Why the question lands on the agency's desk now
As long as the portfolio is a handful of sites, every request is handled by hand. Then a client with an online shop asks head-on: are we within the scope of the law, and what do you expect from us? Directive (EU) 2019/882, known as the European Accessibility Act or EAA, applies to services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025, and its Article 2 names e-commerce explicitly. The trigger is not a rumour: it is a date that has already passed.
A second signal arrived in June 2026. According to the specialist press, the Caen judicial court ordered Carrefour France, in an interim order of 4 June 2026, to make its website and app accessible within six months, under a daily penalty. We have not read the order: we cite it as reported, never as a verified text. It is still enough to change the conversation with a client. The question is no longer theoretical, and an agency without a method improvises in front of them.
What the text says: consumers, services, e-commerce
Three elements of the text help qualify a site. First the scope: Article 2 lists the services covered, including e-commerce, which Article 3 defines as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile-device-based services, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract. A shop that sells to individuals falls within that definition. A showcase site that cannot conclude any contract is not necessarily covered: it is a question to settle, not to assume.
Next the target: the directive speaks of services provided to consumers, meaning natural persons acting outside their trade or profession. A platform strictly reserved for professionals is therefore qualified differently. Finally national law: each Member State transposes the directive, and the thresholds, the declaration and the penalties are read in the text of the client's country. We do not state them here.
The six qualification questions to ask the client
- Does the client sell to individuals? — the directive targets services provided to consumers; a site reserved for professionals is qualified differently.
- Can the site conclude a contract? — basket, booking, subscription, online sign-up: these are the actions the definition of e-commerce describes.
- Is there a mobile app? — the definition also covers mobile-device-based services, so the app is part of the audit scope.
- Which country is the client established in, and where does it sell? — national law sets the thresholds, the declaration and the penalties.
- How big is the company? — headcount and turnover, or balance sheet total, decide the microenterprise exemption.
- Who edits the content and who builds the template? — this separates what the agency can fix from what stays with the client or a third party.
The microenterprise exemption: what it covers, and what it does not
Article 4, paragraph 5, exempts microenterprises that provide services from the accessibility requirements applicable to services. Article 3 defines a microenterprise as an enterprise that employs fewer than ten persons and whose annual turnover, or annual balance sheet total, does not exceed 2 million euros. These criteria apply to the company, never to the size of the website.
Three limits to keep in mind before reassuring a client. The exemption covers services: it says nothing about manufacturing or importing products covered by the directive. It has to be proven: the client must be able to document headcount and figures. And it only holds while the company stays under the thresholds, which keeps the subject alive for a growing client. The agency records the decision and its date in the file; it does not assume it.
What the Caen decision changes for scoping, and what it does not prove
The sources report three elements. The judge held that an online shop cannot settle for being partially accessible: it must be fully accessible. The retailer's argument, that it met 71% of the criteria, was not enough. The deadline is six months under a daily penalty, which puts the due date around early December 2026. That date is calculated, not published: it is a calendar marker, not a legal fact.
What the decision does not prove weighs just as much. It is a first-instance decision, which we have not read, handed down against a large retailer. According to Deque, a Lille court rejected a comparable action against Auchan E-Commerce in May 2026, and that decision is being challenged on appeal. Our reading: the risk is not ruled out, but it is not uniform either. For the agency, the practical effect is simple: a documented approach is worth more than a compliance percentage waved around.
The objection: does hosting make a site accessible?
No, and it is better to tell the client before they assume it. Accessibility is decided in the template, the components, the editorial content and the code: alternative text, contrast, tab order, form labels, error messages. No server fixes that, and no promise of compliance through hosting is serious.
What infrastructure changes lies elsewhere, and it is useful: a staging copy to test fixes before going live, backups with restore when a template overhaul breaks the checkout, a central portfolio where you find every site, its domain and its expiry date. You manage the client relationship and the audit scope; we run the infrastructure. The table below separates what belongs to whom.
