How accessible are Greek online shops? An audit of 3,745 stores.

Noria, data study. Published: 7 October 2026

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) has applied in Greece through Law 4994/2022 since 28 June 2025, and it covers e-commerce services. Fifteen months later, Noria ran automated checks on 3,745 Greek online shops. We looked at accessibility, cookie consent and basic technical health.

Headline numbers

99% of Greek online shop homepages tested in a real browser had at least one automatically detectable WCAG A/AA failure, and 56% had at least one “critical” one (Noria, October 2026).
Sample and confidence interval
279 of 281 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 97.4% to 99.8%.
157 of 281 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 50% to 61.6%.
Only 2.6% of 3,745 Greek online shops link to an accessibility statement or page from their homepage (Noria, October 2026).
Sample and confidence interval
99 of 3,745 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 2.2% to 3.2%.
In 59.8% of Greek online shops, analytics or advertising cookies were set before the visitor clicked anything (Noria, October 2026).
Sample and confidence interval
168 of 281 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 54% to 65.4%.
Only 34% of cookie banners on Greek online shops offer “Reject” on the first layer (Noria, October 2026).
Sample and confidence interval
64 of 188 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 27.6% to 41.1%.
31% of Greek online shops block pinch-to-zoom on mobile (Noria, October 2026).
Sample and confidence interval
1,174 of 3,745 shops. 95% confidence interval (Wilson): 29.9% to 32.9%.

Share of homepages with at least one automated findingaxe-core, n=281 shops
Finding	Share (95% confidence interval)
Low text contrast	81.9%230/281, 95% confidence interval: 76.9–85.9%
Links without an accessible name (e.g. icon-only)	80.8%227/281, 95% confidence interval: 75.8–85%
Untitled iframes	49.5%139/281, 95% confidence interval: 43.7–55.3%
Touch targets too small	32.7%92/281, 95% confidence interval: 27.5–38.4%
Zoom disabled	31.3%88/281, 95% confidence interval: 26.2–37%
Buttons without an accessible name	31%87/281, 95% confidence interval: 25.8–36.6%
Images without alt text	26.7%75/281, 95% confidence interval: 21.9–32.2%

The static check across all 3,745 shops found that:

54% have at least one form field without a label;
56% have no h1 heading on the homepage;
only 35% offer a “skip to content” link.

On the positive side, 99% declare a page language and nearly all use HTTPS.

Cookies: consent in name only?

First page load, no interactionn=281 shops
Finding	Share (95% confidence interval)
Cookie banner shown	67.6%190/281, 95% confidence interval: 61.9–72.8%
“Reject” on the first layer (of banners)	34%64/188, 95% confidence interval: 27.6–41.1%
Analytics or advertising cookie already set	59.8%168/281, 95% confidence interval: 54–65.4%
…while the banner is still waiting for an answer (of shops with a banner)	61.6%117/190, 95% confidence interval: 54.5–68.2%

The Hellenic Data Protection Authority's Recommendation 1/2020 expects two things: no non-essential trackers before consent, and refusing must be as easy as accepting.

Among the shops that sent data to Google before any click:

47% sent no Google Consent Mode signal at all;
32% sent a proper “denied” signal (a cookieless ping);
19% reported “granted” before the user had chosen.

Technical picture

Platformsn=3,745 shops
Finding	Share (95% confidence interval)
WooCommerce	49.2%1,841/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 47.6–50.8%
OpenCart	20.2%758/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 19–21.6%
Other/custom	7.6%284/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 6.8–8.5%
PrestaShop	6.4%238/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 5.6–7.2%
Shopify	5.3%200/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 4.7–6.1%
Magento	5%188/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 4.4–5.8%
CS-Cart	3.5%130/3,745, 95% confidence interval: 2.9–4.1%

Other technical findings:

75% of product pages carry Product structured data.
Median time to first byte is 0.72 s.
The median homepage transfers 3.6 MB, and 30% exceed 5 MB.

What this means, and what it doesn't

Automated tools catch only part of the accessibility barriers on a page, and they do not prove a legal breach. Microenterprises (fewer than 10 staff and no more than €2 million turnover) are exempt from the Act's service requirements. Still, most Greek shops have not yet covered the basics, and the fixes are often simple:

adequate contrast
names on icons and buttons
labelled form fields
allowing zoom
a banner with an equal “Reject” option
tags that wait for consent

For what the law requires and how to fix it, see our guides:

Methodology box

What we checked: 3,745 Greek online shops (a .gr domain or Greek-language content, plus a shopping cart and priced products), checked on 7 October 2026.
Where the candidates came from: Domains derived from Skroutz's public merchant index, plus Noria's company list. Every site was confirmed as a shop by automated analysis.
How we checked: All shops: static analysis of the HTML of the homepage and one product page.
A random 8% subsample (281 shops): a real-browser load with no clicks, axe-core 4.14 (WCAG 2.0/2.1/2.2 A/AA rules), and capture of cookies and tracking requests made before consent.
Politeness: We respected robots.txt, made one request at a time per site, fetched at most 3 pages per shop, and submitted no forms.
Precision: 95% confidence intervals are within about ±1.6 points for the full sample and about ±6 points for the subsample.

Limits

This is not a random sample of every Greek e-shop; no registry exists.
Automated checks are not a legal assessment.
No shop is named.
The aggregate data is published as a CSV file on this page.

Sources

How to cite

Noria (2026). How accessible are Greek online shops? An audit of 3,745 stores (October 2026). noria.gr/en/research/eshop-accessibility-2026

The data

Every indicator in the study, as aggregates: for each, how many shops (k) out of how many (n), the share and its 95% confidence interval. Nothing per shop.

Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Noria.

The aggregate data (CSV)

We ask first.