Accessible products can be a real help for people with disabilities

As in most areas of their lives, people with disabilities have to overcome many difficulties in shopping. They need to cope with problems such as narrow aisles in stores, high shelves, accessible parking and the lack of special toilets.

Carrefour wants to offer a more inclusive shopping experience

By summer 2024, Carrefour will improve services for people with disabilities in its 50 convenience stores in Paris and 10 hypermarkets in France, in an effort to offer a more “inclusive” shopping experience. The retailer made the announcement when it opened a new store in the northern suburbs of Paris at the end of 2023, where there is a welcome centre for people with disabilities, an assistance service and special trolleys for shoppers with reduced mobility. Innovations are aimed at addressing five different challenges disabled shoppers have to face, such as the checkout process, finding their way around the store, ease of shopping, digital accessibility, and a product range tailored to their needs.

British blind and partially sighted people can shop using NaviLens

In the frozen food category, in autumn 2022 Aunt Bessie’s was the first to introduce the NaviLens technology on the packaging of two of its best-selling items, after partnering with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to support customers with visual impairments. The NaviLens technology uses tags that can be accessed via an app to provide low-vision shoppers with audio product information and navigation assistance. NaviLens tags can be scanned by smartphone – up to 12 times the distance of scanning a QR code, without the need for special focusing – so shoppers don’t have to search for the exact location of the code.