Sir, – For consumers across the country, Christmas tends to be a period of peak expenditure. Despite inflation running at levels not seen in decades, research from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission estimates that consumers will spend an average of €1,200 over the festive period. A significant number of these transactions will take place online.
I will confess that I too form part of that two-thirds majority and this year, I decided to do most of my Christmas shopping online – or at least, I tried to. As a person living with a visual impairment, I am limited in the websites and online services that I can use. I am largely reliant on the approximately 28 per cent of Irish companies which have digitally accessible websites, with correct colour contrasting, appropriate text spacing, keyboard functionality and the option to have text read aloud. I am not alone in this. In the most recently recorded census, 600,000 people stated that they are living with a disability in Ireland.
Digital accessibility allows a person living with a disability to access a website or digital asset, and legislation on this is forthcoming. The European Accessibility Act requires the websites of public and private organisations to be fully digitally accessible by 2025 – giving businesses across the EU less than three years to ensure compliance. Companies should not be deterred by this. Digital accessibility is the most underutilised resource in the marketing and customer acquisition toolbox. For any business or organisation, having an accessible website ensures that every customer can purchase your products, use your services and engage with your offering to the fullest extent. If the 600,000 people living with a disability in Ireland each spent close to the average €1,200 this festive period, this would amount to a collective spending power of approximately €720 million.
Consumers shopping online this Christmas should have the ability to direct their spending power according to product quality, cost, brand, delivery options and website reviews. This process should not be dictated by whether the person can access the website in the first instance.
No consumer should be left out in the cold next Christmas. – Yours, etc,
KYRAN O’MAHONEY,
NCBI – National Council
for the Blind of Ireland,
Chief Technology Officer,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.