Purple Tuesday was the UK’s and Guernsey’s first accessible shopping day, established to recognise the importance and needs of disabled consumers and promote inclusive shopping.

Introducing Purple Tuesday in Guernsey

#PurpleTuesdayGsy

The 1st Purple Tuesday took place on Tuesday 13th November 2018 and was one of the initiatives of the larger ‘Accessible Town’ project which focuses on improving accessibility, in its widest context in Guernsey.  In 2019 the day will be celebrated on Tuesday 12th November 2019. By increasing accessibility and the disability confidence of businesses we will encourage more of our 13,000 disabled islanders and 4,000+ carers to shop, eat out and take an active part in our community.

Purple Tuesday wasn’t just a one-day shopping event. The aim of the day is to increase awareness of the value and needs of disabled consumers and encourage sustainable changes in business practices that improve customer experience over the long term. For retailers, this will result in the opening up of their products and services to the widest customer base possible (and access to the Purple Pound estimated to be worth over £249m locally)

The Purple Tuesday document below provided some suggestions about approaches and activities that retailers could undertake as part of the day but also is a good reference point for future activities.

What Purple Tuesday isn’t

Nearly one in every five people in the UK has a disability or impairment, and over half of households have a connection to someone with a disability. Their collective spending power – the Purple Pound – is worth £249 billion to the UK economy.

However, this potential is not being fully realised. There are still real (and perceived) barriers that make it harder for disabled people to find work, spend money online and in store, and enjoy a drink or meal out.

The aim of Purple Tuesday is to make customer-facing businesses more aware of these opportunities and challenges and inspire them to make changes to improve the disabled customer experience over the long term.

If you want to go a bit further … (Great!)

If you want to go further, here are some more suggestions:

  • Sign up for the Hidden Disabilities training and display your Hidden Disabilities Aware kite mark on your shop/business window
  • Complete the States of Guernsey free Online Disability Awareness training
  • More active promotion, and possible expansion, of your current accessibility initiatives
  • Introducing regular ‘quiet hours’ (this could be on a weekly/fortnightly/ monthly basis)
  • Introduction – or expansion of – personal shopping and gift-wrapping services and promoting those services to disabled customers
  • Providing the option to buy now, collect later, or buy in store for home delivery
  • Committing to employ more disabled people so your workforce better reflects the diversity of your customer base
  • Improvements to the physical accessibility of your locations (this could include exploring the feasibility of a Changing Places facility).
  • Improving store wayfinding
  • More inclusive marketing and product photography (e.g. using disabled models)
  • Improving the e-accessibility of your websites and apps
  • Ensuring information on hidden impairments is available
  • Introducing ‘not all disabilities are visible’ signage for accessible toilets, changing rooms, etc.
  • Including specific accessibility questions in customer feedback surveys
  • Recruiting disabled ‘mystery shoppers’ to give feedback on the customer experience

Please check out our resources page on this website and also Purple Tuesdays resources page:https://purpletuesday.org.uk/resources

The project is not possible without partners and sponsors. Thank you

Special thanks to Lloyds Bank Foundation for their support for the project