Platform guide
Shopify Accessibility: A Store Owner’s Guide
E-commerce is the most-litigated category. Here’s what actually drives a Shopify store’s accessibility — and most of it is in your hands.
Shopify stores are one of the most common targets of web accessibility lawsuits — not because Shopify is uniquely bad, but because e-commerce is where the demand-letter firms concentrate (~70% of cases). The good news: most of the issues that get stores flagged live in your theme and content, which you control. Here’s what actually matters on Shopify.
The core point
A Shopify store’s accessibility is mostly determined by its theme and the content you add (product images, custom sections, apps) — not by Shopify’s platform code. That means most fixes are in your hands.
Why Shopify stores get targeted
You’re selling online, so you fall squarely within the most-litigated category, and automated sweeps easily detect the usual failures on product and checkout pages. The same machine-detectable issues a plaintiff’s scanner finds are the ones our free scanner surfaces.
What Shopify handles vs. what you do
| Shopify / theme | You |
|---|---|
| Core checkout markup & platform chrome | Theme choice (pick an accessibility-minded one) |
| Some baseline semantics in good themes | Product image alt text |
| Updates that may fix theme issues | Custom sections, banners, and color choices |
| Apps you install (each adds markup) |
The most common Shopify accessibility issues
- Missing product image alt text. Shopify lets you set alt per image — most stores leave it blank. Fix it in the product media editor.
- Low color contrast from brand palettes — sale badges, muted captions, light-gray text.
- Unlabeled form fields in newsletter popups, search, and custom contact forms.
- Vague link text — “Shop now”, “Click here” repeated across cards (see the link auditor).
- Keyboard traps in drawers, popups, and cart modals from apps or theme JS.
- Carousels that auto-rotate and can’t be paused or operated by keyboard.
- Tiny tap targets on mobile quantity steppers and icon buttons (check sizes).
How to fix them
- Add alt text to every product image in the media editor. Describe the product, not “image”.
- Audit your theme colors against 4.5:1 and adjust tokens in the theme editor.
- Label every form field — including search and popups; don’t rely on placeholder text alone.
- Test with a keyboard. Tab through a product page, open the cart, close the popup — all without a mouse.
- Vet apps before installing; each injects markup that can introduce issues.
- Re-test after theme updates and app changes — that’s when regressions sneak in. This is exactly what continuous monitoring is for.
A word on accessibility apps
The Shopify App Store lists “accessibility” apps, many of which are overlays. Installing one does not make your store compliant, can interfere with assistive technology, and has become a lawsuit signal in its own right. Fix the theme and content instead.