Inclusive eCommerce: Best Practices to Make Your Site More Accessible

As the world increasingly moves online, eCommerce retailers face an important challenge – and opportunity. Accessibility isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the key to unlocking your store’s full potential. By making your website more inclusive, you can reach a broader audience, improve user experiences, and demonstrate your commitment to creating a welcoming space for all.


This guide will walk you through the essentials of eCommerce accessibility, offering actionable steps to ensure your online store is usable by everyone, including people with disabilities. Let’s dive into why accessibility matters, the principles of inclusive design, and practical strategies to implement it effectively…


Why eCommerce accessibility matters


Accessibility isn’t just a nice-to-have; in fact, it’s often a legal requirement. Laws like the Equality Act in the UK and the European Accessibility Act mandate that websites and digital platforms accommodate users with disabilities. Non-compliance can result in lawsuits, fines, and damage to your reputation.


Beyond compliance, accessibility opens your site to a much larger audience (which makes good business sense). Did you know that over one billion people worldwide live with some form of disability? By making your online store more accessible, you’re opening your business to a vast, often underserved customer base. At the end of the day, accessibility improvements enhance the user experience for everyone, not just those with disabilities. 


Think of closed captions on videos – not only helpful for people with hearing impairments but also for those watching in noisy environments. Many accessibility improvements, like image alt text and semantic HTML, also overlap with search engine optimisation (SEO) best practices, making your site easier for search engines to crawl. This can ultimately help your site rank higher in the search results, boosting your brand’s online visibility and driving more traffic to your store.
 

Accessibility 101 

 

The UK’s 2010 Equality Act requires businesses and organisations to make their websites accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. This means removing barriers that could make your site difficult or impossible for some users to navigate.


Website owners are obliged to make “reasonable adjustments” to accommodate disabilities, such as adding text-to-speech compatibility for visually impaired users or ensuring keyboard navigation for those with motor impairments. If these adjustments aren’t made, this could be considered discriminatory.


The Act applies to all sectors, from online commerce to government services. While it doesn’t lay out specific technical rules, it often references the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAGs) as a benchmark for what constitutes a reasonable level of accessibility.


The principles of inclusive eCommerce design 

 

To create an inclusive eCommerce experience, your site should follow the four guiding principles of the WCAGs.


Perceivable


All users, regardless of their abilities, must be able to access the information presented.

  • Provide text alternatives for images and multimedia (e.g., alt text, captions)
  • Offer alternatives for audio and video content (e.g., transcripts, subtitles)
  • Ensure content is adaptable and easy to view, such as by allowing zooming without losing content clarity
  • Use sufficient colour contrast for readability.


Operable


Users must be able to interact with your site using a variety of tools, such as keyboard navigation or assistive technologies like screen readers. 

  • Make all functionality accessible via keyboard (not just a mouse)
  • Give users enough time to read or interact with content
  • Avoid design elements that can trigger seizures, such as flashing images
  • Provide clear, consistent navigation aids (e.g., menus, search functions).


Understandable


Make your site’s content and navigation intuitive.

  • Use simple language
  • Provide clear instructions
  • Ensure web pages behave in predictable ways (e.g., no unexpected pop-ups)
  • Provide clear instructions for filling out forms or correcting errors
  • Error notifications should be easy to interpret.


Robust


Ensure your site is compatible with a wide range of assistive devices and adaptive technologies, both now and in the future (as technology evolves).

  • Use clean, semantic code for screen readers and other assistive tools
  • Test compatibility with a range of devices and assistive technologies.


Simple steps to an inclusive shopping experience 

 

To create an inclusive eCommerce experience, your site should follow the four guiding principles of the WCAGs.


1. Use alt text for images


Alt text provides a textual description of an image that can be read by screen readers, enabling visually impaired users to understand the content even if they cannot see it.  For instance, instead of saying "image of shoes," a better description might be, "Red high-heeled shoes with a glossy finish." For decorative images that don’t convey essential information, using a null alt attribute (e.g., alt="") ensures that screen readers skip these images, reducing unnecessary clutter.


2. Optimise keyboard navigation


Test your site by navigating it without a mouse. All essential functions, such as navigating menus, accessing the shopping cart or completing checkout, should be operable with keyboard-only input. Use visible focus indicators (e.g., a highlighted outline around the currently selected element) to show where the user is on the page.


3. Add ARIA labels


Use ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes to enhance screen reader compatibility. ARIA labels provide additional context for interactive elements like buttons and links, making it easier for screen readers to interpret their purpose. For example, a button that simply says “Click here” could be enhanced with an ARIA label that specifies “Click here to add this item to your cart.”


4. Ensure colour accessibility


Users with visual impairments, including colour blindness, may struggle with low-contrast text or interfaces that rely solely on colour to convey information. Choose colour combinations with high contrast and use patterns or text labels to supplement colour-coded indicators. For instance, instead of using only green and red to indicate availability, add text labels like “In Stock” or “Out of Stock” to ensure all users can interpret the information.


