsing websites difficult, and 81% said it was either difficult or impossible for them to select an item for purchase on certain websites.

More than 80% said they have often found difficulty completing transactions on websites, in many cases because of Captcha requests or other verification steps being inaccessible – 10% even said if they manage to make a purchase, they’re then unable to access post-purchase support when they need it.

Many customers are forced to ask someone else to help them, switch retailers or abandon their purchases altogether – only 4% said they’ve reported a problem, and 9% contacted customer services.

These difficulties are fuelling ill feeling in the disabled community. The research highlights that facing these issues when trying to shop online or in-store causes frustration, anger, anxiety and exclusion.

Not surprisingly, good experiences with retailers grow loyalty, whereas negative experiences erode trust – 87% of those who took part in Nexer Digital’s report said they would avoid a brand in the future after experiencing issues with accessibility, and 74% said they would encourage others to do the same, whereas almost all customers would buy from somewhere again if they had a good experience.