Basket cases

As Christmas looms, have our favourite stores made any strides towards better access? Cathy Reay investigates and talks to three disabled shoppers, while Emma Ryan describes her own experiences of supermarket shopping

To parking, poorly-trained staff, lack of space, bright lights, overcrowding, inaccessible doors, floors and shelves, complicated web design, poor choice, long queues and unclear signage: these are just a few of the problems disabled shoppers face every day.

For some of us, stocking up, especially in preparation for the holiday season, is a process made much more difficult by the inconsideration of our favourite high street retailers.

Neil Crowther, director of disability programmes at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, says: “The last 10 years have witnessed a great deal of progress in the accessibility of retail outlets.

“However, some high street stores remain out of bounds for disabled consumers, their families and friends. This Christmas, stores up and down Britain could lose out because such customers will go elsewhere.”

Helen Smith, a wheelchair-user and director of policy and campaigns at the disabled motorists’ charity Mobilise, says: “I don’t even attempt shopping at Christmas – people shove bags in your face, step on you and push you out of the way; most stores in city centres are so cramped you can’t even enter them and there is nowhere to park.”

Department store John Lewis, known for its disability inclusion, has a free delivery service that is popular with disabled customers. A spokeswoman says: “Our multi-channel-approach internet sites and call centres mean people can access our goods and services without having to visit our shops.”

More and more disabled people are turning to the allegedly “stress-free” alternative to hitting the high street – shopping on the internet. Click-and-pay couldn’t be simpler, right?

Not according to Michelle Chinery, an independent consultant on learning difficulties.

“It’s impossible for us to shop online,” she says. “The text on websites is too small and functions like a virtual ‘shopping basket’ are too difficult to grasp for people with learning difficulties, like myself.”

In fact, when we asked digital agency Fortune Cookie’s accessible web design expert Ted Howe to assess a number of leading retailer websites, very few came up to scratch.

He discovered that, while the John Lewis website is relatively easy to use, some of their promotional images have no text description, so blind and visually-impaired people cannot access the latest offers. Meanwhile, Ikea’s website uses in-built software like Flash and Javascript, which can’t be accessed by many disabled people.

Ted’s colleague Julie Howell says: “When you think of the hundreds of thousands of disabled people who find it difficult to get to the high street, but who access the internet at home, it’s really bizarre that so few retailers have cottoned on to the fact that an accessible website can be a really profitable one.

“Considering the challenging financial climate, it’s very surprising to discover that so many retailers are neglecting a market that the government estimates to be worth in excess of £80bn a year.”

Facing navigational barriers is enough to put any potential shopper off, but that isn’t the only problem; one of the real struggles is when the shopping is delivered.

Delivery men are often on the clock, with some given as little as six minutes to enter a home, unload the shopping, get a signature and leave.

Unsurprisingly, it’s often a dump-and-run situation, leaving many disabled people in the lurch if they need help unpacking or checking through their shopping.

DIY giant Ikea has a home delivery service, but most of its furniture is flat-packed, making it impossible for many disabled people to assemble.

An Ikea spokeswoman says: “We don’t have an assembling service in place at the moment. We take great steps in ensuring that we cater for disability, and pride ourselves on being available to anyone. This is an important issue that will be raised at our next company meeting.”

Crowther says: “At a time of recession, locking customers out in this way is counter to good business sense.

“Demographic change means tomorrow’s market will be older and [will] include many more people with access requirements. Wise businesses are finding ways to open their doors to this new customer base.”

While some shops are becoming more receptive to the needs of their disabled customers, the slow pace of change means many disabled people will struggle this Christmas to buy their presents and stock up on treats.

Joan Wade, Worthing

After becoming “housebound” in June, Joan Wade has had to rely on the internet for her shopping. Logging onto the Sainsbury’s website, selecting and paying for her goods was easy enough, but when it came to delivery, she had problems: “Their drivers just dump my shopping on the floor, where I struggle to reach to unpack it,” she says.

“I normally ask them to take it out of the bags (as it would take me too long on my own) so I can check their delivery against my order before they leave, but they say they don’t have time.”

Joan also said that the quality of the groceries delivered is never “best in show”: “It seems Sainsbury’s send rejected items to their online customers just because they can.”

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman told us that delivery staff normally take shopping into the first room of a property but are asked to make exceptions where possible for disabled customers.

“Sainsbury’s uses personal in-store shoppers who take products from the shelves throughout the day in exactly the same way a customer would shop, so there should be no difference in the sell-by dates,” she said. “The personal shoppers are trained to pick the freshest products on display and shopping is taken directly from our sales floor, where stocks are replenished constantly throughout the day.”

Emma Ryan, the Wirral

As a disabled person, there are many difficulties that have to be overcome. Shopping shouldn’t be one of them, but in my experience it is.

An alternative to shopping in person is buying groceries over the internet, but limited product choice and increasing delivery charges mean I prefer to do my shopping in-store.

