European Accessibility Act Updates for Online Stores in Ireland
Since 28 June 2025, selling to consumers online in Ireland means your store has to meet accessibility requirements under the European Accessibility Act. A shopper using only a keyboard, a screen reader or screen magnification should be able to find a product, pick a size, pay and get a confirmation without getting stuck.
We test and fix WordPress-based, Magento and custom Laravel stores against WCAG 2.1 AA, the level referenced by the European standard EN 301 549. Our team works remotely from India. We don't give legal advice, and we can't certify that you comply. What we do is find the barriers in your store, fix them in your theme and templates, and write down what changed.
Ask for an accessibility check of your store
Send your store address, the platform it runs on and the parts of the shopping journey that worry you most. We will reply with the barriers we can see.
Where Irish online stores most often fail accessibility checks
These problems come up across platforms. Most of them sit in the theme or in plugins and extensions, not in your product data.
Product pages
Product photos with missing or meaningless alt text, size and colour pickers that a keyboard cannot operate, prices and stock messages conveyed by colour alone, and image carousels that move without a pause control.
Basket and checkout
Fields without proper labels, error messages that only show as red outlines, quantity buttons with no accessible name, and payment steps that time out with no warning or chance to extend.
Search, filters and menus
Mega menus that open only on mouse hover, filter checkboxes that screen readers cannot identify, and result counts that update silently when a filter changes.
Pop-ups and cookie banners
Newsletter overlays and consent banners that trap keyboard focus, cannot be closed with Escape, or hide the page behind them without telling assistive technology.
Accounts and returns forms
Login, registration, address-book and returns forms with poor focus order, CAPTCHAs with no accessible alternative, and confirmation messages that are never announced.
Information about accessibility
The regulations expect service providers to explain how their service meets the accessibility requirements. Many stores have no such page, or a generic template that does not describe the actual site.
What S.I. No. 636/2023 means for Irish e-commerce
Ireland transposed the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) through the European Union (Accessibility Requirements of Products and Services) Regulations 2023, S.I. No. 636 of 2023, in operation from 28 June 2025. E-commerce services are within scope: websites and apps that consumers use to buy goods or services online.
The regulator for online retail
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) is the market surveillance authority for e-commerce under the regulations. It publishes guidance for businesses, and every economic operator is legally required to co-operate with it. If the CCPC asks how your store meets the requirements, you need documentation as well as a working website.
The technical benchmark
The regulations set out functional requirements rather than a checklist. In practice, websites are assessed against EN 301 549, which brings in the WCAG 2.1 Level AA success criteria. We use those criteria, so every fix we make traces back to a specific, testable requirement.
Exemptions are narrow and need checking
Microenterprises providing services are exempt, and a business can argue that a requirement would impose a disproportionate burden, but only after a documented assessment. Whether either applies to you is a legal question for your solicitor or adviser, not for a development team. We can supply the technical detail for that assessment: what is broken and how much work each fix involves.
How we bring an Irish store's shopping journey up to WCAG 2.1 AA
We start with the path every customer takes, from landing page to order confirmation, because barriers there cost sales as well as raising compliance risk.
Journey-based audit
Automated scanning to catch the obvious issues, then manual testing of the full purchase path using only a keyboard, with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS and iPhone, and at high zoom.
Prioritised findings
Each barrier is listed with the WCAG criterion it breaks, where it appears, who it affects and an effort estimate. Anything that blocks checkout goes to the top.
Fixes in theme and templates
We correct the markup, labels, focus handling, contrast and error messaging at the source. We avoid overlay widgets, which do not repair the underlying code.
Third-party components
Where a payment, review or chat plugin is the problem, we configure it, replace it or document the limitation and raise it with the vendor.
Retest and record
Every fix is retested with the same assistive technology. You receive a change log and a draft accessibility information page describing your actual store.
Keeping it accessible
New products, campaigns and plugin updates can bring barriers back. Optional periodic re-checks catch regressions before customers do.