Who carries what: client, agency, infrastructure
Scroll the table
| Topic | Who carries it | What hosting changes |
|---|---|---|
| Template, theme, components | The agency, budget approved by the client | Nothing in itself; a staging copy allows risk-free testing |
| Editorial content (alternative text, headings, links) | The client, trained by the agency | Nothing |
| Third-party modules (chat, payment, reviews) | The module vendor; the agency selects and tests | Nothing; an inventoried portfolio helps find the sites concerned |
| Accessibility statement and action plan | The client, drafted with the agency | Nothing |
| Audit evidence (screenshots, reports, dates) | The agency, archived in the client file | Nothing |
| Fixes put live | The agency | Staging before going live, a backup before the intervention |
| Tracking the portfolio's domains and expiry dates | The agency | A central view of your clients' domains and hosting |
Choosing the audit standard
An audit without a standard is only an opinion. Three names come up. WCAG, published by the W3C, is the international foundation: version 2.2 is a W3C Recommendation dated December 2024, with three conformance levels, A, AA and AAA. The RGAA is the French assessment standard; its official page shows version 4.1.2. According to Deque, in the Caen case compliance is measured against the RGAA and requires meeting 100% of the applicable criteria. The European standard EN 301 549 also exists, but we do not detail its version here.
Scoping rule: take the standard that the law of the client's country designates, write it at the top of the report with its version, and where no designation is clear, start from WCAG 2.2 level AA as a working basis. Changing standard mid-audit makes reports incomparable.
Auditing a client's website in eight steps
Qualify the client
Ask the six qualification questions and record the answers with the date. If the client is a services microenterprise, ask for the means to document headcount and figures. Without a written answer, nothing is qualified.
Draw up the scope
List the domains, subdomains, the mobile app and embedded services. Article 2 excludes third-party content neither financed nor developed by the operator and outside its control; what the client builds into its journey still has to be examined case by case.
Choose the critical journeys
Select the typical pages: home, search, product page, basket, payment, account creation, contact. One complete purchase journey is worth more than fifty isolated pages.
Run the automated tests
Run axe, WAVE or Lighthouse on each typical page. These tools detect only part of the defects: a green report never means compliance, it means a starting point.
Do the manual tests
Go through the site with the keyboard alone: tabbing, visible focus, no traps. Test the basket and payment with a screen reader such as NVDA or VoiceOver, enlarge the text, check contrast, field labels and error messages.
Record every defect
One line per defect: page, criterion of the standard, severity, screenshot, date, owner. This table becomes the action plan and the proof that the approach exists.
Fix by template, in staging
Fix the shared components first, on a staging copy, after a backup. Replay the full checkout journey before anything goes live.
Archive the evidence and schedule the re-audit
Keep the dated report, the standard and its version, the action plan and the accessibility statement if national law requires it. Set a re-audit for every major change to the site.
Fix the template before the pages
A defect in a menu, a form field or a basket button repeats on every page. Fix the shared components first: a single template change removes dozens of findings at once, and you avoid billing your client a hundred times for the same fix.
Troubleshooting: the mistakes that keep coming back in audits
The automated report is green, the journey is unusable. An automated tool sees neither the logical tab order nor the quality of alternative text. Redo the checkout journey with the keyboard alone before concluding.
The fix breaks the payment. A template tweak pushed to production without testing sometimes degrades a form. Work in staging, back up before intervening and replay the full journey.
The third-party module escapes the audit. Chat, reviews, payment: the client does not control their code. List them, ask the vendor for its position in writing, and plan an alternative if it is missing.
The site degrades after the audit. Content published without alternative text or a new banner reintroduces defects. Train the people who publish and re-audit at every major change.
Scoping the subject with the client in half a day
The expected result of half a day is not a compliant site, it is a scoping. Morning: qualification, scope, choice of standard. Afternoon: automated and manual tests on the critical journeys, then a two-page report that gives the qualification verdict, the major defects, a dated action plan and what remains to be checked in national law.
This frame repeats identically from one client to the next, which makes the offer sellable and the effort predictable. Keep the limits of this article: the method is not legal advice, and the client remains responsible for its own statement. If a client asks for an analysis of its situation, point them to a lawyer.
