Why E-commerce Sites Are the #1 ADA Lawsuit Target — and How to Get Off the List

Online stores are the most-sued category, by far

If you run an online store, you are not imagining the risk. In 2025 EcomBack data, e-commerce and retail accounted for roughly 69% of digital accessibility lawsuits, with food and beverage a distant second at about 21%. Out of 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025, the clear majority targeted businesses that sell online.

This is not random. E-commerce sites combine three things plaintiff firms love: high traffic, transactional pages where barriers directly block a purchase, and a predictable set of failures that are trivial to document with a screenshot. Understanding why stores are targeted is the first step to getting off the list.

Why online stores are uniquely exposed

• Every page is a potential barrier. A brochure site has a handful of templates. A store has product pages, category filters, search, cart, and checkout — each a place where a screen reader or keyboard user can get stuck.
• The barriers block money. When an inaccessible checkout stops a blind shopper from completing a purchase, that is a textbook denial of access to a "good or service" under ADA Title III — exactly the fact pattern courts respond to.
• They are easy to document. Plaintiff firms run automated scans across thousands of stores and flag the same machine-detectable issues. An image-only "Add to Cart" button or an unlabeled quantity field shows up instantly.
• Third-party apps add risk. Reviews widgets, chat bubbles, pop-ups, and "sale" badges injected by apps frequently fail accessibility checks — and you are responsible for them.

The barriers plaintiffs find first on stores

When we audit e-commerce sites, the same high-frequency issues appear again and again — and they map directly to the "Big Six" failures that account for the vast majority of all detectable accessibility errors:

• Product images with no alt text. Stores have thousands of images; missing descriptions are the single most common finding. See our alt text guide.
• Unlabeled form fields in search, filters, and especially checkout. Quantity steppers, coupon fields, and address forms frequently lack programmatic labels.
• Keyboard-inaccessible menus and filters. Mega-menus, faceted filters, and size/color pickers that only work with a mouse lock out keyboard and switch users. See keyboard accessibility.
• Icon-only buttons with no accessible name — the cart icon, wishlist heart, or hamburger menu that a screen reader announces as just "button."
• Low-contrast text, especially on sale prices, disclaimers, and placeholder text in form fields.
• Focus traps in modals — quick-view popups, cart drawers, and newsletter overlays that a keyboard user cannot escape.

"But I'm on Shopify / WooCommerce / a big platform"

A common misconception: that being on a major platform makes you compliant. It does not. Platforms provide the building blocks, but your theme, your apps, and your customizations determine accessibility — and you, the merchant, are the one named in a lawsuit, not the platform. Two stores on the same platform can have completely different accessibility profiles. Always test your live storefront, not the platform's marketing claims.

The conversion upside you are leaving on the table

Here is the part most store owners miss: the accessibility fixes that reduce legal risk also increase revenue. Clear labels, larger tap targets, logical focus order, and readable contrast reduce friction for every shopper, not just those using assistive technology.

And the market is enormous. 61 million Americans live with a disability, and people with disabilities control an estimated $13 trillion in global spending power. An inaccessible checkout is a closed door for a meaningful share of your traffic. Accessible commerce is simply better commerce — which is the deeper argument in the ROI of web accessibility.

The fix order for store owners

1. Audit your real storefront. Run a free compliance scan, then get a professional audit that includes a manual keyboard-and-screen-reader pass through your checkout — automated tools miss the most important transactional barriers.
2. Fix the Big Six first, prioritizing product-image alt text and checkout form labels.
3. Test the full purchase flow with a keyboard only. If you cannot complete a purchase without a mouse, neither can a large share of your customers.
4. Audit your third-party apps and pop-ups — disable or replace the ones that introduce barriers.
5. Do not paper over it with an overlay. Widgets correlate with being sued, not protected; remediate the code instead.
6. Work the requirements checklist and publish an accessibility statement.

Want to know how exposed your store is before a plaintiff firm tells you? Model it with our lawsuit risk calculator, which weights e-commerce risk using the 2025 data — then fix the barriers that are costing you both lawsuits and sales.