European Accessibility Act: will your eCommerce site pass the test?

As this deadline nears, eCommerce businesses need to build a plan of action. The first step is understanding where your online presence falls short, and how to fix it.  

An accessibility audit gives you the clarity you need to make effective changes. But it does more than that. It's a first step in ensuring you deliver a positive experience to everyone who visits your website. 

The EAA uses an open standard — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — as its baseline. Bringing in external experts is the most reliable way to ensure compliance and minimise any risk of penalties and reputational damage. 

Here’s how SQLI can help.

Most major digital transformation projects can take months — or even years — to complete. By contrast, an accessibility audit can be completed in as little as two-three weeks – depending on the size of the website. 

During the planning phase, an SQLI expert will identify which pages of the site to test. "For eCommerce, we typically test 23 covering all the core pages in the customer journey," said Piers Harrison, Head of Quality Assurance at SQLI UK and ME. 

"While 23 may seem random, it’s intentional. This number strikes a balance—capturing over 90 per cent of accessibility issues efficiently and cost-effectively." 

Most eCommerce sites use a few templates to generate many pages, so testing one can reveal issues across the whole site. For instance, if one product page fails to support screen readers, all similar pages are likely to have the same problem. 

SQLI Group experts use client insights and analytics data to pinpoint these critical pages with the most traffic. 

Each of the selected pages are manually tested against 50 criteria. These tests are based on the WCAG guidelines, and encompass elements like colour contrast, the presence (and quality) of alt text on images, and whether a page is compatible with assistive tools.  

Manual testing is crucial. While automated accessibility tools have advanced over the past decade, they can’t do everything that is required. 

"Some of this is nuanced," said Piers. "An automated test can check if an image has alt text but can't assess its quality. Human judgment is needed for that." 

The 2024 WebAIM survey of over one million homepages underscores this. It found that 14.6% of websites with images used "questionable or repetitive alternative text," such as "image," "graphic," "blank," or the image filename. 

Many automated testing solutions would give a passing grade to those images. That's why manual testing is so important. 

At the end of the testing process, SQLI will create a report detailing the various issues identified. 

"It's a report that lists all the WCAG failures, but also why they're failures, and how to fix them," he added. 

With this information, the retailer can begin remediation. If they opt to handle fixes in-house, SQLI can brief the development team on the report, ensuring clear understanding of the work required. 

Alternatively, the retailer may ask SQLI to implement the fixes and provide ongoing monitoring to catch future accessibility issues. 

Monitoring is automated and helps maintain long-term compliance by efficiently scanning websites for common accessibility issues such as missing alt text, improper heading structures, and inadequate colour contrast. 

However, automation alone cannot address accessibility challenges that require deeper contextual understanding and user-focused analysis. 

Complex issues like screen reader compatibility and cognitive load are best assessed by human testers who can evaluate how individuals with disabilities actually experience a product. While automated tools are valuable for flagging potential problems, human evaluation is often needed to identify and implement effective solutions.  

A combined approach—automated monitoring paired with targeted human assessment—enables organisations to scale their accessibility efforts efficiently while ensuring that complex issues receive the nuanced attention they need. This strategy aligns with the EAA's 2025 requirements. 

The EAA places the responsibility for monitoring and enforcement on individual countries. Non-compliance can result in fines, legal action, reputational harm, and exclusion from procurement opportunities, with penalties varying by country, business size, and violation severity. 

But there’s more to it than just avoiding the risks, according to Piers. 

"Building inclusive digital products is a moral responsibility—the internet should be accessible to everyone. There’s also a commercial incentive: you want the widest possible audience to browse your site," said Piers. 

According to EuroBlind — a European advocacy group for the visually-impaired — as many as 30 million people in Europe have some degree of sight loss.  The European Accessibility Act will ensure they have equal access to eCommerce services.  

That, I think we can all agree, is a good thing. The time for eCommerce brands to take action is now. Your first step is to understand the scope of the problem, so you can start making the necessary fixes.