Accessibility work by store platform for Irish retailers
Where fixes live, and how they are deployed, depends on how your store was built.
| Platform | Typical source of barriers | How we approach fixes |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress-based stores | Theme templates, page-builder blocks and checkout plugins that output unlabelled fields | Child-theme overrides and template edits, so fixes survive theme updates; plugin replacements where needed |
| Magento | Customised Luma-derived or third-party themes, layered navigation and one-step checkout extensions | Theme overrides and module adjustments, tested on staging before deployment |
| Custom Laravel stores | Hand-built Blade views and JavaScript components with no accessibility conventions | Shared, accessible form and dialog components reused across views, so one fix covers every page |
Illustrative business scenario: an Irish homeware shop's checkout
This is an illustrative example, not a real client.
A small homeware retailer selling across Ireland runs a WordPress-based store with a popular theme and a one-page checkout plugin. A keyboard user can add a lamp to the basket but cannot pick a delivery option, because the radio buttons are styled divs. The Eircode field shows an error only as a red border, and a newsletter pop-up grabs focus halfway through payment.
In a project like this, we would replace the delivery selector with native radio inputs, connect error text to each field so screen readers announce it, stop the pop-up appearing during checkout and retest the whole path with NVDA and VoiceOver. The shop would then publish accessibility information describing the store as it actually is.
Working across the time difference
Ireland is 4.5 to 5.5 hours behind India, depending on the time of year. Your Irish morning overlaps with our afternoon for calls and reviews. We usually deploy outside your peak trading hours, on a staging site first, so you can check changes before customers see them.
What an EAA remediation project with us includes and excludes
We will
- Test with real assistive technology, not only automated scanners
- Tie every finding to a specific WCAG 2.1 AA criterion
- Fix problems in your code rather than layering a widget on top
- Give you a change log and draft accessibility information
We will not
- Provide legal advice or decide whether an exemption applies
- Issue certificates or claim your store is fully compliant
- Install accessibility overlay plugins as a substitute for fixes
- Promise ranking gains: accessible markup can help search, but there are no ranking guarantees
Who carries out the accessibility work on your Irish store
The work is done by Appeonix Creative Lab, founded in 2014 and registered under Udyam as a micro enterprise in Thrissur, Kerala, with a second office in Indiranagar, Bengaluru. We have no office or staff in Ireland, and all work on your store is delivered remotely from India. We use staging copies and admin accounts you create for us, and you can remove our access whenever you choose. Hourly and monthly rates are on our published rate card.
Related support for Irish online businesses
European Accessibility Act questions from Irish online retailers
Does the European Accessibility Act apply to a small Irish web shop?
Selling goods or services to consumers online is an e-commerce service in scope of S.I. No. 636/2023. Microenterprises providing services are exempt, but the definition depends on staff numbers and financial thresholds, so confirm your position with a legal adviser before relying on it.
Will an accessibility plugin or overlay make our store compliant?
Overlays change how a page looks or behaves on top of the code, but they do not fix unlabelled fields, broken focus order or inaccessible custom controls underneath. We repair those problems in the theme and templates instead.
Which parts of the store should be fixed first?
Start with the purchase path: search or navigation, product selection, basket, checkout, payment and confirmation. A barrier there stops a customer from buying at all, so those fixes come before content pages such as blog posts.
Can you work on a store another agency built and still supports?
Yes. We can make fixes directly on a staging copy, or send your current developer a precise list of issues with the WCAG criterion, location and recommended code change for each one.
What documentation will we have if the CCPC asks about accessibility?
You receive the audit findings, a log of every change with the criterion it addresses, retest results and a draft accessibility information page. Your legal adviser should review any statements about compliance before you publish them.
Find out where your store blocks customers with disabilities
Send your store address and platform. We will test the main shopping journey and reply with the barriers we find and how we would fix them.
Send an enquiry WhatsApp +91 99619 90007