what is the purple pound and why it’s important to your business

In an ever growing digital landscape, it is crucial that everyone has access. And yet a significant demographic remains largely overlooked. This article explores that demographic and the importance of the Purple Pound to businesses and their bottom line.

What is The Purple Pound?

The Purple Pound refers to the collective spending power of disabled households. This means any household in which at least one member has reported a disability. This is a significant demographic that is often overlooked by businesses and service providers, and yet it is estimated that 1 in 5 potential UK customers are disabled. The term ‘Purple Pound’ is a way to draw attention to the economic influence of this group.

Some Key Facts:

• The number of disabled people in the UK is increasing, from 11.9 million in 2014 to 16 million in 2022, this is now 24% of the population.
• 3 in 4 disabled people and their families have walked away from a UK business citing poor accessibility and/or poor customer service.
• Nearly 3/4 of disabled online consumers will click away from a website due to inaccessibility.
• The Purple Pound equates to about £274 billion a year.
• 32% of UK households have at least 1 disabled person.
• 37.9% of households in Wales have at least 1 disabled person.

Disability Disillusionment

Unfortunately, businesses neglect the Purple Pound market due to deep-rooted societal beliefs and attitudes about disabilities. Disability charity, Scope UK, investigated the ‘Disability Perception Gap’ and found that:

• 60% of people underestimate how many disabled people there actually are.
• 75% of people think of disabled people as needing to be cared for.
• 32% of people think disabled people are not as productive as non-disabled people.
• 13% hardly ever or never think of disabled people as being on par with everyone else.

You can read Scope UK’s full report on their website.

What This Means For Your Business

You might’ve heard the phrase ‘Good service travels fast, but bad service travels faster’. By closing off your business to almost a quarter of the UK population, you’re harming your brand reputation alongside customer loyalty. It is much easier for a consumer to take their business elsewhere, than fight with an inaccessible website. This is called the ‘Click-away Pound’. There is an estimated loss of £11.75 billion as a result of this. If £11.75 billion isn’t a big enough motivator to make your website accessible, these stats might be:

• 83% of participants with access needs limit their shopping to sites that they know are accessible.
• 86% have chosen to pay more for a product from an accessible website rather than buy the same product for less from a website that was harder to use.
• 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the barriers.

You can read more about the Click-Away Pound on the website.

The importance of tapping into the Purple Pound goes beyond financial benefits. It encompasses legal compliance, societal responsibility, and business innovation.

Some of the best features your business can implement to tap into the Purple Pound via digital accessibility include:

• Alt text for images.
• Using captions for videos.
• Fixing low colour contrast.
• Making your webpage accessible to screen readers.

Is Your Website Accessible?

Here at Fairness we offer Accessibility Audits involving a comprehensive examination of your website that identifies potential issues hindering accessibility for users with disabilities. Get in contact today to see what we can do for you and your business.