- accessibility
- eaa
- wcag
- ecommerce
- conversion
- compliance
Making your store accessible is no longer a "nice to have". Since the European Accessibility Act (EAA) started applying on 28 June 2025, most ecommerce sites selling to EU consumers are legally expected to meet a recognised accessibility standard — in practice, WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The good news is that the same changes that keep you compliant also tend to lift conversion, widen your audience, and help SEO. This is the hands-on companion to our overview of the European Accessibility Act; here we focus on what to actually fix.
What "accessible" means in practice
The EAA points to the EU standard EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 Level AA in full — all 50 Level AA success criteria (European Commission; W3C WCAG 2.1). You don't need to memorise all 50. For a typical store, the criteria cluster into a short list of practical fixes covering colour, images, keyboard, forms, focus and structure.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice — rules vary by country and change; confirm with a qualified professional before acting.
The practical checklist
1. Colour contrast
Text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background; large text (18pt, or 14pt bold) needs at least 3:1. Interactive elements and meaningful graphics — buttons, form field borders, icons — need at least 3:1 (W3C SC 1.4.3; WebAIM). Watch for the usual offenders: pale grey placeholder text, low-contrast "sale" badges, and light buttons on white.
2. Alt text for images
Every meaningful image needs a text alternative. For product photos, describe the product ("navy wool jumper, front view"), not just the filename. Decorative images should have empty alt text (alt="") so screen readers skip them. This directly helps ecommerce SEO too, since search engines read the same attributes.
3. Keyboard navigation
Everything a mouse can do, a keyboard must do too. Tab through your whole checkout: can you reach and activate every link, button, menu, filter and the "add to cart" and "pay" buttons without a mouse? Dropdowns, cookie banners and modal pop-ups are common traps — make sure focus can enter and leave them.
4. Forms and labels
Checkout and account forms cause the most abandonment. Each field needs a visible, programmatically associated <label> — placeholder text alone is not enough. Mark required fields clearly, don't rely on colour alone for errors, and make error messages specific ("Enter a valid postcode", not "Invalid input"). Group related fields and keep the tab order logical.
5. Visible focus
When someone tabs to a link or button, it must show a clear focus indicator (an outline or ring). Many themes strip this out with outline: none — put it back. The focus ring should be visible against its background.
6. Headings and structure
Use one <h1> per page and nested headings (h2, h3) in order, so the page has a logical outline. Screen-reader users navigate by headings the way sighted users skim. Use real semantic elements — <button>, <nav>, <main> — rather than styled <div>s.
7. The extras that matter
- Don't convey information by colour alone (e.g. "items in red are out of stock").
- Give videos captions and don't autoplay audio.
- Make sure text can zoom to 200% without breaking the layout.
- Ensure links make sense out of context ("View delivery options", not "click here").
Why it also lifts sales
Accessibility overlaps almost perfectly with good UX, so the fixes above pay for themselves beyond compliance:
- Bigger addressable market. Roughly one in four adults in the EU has some form of disability, and accessible sites are easier for everyone — including the growing share of older shoppers.
- Better conversion. Industry analyses consistently report that accessible ecommerce sites see lower cart abandonment and meaningfully higher conversion, often in the 15–30% range, though exact figures vary by study and vendor and should be treated as directional rather than guaranteed (Accessibility.Works; AudioEye statistics).
- SEO gains. Alt text, clean heading structure, descriptive links and semantic HTML are the same signals search engines reward, so accessibility work tends to improve organic visibility as a side effect.
If you're building the store from scratch, it's far cheaper to get this right during development than to retrofit later — the same logic applies to the rest of setting up shop, which we cover in how to start an online business in Europe.
How to test
You can get a long way with free tooling before paying for an audit:
- Automated scan. Run your key pages through our EAA accessibility checker to catch contrast, alt-text, label and structure issues fast. Automated tools typically catch only 30–40% of problems, so treat this as a first pass, not the finish line.
- Keyboard test. Put the mouse away and tab through your homepage, a product page, and the full checkout.
- Screen reader. Try VoiceOver (built into macOS/iOS) or NVDA (free, Windows) on your checkout — even five minutes reveals a lot.
- Zoom and mobile. Zoom to 200% and check nothing overlaps or gets cut off.
- Document it. The EAA expects an accessibility statement; keep a record of what you tested and any known gaps you're fixing.
Get it done right
Accessibility is one of those jobs that's straightforward when it's built in and painful when it's bolted on. If you'd rather have it handled properly — from contrast and semantics to a keyboard-friendly, high-converting checkout — take a look at our web development service, or book a free consultation and we'll review your store and map out the quickest route to compliance.
Sources: European Commission — European Accessibility Act; W3C WCAG 2.1; W3C — Contrast (Minimum); WebAIM — Contrast and Color.