During the several days between Christmas and New Year's, stores heavily discount the remaining Christmas decorations. I scoop up as many items as possible for next year at severely reduced prices. For this shopping experience, I interact with the clearance sections of e-commerce websites. Surprisingly, this process comes with its own set of accessibility struggles.
In this post, I will discuss some of the most common accessibility issues I encounter as a blind person when I shop online for clearance items. I will share my experience as a person who is blind and relies on my assistive technology. I hope that sharing this story helps those who want to understand the importance of digital accessibility from a user perspective.
Shopping clearance online offers great deals but poses unique accessibility challenges for screen reader users. Issues include:
Retailers can improve the experience by providing clear text labels, ensuring your store information is accessible, and including accessibility testing for clearance sections.
In my earlier post, Holiday Shopping With a Screen Reader: My Black Friday Experience, I shared how mobile shopping presents accessibility challenges. While this blog focuses on clearance shopping on a desktop, both experiences highlight how retailers can fail to create an inclusive shopping experience for blind customers.
Additionally, it's worth noting that digital accessibility lawsuits impact e-commerce more than any other industry. For more on these trends, check out our 2024 Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Report for actionable insights into 2025.
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Due to limited stock, clearance items often have quantity restrictions. Understanding these limits when interacting with quantity adjusters with a screen reader can sometimes be problematic.
The issue is that there is often no way to determine the bounds of the quantity limit related to the remaining stock. Let's take, for example, a quantity adjuster that uses a dropdown list of numbers for selection. Every number after seven is visually greyed out and cannot be selected.
Navigating this list using a screen reader often does not provide a verbal indication of when the quantity value changes from available to unavailable. This experience is problematic when I want to purchase all of the remaining stock of a given item.
The only option here is to use trial and error by selecting quantity values in numerical order and then trying to add the item to the cart. If it works, it means that the specified quantity is still available.
Once I get past the remaining stock quantity, I cannot add the item to the cart, suggesting that the previous quantity value maxed out the available inventory.
This method to overcome this accessibility flaw leads to a long and clunky shopping experience.
Many clearance items are only available in stores and must be held for pick-up through an online order. However, the interface for determining the remaining available quantity in a given store is flawed on many sites.
Screen readers often do not read the actual numerical quantity available. Instead, I hear the store's name, location, projected pick-up date, and whether or not the store is selected.
This problem occurred when I ordered discounted decorations after Halloween this year. A sighted person told me that the quantity remaining in each store was shown in a visually separate text box with a different background color. Screen readers cannot interpret this graphic-based data.
Many seasonal items, such as Christmas lights, come in several versions or colors. Often, when items go on clearance, only specific variants are available.
I often have difficulty selecting an item's variant on clearance sections of shopping sites. The main issue is that the interface uses images to represent the different options. For example, 100 mini Christmas lights may come with green, white, or black wire. The website may use a small picture of the colored wire may be used to denote each version.
If these graphics do not have labels, I cannot access them with my screen reader. This issue is particularly problematic when the variant of an item that loads by default when the product details screen opens is out of stock.
Suppose I cannot change to one of the other variants. In that case, I cannot browse and purchase any remaining inventory.
Shopping clearance is great for stocking up on discontinued or seasonal items at deep discounts. Unfortunately, several common accessibility challenges make it difficult for screen reader users like myself to do this effectively.
Website teams can overlook clearance sections of websites in terms of accessibility because of their less prominent nature and infrequent use. However, I am hopeful that this will change with increased awareness.
Clearance shopping offers incredible opportunities for bargains, especially seasonal items, but presents unique accessibility challenges for screen reader users. These obstacles can make it frustrating and time-consuming to navigate clearance sections effectively.
To create a better shopping experience for screen reader users, retailers can consider the following steps:
For those companies ready to enhance their accessibility programs, no matter where they are in the journey, I recommend checking out this helpful webinar to get started on the right path for 2025.
Editor's Note: Our frequent contributor, Michael Taylor, wrote this post. This post reflects his opinions and experiences. Read more about Michael and some other posts on his experience online here.