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Ecommerce accessibility: why online stores get sued, and how to fix it

Retail and ecommerce sites are the single most-sued category under the ADA. Most failures are a handful of fixable patterns.

The five things that break accessibility on ecommerce sites

• Product images with no alt text: a screen-reader user hears "image" instead of the product name. Every product photo needs a descriptive alt. See our image alt-text guide.
• Unlabeled search, filter and quantity fields: inputs need programmatic labels, not just placeholder text.
• Low-contrast prices and CTAs: sale prices in light grey or red-on-red fail WCAG contrast. Check yours with our contrast guide.
• Keyboard-inaccessible menus and carousels: mega-menus and product sliders that only work with a mouse trap keyboard users.
• Checkout errors that aren't announced: "invalid card" messages that appear visually but aren't tied to the field fail WCAG error-identification rules.

On Shopify?

Shopify themes are a common source of these issues (unlabeled variant pickers, low-contrast theme colors). We have a dedicated Shopify ADA compliance guide. The same template-repeats-everywhere risk applies to WooCommerce on WordPress.

Overlays won't save your store

Accessibility overlay widgets (accessiBe, UserWay, AudioEye) promise instant compliance but don't fix your theme's code, and stores running them still get sued. The FTC fined an overlay vendor $1M in 2025. See why in our accessiBe alternative writeup and ADA lawsuit guide.

How AdaClear helps

AdaClear scans your store against WCAG 2.1/2.2, gives you a prioritized fix list mapped to your product templates, and re-scans continuously so a theme update doesn't silently reintroduce a problem. Start with a free scan below.