Every year, thousands of U.S. businesses receive accessibility demand letters and lawsuits over their websites — and online stores are a favorite target. After two decades running SEO and accessibility for a large fashion retailer, I've learned that most of these problems are predictable, fixable, and far cheaper to prevent than to settle. Here's what actually matters.

Why online stores get targeted

U.S. courts have repeatedly applied the Americans with Disabilities Act to websites, treating retail sites that sell to the public as places of "public accommodation." Plaintiffs' firms run automated scans across thousands of sites and send demand letters in bulk, so a store with obvious failures is an easy target. The standard everyone references is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and 2.2, Level AA.

The failures that actually get flagged

Fix these first — they account for most complaints:

  1. Images without alt text. Every meaningful image, especially product photos, needs a text alternative. Decorative images should be marked empty so screen readers skip them.
  2. Poor color contrast. Sale prices, placeholder text, and light-gray buttons routinely fail the 4.5:1 minimum for normal text.
  3. Keyboard traps. If a shopper can't tab through your menu, filters, and checkout without a mouse, you fail. Test it: unplug your mouse and try to buy something.
  4. Unlabeled form fields. Search, filters, and especially checkout fields need real labels — not placeholder text that vanishes when you type.
  5. Inaccessible pop-ups and carousels. Email-capture modals and hero sliders that can't be closed or paused with a keyboard are common offenders.

What an accessibility "overlay" won't fix

Overlay widgets — the floating accessibility button — are marketed as one-click compliance. They aren't. Courts have allowed lawsuits to proceed against sites that use them, and they don't repair the underlying code. They can help some users, but they are not a substitute for real remediation.

A practical order of operations

  1. Run an automated scan (axe, WAVE, or Lighthouse) to catch the obvious 30–40%.
  2. Do a manual keyboard pass — automation can't catch focus order, traps, or "can I actually check out."
  3. Test with a screen reader (VoiceOver or NVDA) on your key templates: home, category, product, cart, and checkout.
  4. Fix templates, not pages. Most store issues live in the theme, so one fix propagates across thousands of products.
  5. Publish an accessibility statement and keep a dated fix log.

It's not just legal defense

Accessibility widens your market to shoppers who use assistive technology, and many of the same fixes — clean structure, real labels, fast pages — also help your SEO. If you run an online store and you haven't tested it with a keyboard, that's the first hour I'd spend this week.

Need an accessibility audit or remediation? Get in touch.