5. Create accessible forms


Label all form fields clearly and use placeholder text sparingly. For example, "First Name" should be a visible label, not just a placeholder. Error messages should also be descriptive and provide guidance on how to correct issues. For example, instead of a generic “Invalid input” error, a more helpful message might say, “Please enter a valid email address in the format name@example.com.”


6. Design for screen readers


Use semantic HTML to structure content logically and ensure that screen readers can interpret your content effectively. Headings (<h1> to <h6>), lists, and tables should follow a clear hierarchy and avoid overly complex layouts or elements that may confuse or mislead screen reader users.\


Best practices for specific eCommerce features 

 

Accessible eCommerce features can significantly improve the user experience. Product pages, for example, should include detailed descriptions that go beyond marketing copy to provide essential information in plain language. High-resolution, zoomable images are also beneficial for users with low vision. Your site’s search functionality should also be flexible and intuitive. Predictive text and autocorrect features can help users find what they need, even if their search terms aren’t exact matches. 


For mobile accessibility, ensure your site is optimised for smaller screens, with larger buttons and adequate spacing to accommodate touch interactions. And during the checkout process, simplicity is key. Reducing the number of steps and providing clear instructions at every stage minimises barriers for users with cognitive or physical disabilities. Descriptive error messages are particularly important during checkout, as they guide users to resolve any issues quickly. 


Data validation is an oft-overlooked aspect of accessibility. Fetchify's tools, like address and phone number validation, streamline the user experience by reducing the risk of input errors during checkout. This benefits all users, including those with cognitive or motor disabilities, by minimising frustration during checkout. For example, Fetchify’s address auto-complete automatically completes addresses in real-time, reducing the effort required from users. This is especially beneficial for individuals with motor disabilities or cognitive challenges who may struggle with typing lengthy information accurately.


Accessibility isn’t a one-time project


Accessibility is an ongoing commitment. Regularly audit your site, stay updated on WCA guidelines, and prioritise user feedback. Inclusive eCommerce not only demonstrates social responsibility but also strengthens your business by fostering loyalty and trust among all customers. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to creating a shopping experience that’s welcoming, inclusive, and enjoyable for everyone. 


Ready to start your journey toward accessibility? Explore how Fetchify’s tools can help you build a more inclusive eCommerce site today.

About Fetchify


Fetchify’s address lookup and data validation platforms cover more than 250 countries, and increases customer conversion with the fastest, most accurate customer data capture. Fetchify’s flagship products – Address Auto Complete and Postcode Lookup – reduce friction at the checkout, and also significantly increase the number of successful deliveries. Founded in 2008, Fetchify processes millions of data transactions every day for clients ranging from startups to established high-street names, and offers a full suite of data validation tools, including phone, email and bank, too.

Why Hotel and Booking Confirmations Bounce More Than You Think

By Fiona Paton • July 28, 2026
Guest data captured at the point of booking is quietly falling apart before the stay even begins, and peak season is when it costs the most. A guest books a weekend away for the August bank holiday. Room type, dates, total cost, all confirmed on screen. Then nothing. No confirmation email lands in their inbox. Ten minutes later, they're calling the front desk to check the booking actually went through. Nobody did anything wrong here. The booking engine worked. Payment went through. What broke is quieter than that, and far more common than most hospitality businesses realise. The address you have isn't always the address you think you have A significant share of hotel bookings now arrives through an OTA (an online travel agency, like Booking.com or Expedia) rather than direct. That's not new. What's less well understood is what actually lands in the property management system when they do. Many OTAs pass through a masked or proxy email address rather than the guest's real one, generated specifically for that booking and often expiring shortly after the stay ends. It looks like a valid email address. It behaves like one, right up until the property tries to use it for anything beyond the original booking confirmation. Direct bookings aren't much safer. Industry estimates put the proportion of invalid addresses from manually entered guest data at 20 to 45%, a misspelt domain, a transposed digit, a typo made booking late at night on a small phone screen. None of that shows up as a problem until the moment it matters: a pre-arrival email, a late check-in code, a parking permit, a table reservation confirmation. Why this one email matters more than most Booking confirmations aren't treated like other guest communications, because guests don't treat them like other emails. Open rates for confirmation emails run considerably higher than standard marketing sends, and the expectation isn't "eventually"; it's immediate. A guest expects that confirmation within minutes, not by the end of the day. If it doesn't land straight away, the natural read isn't "it's still processing"; it's "something's gone wrong". A guest who doesn't receive a confirmation doesn't shrug it off. They worry, then they call, then someone on your team spends five minutes confirming something that should have taken none. Peak season is when this compounds None of this is especially visible in a quiet month. A handful of bounced confirmations, a few guests calling to check, easily absorbed. Peak season changes the maths. Higher volumes mean more bad records moving through the system at once, and less staff time available to catch each one before it becomes a guest's problem rather than a data problem. The property that could quietly absorb ten failed confirmations in March is dealing with a hundred in August, right when front desk and reservations teams are already stretched thinnest. Peak season doesn't create this problem. It just makes the one that was already there impossible to ignore. What this actually costs The cost isn't just the phone call. A guest who's already anxious about whether their booking is real arrives in a different frame of mind than one who received a warm, accurate pre-arrival email three days before. Upsell opportunities in that pre-arrival window - an early check-in, a room upgrade, a spa slot, depend on the guest actually receiving it in the first place. None of that happens if the address behind it was never valid to begin with. The fix sits earlier than most teams look The instinct when a confirmation bounce is to fix it after the fact: resend, follow up by phone, apologise. The more useful moment is earlier, verifying email and phone at the point they're captured, whether that's a direct booking form or a reconciliation step against whatever an OTA has actually handed over. In practice, that looks like validation built into the booking form itself: if a guest mistypes their email, the system flags it before they hit submit, the same way a checkout might flag an invalid card number. This is exactly what Fetchify does for hospitality businesses: verifying contact details at the source, so the confirmation, the pre-arrival email, the parking permit, all have somewhere real to land. Caught there, it never becomes a guest-facing problem at all. Getting this right at the point of entry does more than protect a confirmation email. It's a faster, less frustrating booking process for the guest, since a flagged typo takes a second to fix rather than derailing the whole form. It's cleaner data feeding into retargeting and post-stay marketing, since accurate contact details are what make audience targeting worth doing in the first place. And it's a real inbox to send a review request to once the stay is over, rather than one more email quietly bouncing into nothing. If your team is capturing guest contact details manually, or reconciling them from OTA bookings, catching the invalid ones before check-in is more straightforward to fix than it sounds. More on how Fetchify helps hospitality businesses keep guest data accurate below.

