Accessibility on Shopify
Even Shopify’s own free Dawn theme ships with accessibility issues out of the box, and every app you install adds third-party code that Shopify does not audit for accessibility, keyboard traps or screen reader compatibility.
For a store with hundreds of products, small issues multiply fast: missing alt text on product images alone can mean thousands of individual failures across a catalog.
Common Accessibility Issues on Shopify Sites
Missing or generic product alt text
Alt text failures are consistently the single most common issue on e-commerce sites; a store with 500 products and 4 images each has 2,000 separate places it can go wrong.
Keyboard traps in cart and checkout
Customers who cannot use a mouse are frequently unable to complete a purchase because the cart drawer or checkout flow does not support keyboard navigation.
Broken heading structure on collection pages
Product collection and category pages often skip heading levels or use styled text instead of real headings, confusing screen reader navigation.
Unaudited third-party apps
Reviews, upsell, chat and marketing apps inject their own HTML and JavaScript that can silently break keyboard access or screen reader labeling on every page they run on.
Mobile menu apps
Apps that replace Shopify’s default navigation with a custom mobile menu often lose the keyboard and screen reader support the original theme had.
How AccessBell Scans Your Shopify Site
- Enter any public page. Paste the address of a page on your Shopify site into the scanner above. There is nothing to install: no plugin, no code snippet and no login.
- We load it in a real browser. AccessBell opens the page in headless Chrome and runs its scripts, so it tests what your visitors actually see, including content added by your theme, apps or plugins.
- We run the WCAG rules. The open-source axe-core engine checks the page against the standard you choose, and every result is mapped to the WCAG success criteria it affects.
- You get a report in seconds. Each issue comes with the failing HTML and how to fix it. Our methodology explains exactly what runs and what still needs a person.
What's Included in Every Scan
- 63 automated rules for WCAG 2.2 Level AA, or presets for WCAG 2.1 AA, the ADA, Section 508 and EN 301 549
- Every issue ranked by severity, from critical to minor
- The WCAG success criteria each issue fails, which you can look up in our WCAG library
- The failing HTML, so you can find the element in your Shopify editor or code
- How to fix each issue, with a link to the rule's full documentation
- A list of checks that need a person to review, so nothing is missed
- Filters by WCAG version, level, principle, success criterion and severity
The free scan checks one page at a time. AccessBell Pro scans up to 500 pages per domain every day and alerts you when something changes.
How to Fix What the Scan Finds
- Rescan after every theme change and every app install; Shopify does not vet apps for accessibility, so a single new app can undo fixes you already made.
- Prioritize checkout and cart issues first: they block revenue directly and are the most common trigger for a demand letter in e-commerce.
- Run a free scan above on your homepage and a few key pages, fix issues starting with critical and serious, then rescan to confirm.
- For ongoing protection, AccessBell Pro monitors up to 500 URLs per domain every day and alerts you when a theme, app or plugin update introduces a new issue.
Related Guides
Shopify Accessibility — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shopify accessible by default?
Shopify’s own themes are a reasonable starting point, but WebAIM’s research found Shopify home pages average significantly more accessibility errors than the overall web. Most issues come from theme customization and installed apps, not the Shopify platform itself.
Which Shopify accessibility issue should I fix first?
Cart and checkout keyboard traps first, since they block purchases directly, followed by missing product image alt text, which is usually the highest-volume issue on a catalog site.
Do accessibility apps in the Shopify App Store fix this?
Overlay-style apps run in the browser and do not change your store’s underlying code. A real scan that shows you the failing markup, and a developer fix in your theme, resolves the issue permanently.
Sources
This page explains general accessibility patterns for Shopify sites and is not legal advice. AccessBell is not affiliated with Shopify. See our disclaimer.