Research of The State of Accessibility in Finnish E-Commerce in January 2025

Finnish E-Commerce Accessibility in Focus

Finnish and European e-commerce websites must meet the accessibility requirements set forth by the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and the WCAG 2.1 standards by June 28, 2025. With the deadline approaching quickly, urgent action is needed.

Supervisor.com conducted a detailed accessibility audit of 450 Finnish e-commerce websites under accessibility regulations. We verified from public sources that their yearly revenue exceeded the 2 MEUR barrier and that the audited websites served consumers. The EAA does not currently regulate B2B websites.

The results? Every single website had accessibility issues. 😮

Audit Insights: How We Tested Accessibility

Our AI-driven accessibility auditor was deployed to simulate a typical user journey on each website:

1. Browsing the site and searching for products.
2. Adding items to the shopping cart.
3. Testing the shopping cart’s functionality.
4. Navigating to the checkout page.

In this process, the AI agent reviewed approximately five pages per site, identifying an average of 20 accessibility issues per website. It also detected which e-commerce platform was in use. 

Key Findings: Accessibility Errors and Their Severity

Error Frequency

• ⚠️ Critical issues: Found on 99% of the audited websites.
• 🛠️ Multiple error types: ⅔ of sites exhibited 4–6 different types of accessibility violations.
• ✅ Minimal errors: Only 1% of websites had just one type of issue.

Common WCAG Violations

1. WCAG 4.1.2: Interactive Elements: Missing or incomplete definitions of names, roles, and states for buttons, links, and other interactive components, hindering the usability of assistive technologies.

2. WCAG 1.4.3: Contrast Issues: Poor text-to-background contrast makes content difficult to read for users with low vision.

3. WCAG 2.4.4: Link Purpose: Links with unclear or missing descriptions lead to confusion about navigation.

4. WCAG 1.1.1: Missing Alt Text: Images, icons, and buttons often lacked alternative text, making key content difficult for visually impaired users to interpret.

5. WCAG 1.3.1: Structural Problems: Improperly labeled headings, forms, and other content structures, making it harder for screen readers to interpret the page accurately.

Market share of e-commerce platforms

Although we did not audit every e-commerce website that meets Europea Accessibility Act requirements, the sample size of 450 e-commerce websites gives a reasonable outlook on the market share of e-commerce platforms in Finland.

Here are the results:

• WooCommerce, 21 %
• Shopify, 15 %
• Adobe Commerce (Magento), 8 %
• Flovwy, 6 %
• MyCashFlow, 5 %
• PrestaShop, 3 %
• Custom platform, 17 %
• Others, 25 %

Conclusion

‍61 % of the e-commerce sites audited used WooCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce, or a custom-built solution. Local players Flowvy and MyCashFlow had a combined market share of 11 %. The rest, around ⅓ % of the audited e-commerce sites, used other vendors, with a market share of around 1%.

Stay tuned as we will be conducting monthly research of accessibility issues in finnish e-commerce websites. In the future audits, we might add also additional details such as market share of different cloud and hosting providers.

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