How accessible are US online stores?
We ran the automated accessibility checks of Google Lighthouse on 363 US stores. These catch only part of what WCAG requires, yet most stores already fail at least one of them.
Where stores stand
Share of stores by automated score. A clean automated pass is the floor, not full compliance.
| Under 70 | 1.4% | |
| 70 to 79 | 7.2% | |
| 80 to 89 | 33.9% | |
| 90 to 99 | 42.1% | |
| 100 | 15.4% |
The most common failures
Share of stores that fail each check, with the WCAG criterion it maps to.
| Text without enough contrast against its background (WCAG 1.4.3) | 41.9% | |
| Visible label differs from its accessible name (WCAG 2.5.3) | 33.6% | |
| Links with no readable name (WCAG 2.4.4) | 32.5% | |
| Headings that skip levels (WCAG 1.3.1) | 31.7% | |
| Tap targets too small or too close (WCAG 2.5.8) | 30.3% | |
| Images without a text alternative (WCAG 1.1.1) | 27.3% | |
| Buttons with no readable name (WCAG 4.1.2) | 14.3% | |
| Zoom disabled on phones (WCAG 1.4.4) | 8.8% | |
| Invalid ARIA attributes (WCAG 4.1.2) | 7.2% | |
| Lists built incorrectly (WCAG 1.3.1) | 6.9% | |
| ARIA attributes used where they are not allowed (WCAG 4.1.2) | 5.5% | |
| Form fields without a label (WCAG 1.3.1) | 5.2% | |
| No main landmark (WCAG 1.3.1) | 5.2% | |
| presentation-role-conflict | 4.7% | |
| Hidden elements a keyboard can still reach (WCAG 4.1.2) | 4.7% |
By platform
Share of stores on each platform with at least one issue.
| Shopify (238) | 86.6% | |
| Other (85) | 87.1% | |
| Salesforce Commerce Cloud (28) | 85.7% |
A clean automated result does not prove a store is accessible; a human still has to test with a keyboard and a screen reader. But the reverse holds: a store that fails these checks has problems any automated scanner finds in seconds, so anyone looking for them will find them too. The fix is usually small and done once, in the theme.
Method. Google PageSpeed Insights API, accessibility category (Lighthouse running axe-core rules), mobile, home page of each store, one run per store, from the US Aggregates only; no store or app is named. Related research: all studies.