Thousands of Pitches, and Not One Renewal Missed

By Fiona Paton • July 27, 2026
“I found the process a painless exercise, which involved very little extra work from me, and the success was very high. I would recommend anyone who is experiencing issues with old data to go through a data cleanse.” – Michael Gillespie, Manager of Field Testing, Sports Labs
Courier delivering a parcel and checking his phoe ne

What changed in the UK address database this month

By Fiona Paton • July 21, 2026
What is PAF? The Postcode Address File (PAF®) is Royal Mail’s definitive database of every deliverable address and postcode in the UK. It covers over 32 million delivery points and is updated monthly. If your business relies on accurate address data, at checkout, in your CRM, or for deliveries, PAF is the source that keeps it current. July 2026 in numbers Royal Mail made 54,025 changes to PAF this month. That is not a small number. It represents new homes that need delivering to, businesses that have moved or closed, streets that have been renamed, and addresses that were simply wrong and have now been corrected. Every one of those changes is a record in someone’s database that may now be out of date, and a delivery, a campaign, or a customer communication that could go wrong if the data hasn’t been updated. Delivery point changes at a glance Here’s the full breakdown of what changed, amended, and was removed from PAF in July:

Meet our new delivery partner nShift

By Fiona Paton • July 20, 2026
The Address Is Only Half the Journey. Meet nShift. Fetchify ensures the address is correct at checkout. nShift makes sure the parcel gets there. A validated address is a great start, but it's only half the journey. From there, the parcel still has to find the right carrier, the right label, and the right doorstep. That's a different problem, and it's the one nShift solves. What nShift does nShift is a delivery management platform connecting businesses to 1,000+ carriers across 190 countries through a single integration, checkout, delivery options, carrier selection, tracking, and returns, all in one place instead of a separate system per carrier. Customers using nShift see a 20% increase in conversions at checkout and up to 60% fewer "where is my order" queries. Superdry is a good example with 515 stores, 21 websites, and shipping to 100+ countries. As the business scaled internationally, nShift let them onboard new carriers fast and get full visibility across every shipment. As Gordon Knox, Superdry's Business Transformation and Logistics Director, put it, onboarding carriers quickly was essential to a growing international business; that's exactly what they got, plus the data to hold carriers accountable on cost and service. Why we're recommending them Some of nShift's own clients already use Fetchify to validate their checkout data, so we've seen firsthand what good address data unlocks downstream in nShift's platform. That's the real reason for this partnership: the two products solve adjacent halves of the same problem, and we've watched it work in practice. Fetchify validates the address in real time, catching typos, missing flat numbers, and misspelt street or town names as the customer types, without slowing the checkout down, and confirms phone and email are live at the same time. That clean, structured data flows straight into nShift, which picks the right carrier automatically and keeps the customer updated with branded tracking. No reformatting. No manual fixes. No booking failures from bad data. The result: higher conversion, fewer failed deliveries, fewer support tickets, because the two weakest links in the checkout-to-doorstep chain (bad addresses, clunky carrier logistics) are both handled properly. Who this is for Any ecommerce business shipping physical goods stands to benefit, especially if you're juggling multiple carriers, shipping cross-border, or scaling into markets where one carrier doesn't cover it. If delivery reliability has become as much of a pain point as address accuracy, this is worth a look.
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