Accessibility Consulting for Retail, E-Commerce, and CPG Businesses
One in 4 U.S. adults has a disability and a recent report on the purchasing power of adults with disabilities finds that disabled Americans spend more than $490 billion in discretionary spending alone. Since COVID-19, online purchases and curbside pickup orders have skyrocketed. As a retail, e-commerce, or products-based business, having an accessible website means increasing your customer base and accessing the buying power of people of all abilities.
In addition to providing a positive impact on sales, website accessibility is also a legal requirement. Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 177% increase in website accessibility lawsuits and the number of website accessibility lawsuits stayed high in 2019. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ensures all people equal access to and protects from discrimination in places of public accommodation. Legal precedent has been set that establishes websites as places of public accommodation, and retail and product businesses are among the companies most commonly receiving accessibility complaints and web accessibility lawsuits – including businesses that do not have a physical presence.
Equalize Digital is here to help you protect your business from ADA-related lawsuits by ensuring that your website and applications are accessible to people of all abilities.
Quick Benefits
- Ensure that customers can access and navigate your website and apps.
- Maintain compliance with WCAG 2.1, which will help you meet requirements under ADA, Section 508.
- Reach new and underserved market segments.
- Understand how people with disabilities use the internet.
WordPress Accessibility Solutions
Automated Testing
Our native WordPress accessibility scanner automatically checks your content against WCAG and scans unlimited pages in bulk without any costly per-page or API fees.
Audits & Remediation
We offer comprehensive accessibility audits and user testing. Get personalized remediation guidance and assistance fixing errors in your plugins or WordPress theme.
Bespoke Websites
We build accessible websites and web applications in the WordPress environment for large enterprise, government, higher education, and nonprofit organizations.
Web Accessibility Services for Retail & CPG
Whether your retail business needs urgent accessibility help or are planning a new website or application and want to ensure it is accessible to people of all abilities, our unique combination of native automated testing software and expert accessibility consultants make us a leader in WordPress accessibility.
Why Accessibility Matters for Retail & Product Businesses
Having an accessible website and supporting digital equality is not just good karma, it’s good for business, too. Having an accessible website allows you to reach all your potential customers online, including blind and visually impaired users, deaf and hard of hearing users, and users with cognitive disabilities or physical impairments that challenge their ability to use a traditional keyboard and or mouse. Accessibility features help people who were born with disabilities and also people, like military veterans or the elderly, who become disabled or develop impairments through the course of their life.
Reduce risk of lawsuit
Ensure you’re compliant with federal and state laws for website accessibility
Improve search engine ranking
Many accessibility fixes will also improve your website’s search engine performance.
Increase sales & conversions
Allow more people access to your website, increasing opportunities for sales.
Practice social responsibility
Take meaningful action and do your part to make the internet better.
Ready to get started?
Whether you’re concerned about accessibility compliance or you want to completely overhaul your online presence, our team is ready to help you ensure your website is usable by people of all abilities.
To get started or learn more about how we work, call us at (512) 942-5858 or visit our contact page to request more information from our sales team.
Retail & CPG Accessibility FAQs
Most retail and consumer product businesses are required to meet the following compliance standards:
- Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1
In partnership with your legal counsel, our accessibility experts can help identify which laws apply to your organization and craft a custom plan that will help you to stay compliant.
In our experience, unless you are already extensively focusing on website accessibility, there are likely accessibility issues present on your current website that need to be fixed. Nearly all websites and applications have accessibility problems because, unfortunately, we have not yet reached a point where all designers and developers make accessibility a priority.
If you’re not sure that our services are right for you, we recommend getting one of our free risk assessments. These assessments tell you:
- If there are any errors present on your website.
- If there are website accessibility laws that may apply to your organization.
You can request a risk assessment at no charge on our accessibility audits page.
If you request a risk assessment, you’ll be able to schedule a meeting to go over your assessment at a time that makes sense for you. Typically we have your risk assessment complete and are available to meet to discuss it within 24 hours.
Our initial accessibility audits generally take 5 business days from the date you sign up and pay your deposit.
Remediation timelines are unique for every client depending upon several items, including the number of problems present on the site and the budget available for fixes. Our goal is to remediate all issues as quickly as possible, and some clients choose to have an intense remediation phase over several weeks following the audit. Other clients may elect to enter a remediation plan that stretches over many months due to the number of problems that need to be addressed, the number of pages requiring manual review, and their budget.
Yes. Our team has developed accessible websites and web applications and has provided accessibility consulting for large universities, government agencies, and enterprise-level clients.
Yes. If you have your own in-house developers but need a trained accessibility expert to assist with auditing and providing support as your development team remediates issues, we can help.
For companies with an internal development team, we can craft custom remediation and monitoring support plans which includes access to our scanning dashboard and reports, as well as time for training and support as your developers work through issues. We can also coordinate user testing sessions with our blind and visually impaired testers. Please contact us for additional information.