Local to me in the Wirral there is a Tesco, an Asda and a Sainsbury’s, with each giving vastly different shopping experiences.

At Tesco, following a lengthy wait at the customer service desk for a mobility scooter key, I was told that only one scooter was working and that it was already in use.

Spotting some wheelchairs, I asked if a staff member could push me around the store.

Several unsuccessful tannoy appeals for help later, the assistant went to ask if my request was possible. The reply came back that due to “health and safety policies” the answer was “no”.

After I emailed a complaint to Tesco head office, the matter was passed down to local level, so I contacted the store directly. A duty manager made enquiries and apologised for a “miscommunication” on the part of the customer service assistant.

The wheelchairs had all had missing footplates, making them potentially dangerous, and had they been fully functioning there were no health and safety policies prohibiting staff members from pushing customers around the store. Having so much of their disabled equipment out of order at the same time was down to a lack of regular inspections. I was assured that sufficient checks would be made to prevent a recurrence.

The occasion I chose to shop at Asda coincided with some of the disabled parking spaces being used for a temporary toilet block. None of the regular parking bays had been assigned to make up the shortfall, so I complained to the duty manager. I received an apology for the inconvenience. The question of why alternate spaces hadn’t been allocated wasn’t answered but I was eventually given the head office address. The shortage of disabled parking bays remained until the toilets were dismantled. Emails and telephone calls failed to gain a response, both at head office and local store level.

On a busy Saturday at Sainsbury’s, there was only one mobility scooter available.

Sending my husband to get the key from the customer service desk, I headed to the scooter to sit down as I was in pain. I found an unattended CD player and speakers balanced on the scooter; they belonged to some dancers providing in-store entertainment for Sainsbury’s. Quite a while passed before my husband returned and could go and get a staff member to remove the equipment.

Sainsbury’s head office apologised and told me about the “diary system” where a scooter can be reserved prior to arrival at the store. I’d spoken to the customer service manager at my local Sainsbury’s about the difficulty I’d faced and hadn’t been told about this service. Head office also suggested that I keep a note of the store’s phone number to prevent having to queue at the customer service desk.

There are areas where some supermarkets provide an excellent service to disabled shoppers. From assisting with the shop itself to packing bags at the till, most stores will usually accommodate any reasonable request. The problem seems to be a lack of consistency, with the level of assistance differing depending on where you shop and who you ask. At the stores I visited, you had to ask for assistance, as there were no prominent signs or leaflets regarding help available for disabled customers.

Ju Gosling, London

Ju Gosling is a wheelchair-user dependent on support for going out. Because of the cost of a PA, she relies heavily on catalogues in order to shop from home, but she has found that some of the biggest retailers won’t meet her access needs.

“I am effectively barred from shopping with them,” she says. “I recently ordered goods from Argos that I badly needed and was told that no adjustment could be made to their 12-hour delivery slot to take account of the fact that I would be too unwell myself, and would have no carer present, to take delivery before 9am. Timed delivery slots are offered on other items, so it is clearly reasonable to expect them to offer this adjustment to disabled people who need it.

“I was told that Argos had no obligation to me as a customer because payment had not been taken from my card. I was simply told that I could progress my ‘query’ with the customer relations department.”

An Argos spokeswoman said: “At Argos we offer a delivery service with large delivery windows, which allows us the flexibility to offer that service to all customers at a competitive price. However, we are aware that this can occasionally cause an issue for disabled customers who may be unable to accommodate such a wide time slot.

“We constantly review our delivery offer but as a matter of policy our customer service teams are briefed to assess individual cases and where possible to accommodate disabled customers if reasonable adjustments can be made.”

Edmund West, London

Edmund West, who has autism and works with a number of people with autism and visual impairments, says he often avoids going to shops altogether.

“There are so many problems we face that it often seems a waste of time to bother. We don’t like bright lights – they cause sensory overload. As do changes in temperature.

Some autistics are frightened of travelling somewhere new. I don’t have a natural body clock so if I don’t know how long something will take I have a temper tantrum, so queues are difficult. At the checkout, attendants re-confirming what I have said makes me very nervous. I rarely go to the huge warehouse-type stores like Ikea because the crowds and noises are too hard to handle.

“There are little things that could make it better for us. For example, if shops had coloured lights that point upwards and a layout that allows as much space as possible to move around. On direction signs (ie to toilets or the carpark) it’s best to have pictures in addition to text, as a lot of autistics can’t recognise words.

“Tesco is pretty good; they have bright, colourful signs and a neat layout. But, of course, they use fluorescent lighting – they all do.

“Because of this I mainly shop on the internet and in small shops.”

A Tesco spokesman said: “It’s about getting the right balance; sometimes we are unable to cater for certain disabilities as much as we would like to. If we were to change the lighting in our stores in consideration of people with autism, we would then have to look at how this affects other disabilities. Often other factors prevent us from doing everything we can in this respect.”