In October 2026 we ran our automated scanner on 10 small, public online stores: 8 on Shopify and 2 on WooCommerce. For each store we checked the homepage, a collection or category page, a product page (where we could find one) and the cart. Here is what came up most often, anonymised, with what each problem means and how it is usually fixed.
How we tested (and the limits)
- Tool: our scanner, which runs the open-source axe-core engine (version 4.14.0) in a real Chromium browser.
- Sample: 10 small stores found through public search. That is a small sample, so treat the numbers as an illustration, not a statistic about all stores.
- Automated tools only find part of the picture. The W3C says tools "can not determine accessibility, they can only assist in doing so" (Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools (W3C WAI)).
The headline numbers
- Every one of the 10 stores had at least 3 different types of detectable problem; the average was 7.2 types per store.
- The average store had 81 affected page elements across the pages we checked; the median was 39 (a few stores had very high counts).
- 5 of the 10 stores had at least one problem that axe-core rates as "critical".
Most common problems
| Problem | Stores affected | Elements affected (all stores) |
|---|---|---|
| Headings that skip levels | 10 of 10 | 25 |
| Low color contrast text | 6 of 10 | 320 |
| Links with no readable name | 6 of 10 | 81 |
| Content outside page regions (landmarks) | 6 of 10 | 89 |
| Lists built incorrectly | 5 of 10 | 27 |
| Pinch-zoom disabled on mobile | 4 of 10 | 14 |
1. Headings that skip levels (10 of 10 stores)
Screen reader users often jump from heading to heading to find their way around a page. When a theme goes from an H1 straight to an H4, or uses heading tags just to make text bigger, the page outline becomes confusing. Shopify's own theme guidance says headings should be used "in sequential order and don't skip over levels" (Accessibility for themes (Shopify Help Center)).
Typical fix: in the theme code, change section headings to the correct level, and use CSS (not heading tags) to control size.
2. Low color contrast (6 of 10 stores, 320 elements)
Pale grey text, light text on pastel backgrounds and text over photos were the biggest single source of affected elements in our sample. WCAG 2.1 asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum) (W3C WAI)). See our color contrast guide.
3. Links with no readable name (6 of 10 stores)
Icon-only links, such as social media icons, a logo image without alt text, or a cart icon, are announced by screen readers as just "link". On one WooCommerce store, every social media icon link in the footer had no text at all.
Typical fix: add visually hidden text or an aria-label, for example "Instagram" or "Cart".
4. Content outside page regions (6 of 10 stores)
Announcement bars, pop-ups and app widgets are often placed outside the page's header, navigation, main and footer regions, so people navigating by region can miss them.
5. Lists built incorrectly (5 of 10 stores)
Menus and product grids often use list markup that screen readers rely on to say "list, 8 items". Carousels and slider plugins frequently break this structure.
6. Zoom disabled (4 of 10 stores)
Some themes set user-scalable=no or maximum-scale=1, which stops people with low vision from pinch-zooming on their phones. The DOJ's web guidance lists "text size and zoom capability" among the things businesses should consider (Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA (ADA.gov, U.S. Department of Justice, March 18, 2022)).
Other problems worth knowing about
- Images without alt text: on one store, six homepage images, including large banner images, had no alt text at all.
- Form fields labelled only by a tooltip: on one WooCommerce store, 14 quantity boxes were labelled only with a "Qty" tooltip, which is not a reliable label.
- Hidden slides that keyboard users can still reach: slideshows that hide slides from screen readers but leave their links focusable.
How this compares with large-scale research
Our sample is small, but the pattern is similar to WebAIM's much larger annual study. In February 2026, WebAIM tested the home pages of the top 1,000,000 websites with a different tool (WAVE) and found low contrast text on 83.9% of home pages, missing image alt text on 53.1%, missing form labels on 51% and empty links on 46.3%. Home pages detected as using Shopify averaged 75.1 detected errors, compared with 56.1 across the whole sample (The WebAIM Million: 2026 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages (WebAIM)).
Check your own store in a minute or two. Our free scanner opens your homepage, a collection page, a product page and your cart in a real browser and lists the problems it can detect automatically, in plain English.
Technical fixes, not legal advice. This guide explains website accessibility from a technical point of view. We are not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. No scan, fix or guide can guarantee legal compliance, the outcome of any demand letter or lawsuit, or protection from future claims. If you have received a legal claim, please consult a qualified attorney about it.
Sources
- The WebAIM Million: 2026 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages (WebAIM)
- Accessibility for themes (Shopify Help Center)
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum) (W3C WAI)
- Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA (ADA.gov, U.S. Department of Justice, March 18, 2022)
- Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools (W3C WAI)