Make your WooCommerce store truly accessible. EAA & WCAG, without an overlay

The truth: WooCommerce is not accessible by default

A tidy WooCommerce theme like Storefront starts better than many stores, but rarely meets WCAG 2.2 AA on its own. The moment you customise your checkout, install extensions or pick a theme with light-grey buttons, barriers appear that your customers, and the European Accessibility Act, won't accept.

What commonly goes wrong on WooCommerce

• Checkout error messages without aria-liveWhen checkout fails, WooCommerce shows a notice like 'please enter a valid address'. Without aria-live="assertive" a blind user never hears that notice and is left guessing why the order won't go through.
• Form fields without a linked labelIn many themes and checkout customisations, fields ship with no properly linked label or with only a placeholder. A screen-reader user then hears an empty input with no idea what belongs in it.
• Low contrast in theme buttonsMany WooCommerce themes use light-grey text on a coloured button, or a button colour close to the background. That often fails the WCAG contrast minimum, so low-vision customers can't read 'Add to cart'.
• Add-to-cart via AJAX without a status messageWhen a customer clicks 'Add to cart', it runs through AJAX with no page reload. Without a live region a screen reader never announces that the product was added, so the user can't tell whether the action worked.

What a real fix looks like

Take a form label in your WooCommerce checkout. Through a filter you hook into the field and give it a proper, linked name, no rebuild of the checkout:

<input type="text" name="billing_company" id="billing_company"
  placeholder="Bedrijfsnaam">

add_filter( 'woocommerce_checkout_fields', function( $fields ) {
  $fields['billing']['billing_company']['label'] = __( 'Bedrijfsnaam', 'theme' );
  return $fields;
} );

What you get

With a reporting tool you pay the licence and your developers to fix the issues. With Seviranta the fix is included, no double bill.

Protect your conversion and your legal standing

An app that slaps an accessibility icon over your WooCommerce site is a risk to your business. The facts:

WooCommerce says it meets WCAG 2.2 AA. So why does my store fail?

That claim covers the front end of the core plugin on a default theme. Your theme, your colours, your product content, your checkout customisations and every plugin render in the same page, and that is where the findings sit. WooCommerce says so itself: themes and plugins can break checkout accessibility.

I also sell to Germany or France. What applies to my WooCommerce store there?

Germany: the BFSG has applied to B2C online stores since 28 June 2025, with an exemption for micro-enterprises (fewer than ten people and at most 2 million euros in turnover or balance sheet total); supervision by the Marktüberwachungsstelle der Länder (MLBF). France: since 28 June 2025 e-commerce falls under the EAA transposition in the Code de la consommation, with the same micro-enterprise exemption, supervised by the DGCCRF; the yardstick is the RGAA (WCAG 2.1 AA). In both countries the published page counts, not the fact that you use WooCommerce.

Should I switch from the shortcode checkout to the block checkout?

Not necessarily. WooCommerce publishes no comparison and the report tests both. The block checkout is, since 9.0, where most improvements land (main landmark, status messages, heading structure). If you stay on the shortcode, check error messages, labels and the status message on 'update cart' yourself; those were only fixed in 2025.

Is a WooCommerce accessibility widget enough for the EAA?

No. A widget puts a layer over your site, but doesn't repair the underlying code and doesn't count as structural compliance.

Does my WooCommerce checkout fall under the EAA?

Yes. The checkout and navigation are explicitly part of the obligation under WCAG 2.1 AA.

Does Seviranta also scan my WooCommerce apps?

Yes. We test the final generated HTML, theme plus apps, the way a regulator does.

Will this slow my WooCommerce site down?

No. We scan externally from our EU servers; no script goes on your site. 0% impact on your load speed and Core Web Vitals.