Disability inclusion in retail: Shopping experiences for everybody

Walmart stores are known for being bright, busy, and buzzy. But from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. each day, outlets nationwide are suddenly becoming much quieter to accommodate people who get overstimulated.

In early November, the retail giant started tuning its in-store TVs to static images, halting loudspeaker announcements, and dimming store lights during those early morning hours to be more considerate of sensory-challenged consumers and employees, including the autistic, kids with ADHD, and the elderly.

Disability inclusion is also just good retail business.

“At a time when discounters are competing more aggressively with each other for consumers’ dollars, Walmart is not only building some goodwill with its shoppers, but these changes could also bring more shoppers into its stores and keep them shopping there longer,” Burt Flickinger, managing director for the Strategic Resource Group retail consultancy, recently told CNN.

Disability inclusion, by the numbers

The business benefits of disability inclusion in retail are clear. A study by Bain & Company found that retailers achieving both high Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and high inclusion posted compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of 7.9% from 2019 to 2021 compared to the low single digits for their competitors.

This makes sense when one considers other statistics related to adopting inclusive store design elements:

1. One in four U.S. adults, or 27% of the population, lives with some type of disability.
2. Globally, 3 billion people, or 16% of the world’s population, live with disabilities.
3. Although most people with disabilities are thought to be significantly poorer than their counterparts, they still command nearly a half-trillion dollars in disposable income.
4. An upcoming study from TD Bank and Accenture is expected to find that companies going above-and-beyond in the disability inclusion space are approximately 25% more likely to outperform their peers in productivity as measured by revenue per employee.
5. A recent survey by design agency Shikatani Lacroix found 68% of consumers are more loyal to brands displaying inclusive design elements in their stores.
6. Two-thirds of Americans, meantime, say their shopping decisions are shaped by social values, such as a brand’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity.

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Starbucks Signing Stores

Walmart isn’t the only retailer to see an opportunity in all of this. In fact, brand commitments to disability inclusive store design programs have been steadily increasing since the pandemic ended and consumers began patronizing brick-and-mortar establishments again.

The Starbucks business model, for example, has always been about “creating spaces to connect and building an environment where everyone is welcome,” says Danielle Winslow, a company spokesperson.

To that end, the global coffee chain operates at least 17 “Signing Stores” around the globe where employees fluent in American Sign Language tend to people with hearing disabilities.

The stores also include technology options like digital notepads and consoles with two-way keyboards for back-and-forth typed conversations to assist with counter communications and ordering. Starbucks also offers multiple formats of its menu, including large-print and Braille menus, in all of its U.S. and Canadian stores.

The company is scaling inclusive design features beyond Signing Stores and throughout its store portfolio, including order readiness notifications through a customer order status board that visually provides an update and confirms when an order is ready.

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Inclusive experiences for the disabled

On top of what it’s doing for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, Starbucks is also one of several major brands, including Bank of America, Gucci, and Target, offering an “interpreter service” app for their blind and low-vision customers from San Diego-based Aira Tech Corp.

The Aira service helps customers go into shops like Starbucks and use their smartphone cameras to share their surroundings with live remote agents who will guide them through the stores, help them read menus or signs, order and pick up items, and find a spot to sit down or exit the premises.

Everette Bacon, vice president of blindness for Aira, says his company is expanding its offering from retailers to conventions, shopping malls, and hotels in the North and South America as well as Europe. But he says most companies are still in the early stages of considering and deploying such technology.

“A lot of companies are looking at ways they can provide more equity and inclusion for people with disabilities, but I still think it has a long way to go,” says Bacon, who is blind.

“We’re hopeful industries like hospitality will invest in accessibility and leverage this technology to provide an equitable customer experience for all,” he added.

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Designing for disability inclusion

Beyond technology, retails brands can demonstrate their commitment to welcoming and attracting shoppers with disabilities by addressing basic design elements and processes, such as:

• Entrances: As the customer’s first experience of the store, it’s important to ensure the front door is wide enough to accommodate people in wheelchairs or using walkers.
• In-store features: The Americans with Disabilities Act requires stores to provide reasonable access and accommodation for all disabled customers and employees. If disabled patrons can’t access a bathroom or get in line at a checkout counter with everyone else, that’s a problem. But retailers should go beyond the ADA’s accessibility requirements and think through everything from parking availability to reachable and well-lit shelves to having staff on hand to assist with hard-to-reach or see items. For example, Sephora reportedly uses color-coded baskets at stores in Europe to help sales associates provide higher levels of service. A red basket, for instance, indicates a customer would like ongoing assistance. A black basket denotes they prefer to be left alone.
• Signage and wayfinding: Installing ADA compliant “wayfinding” signs is required to get a Certificate of Occupancy. But meeting basic requirements for bathroom, room identification, and other routing signs – even if they incorporate a Braille tactile writing system for the visually impaired – may not be enough in the future. To accommodate more people with disabilities, retailers need to keep up with emerging technology. Grocery stores like Westside Market and Fairway Market in New York City, for example, have upgraded their GPS-powered in-store apps to help shoppers quickly locate items within a foot of their location – without having to hunt down store clerks. Similarly, a French start-up called SonarVision is developing an app to help visually impaired people get around stores using precision GPS tracking and spatial “3D sound.”
• Awareness and training: Promoting inclusive stores for disabilities isn’t just about the physical elements. You need employees who can understand and genuinely empathize with these customers. As Andrew Pulrang, a freelance writer with lifelong disabilities poignantly notes, businesses need to “focus honest attention on avoiding the most common and bothersome habits of (discrimination and bias that) disabled customers tend to encounter: neglect, condescension, and rigidity.”

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Real inclusion, real results

Achieving disability inclusion effectively in retail goes beyond store design elements and technology. The people factor plays a big role in whether a brand makes its stores truly inclusive:

1. Hire right— ask questions to discover how a potential employee might react in certain situations involving people with disabilities.
2. Try to hire more people with disabilities for their diverse views and ability to relate to their shopping peers. The Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) has gone the extra mile in this regard by partnering with Neurodiversity in the Workplace (NITW) to design plans and programs for the company to recruit, attract, hire, and retain neurodiverse talent.
3. Offer training programs to keep employees current on inclusivity best practices and to minimize conscious and unconscious bias against the disabled in stores and workplaces.
4. Look into joining The Disability Equality Index, a resource for benchmarking your disability inclusion policies and programs against other industry leaders. More than 70% of Fortune 100 companies and nearly half of those in the Fortune 500 participate in the DEI.

For retailers, it’s clear that doing the minimum for people with disabilities no longer cuts it. By following the lead of industry powerhouses like Walmart, Starbucks, Target, and Gucci, operators can deliver experiences that serve a wide and relevant customer base while also improving their public standing and growing their bottom lines.