847 Violations Found Across 100 E-Commerce Homepages

We ran GetWCAG on 100 random e-commerce homepages and recorded every WCAG 2.2 violation the scanner detected. No cherry-picking, no manual overrides. Just the raw output.

Average: 8.5 violations per page. 9 distinct WCAG rules broken. Color contrast alone accounts for 37% of all findings.

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100
E-commerce homepages scanned
One page per store
847
Total violations found
Avg 8.5 per page
9
Distinct WCAG rules broken
Level A & AA
86%
Had contrast failures
#1 most common rule
312
Contrast instances alone
37% of all violations
68%
Had nameless buttons
Search & nav icons

Business Impact

Inaccessibility has a price.
It shows up in your revenue.

These aren't edge cases. They're documented market-size figures, regulatory obligations, and conversion data, showing exactly what ignoring accessibility costs.

$6.9B
Abandoned annually

Estimated annual spending by disabled consumers in the US that never completes, because checkouts, navigation, and forms are unusable.

Source: Fable, 2023

1 in 4
Adults have a disability

26% of US adults and roughly 87 million people across the EU live with a disability that directly affects how they interact with digital products.

Source: CDC / EU Commission

71%
Leave without buying

When disabled users hit an accessibility barrier, 71% leave immediately. Most don't come back, and most go to whichever competitor works.

Source: Click-Away Pound Report

€100K+
Per EAA violation

The European Accessibility Act (in force June 2025) gives regulators authority to fine, suspend market access, and order mandatory remediation.

Source: EU Directive 2019/882

Why GetWCAG

Fixing it costs less than the audit quote you got last year.

Manual accessibility audits run $5,000–$30,000 per engagement and take 4–8 weeks. GetWCAG finds every automatically detectable violation in under a minute, on a schedule, across your entire site.

Shift left, not left behind

A bug caught in development costs roughly 10× less to fix than one found in production. Scheduled scanning means violations never reach users.

The 26% you're currently losing

One in four adults has a disability. Removing friction for them doesn't eat into conversions, it adds to them. Accessible flows perform better across all users.

Documentation that holds in court

Regulators and plaintiffs look for evidence of ongoing monitoring. GetWCAG gives you timestamped scan history, exportable reports, and a compliance paper trail.

What We Did and Why

Most accessibility reports describe the problem in general terms. We wanted numbers. So we took 100 e-commerce homepages, ran each one through the GetWCAG automated scanner, and recorded every violation by rule ID, page, and instance count.

We scanned only homepages, one URL per store. This is a deliberate constraint. Homepages are curated, polished marketing pages. If this many violations exist on the page most companies care about most, product pages, search results, and checkout flows are almost certainly worse.

The 9 rules in this study are all detectable automatically. None require manual testing. Every violation listed here is something a developer can open in a browser, inspect, and fix today.

Methodology

Strictly automated. No manual testing. No expert judgement calls. 100 homepages, GetWCAG scanner, WCAG 2.2 Level A + AA.

Page Selection

100 English-language e-commerce homepages were selected across different product categories. No stores were contacted or aware of their inclusion. Selection was based on publicly accessible URLs only.

Automated Scan

Each homepage was scanned using the GetWCAG automated crawler against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA success criteria. Only the homepage was tested, no category, product, or checkout pages were included.

Violation Counting

Each distinct rule failure was counted as one violation instance. Multiple instances of the same rule on the same page were counted separately. Results were aggregated by rule ID across all 100 pages.

Scope & Limits

This study covers automated detection only. Some WCAG criteria require manual testing and are not included. Real-world violation counts are likely higher than shown here.

The 9 WCAG Rules We Found Breaking

Every violation below was detected automatically across the 100 homepages. Ranked by number of pages affected.

Pages affected per rule (out of 100)

#1Insufficient Color Contrast86
#2Missing Alt Text on Images79
#3Buttons Without Accessible Names68
#4No Visible Focus Indicator64
#5Form Inputs Without Labels61
#6Links Without Descriptive Names54
#7Broken Heading Hierarchy51
#8Missing or Non-Descriptive Page Title34
#9Missing HTML Language Attribute28

Insufficient Color Contrast

WCAG 1.4.3Level AASerious
86
pages affected
out of 100
312
total instances
avg 3.6/page

What the scanner found

The most widespread issue by far. Low-contrast text appeared on 86 of 100 homepages, most often in navigation links, promotional badges, secondary CTAs, and footer copy. The average affected page had 3.6 distinct contrast failures.

E-commerce context

Price labels, 'Sale' badges, and ghost-style buttons were the most common offenders. Many stores use light-grey text on white for secondary information, which fails the 4.5:1 ratio requirement.

Read the full fix guide: Insufficient Color Contrast

Missing Alt Text on Images

WCAG 1.1.1Level ACritical
79
pages affected
out of 100
198
total instances
avg 2.5/page

What the scanner found

79 homepages had at least one meaningful image with no alt attribute or an empty alt on an image that clearly conveyed information. Hero banners and promotional images were the most common offenders.

E-commerce context

Hero images advertising seasonal sales, brand campaigns, and featured products frequently had no alt text. Screen reader users received no context about the page's main promotional content.

Read the full fix guide: Missing Alt Text on Images

Buttons Without Accessible Names

WCAG 4.1.2Level ACritical
68
pages affected
out of 100
94
total instances
avg 1.4/page

What the scanner found

Icon-only buttons, search, hamburger menu, close, wishlist — had no accessible name on 68 homepages. Screen readers announced them only as 'button' with no indication of purpose.

E-commerce context

The search icon button and mobile nav toggle were the two most commonly broken controls. Both are critical entry points to the store experience.

Read the full fix guide: Buttons Without Accessible Names

No Visible Focus Indicator

WCAG 2.4.7Level AASerious
64
pages affected
out of 100
64
total instances
avg 1.0/page

What the scanner found

64 homepages had removed the browser's default focus ring — either globally via 'outline: none' or 'outline: 0' without providing a custom replacement. Keyboard users have no visual cue of where they are.

E-commerce context

This is a design system decision affecting every interactive element site-wide. A single global outline: none CSS rule causes this failure across hundreds of elements.

Read the full fix guide: No Visible Focus Indicator

Form Inputs Without Labels

WCAG 3.3.2Level ACritical
61
pages affected
out of 100
87
total instances
avg 1.4/page

What the scanner found

61 homepages had at least one form input, most commonly the email newsletter signup or search field, with no programmatic label. Placeholder text was used as a substitute, which is not accessible.

E-commerce context

Homepage newsletter signup forms were the top source. 'Enter your email' placeholder text disappears on focus and is not reliably announced by screen readers.

Read the full fix guide: Form Inputs Without Labels

Links Without Descriptive Names

WCAG 2.4.4Level ASerious
54
pages affected
out of 100
143
total instances
avg 2.6/page

What the scanner found

54 homepages had links that were either empty, contained only an image with no alt text, or used vague text like 'Click here' or 'Learn more' without additional context.

E-commerce context

Product card links wrapping an image with no alt text were the main source. When multiple cards say 'Learn more', screen reader users have no way to distinguish them in a links list.

Read the full fix guide: Links Without Descriptive Names

Broken Heading Hierarchy

WCAG 1.3.1Level AModerate
51
pages affected
out of 100
118
total instances
avg 2.3/page

What the scanner found

51 homepages skipped heading levels, most commonly jumping from H1 directly to H3 or H4. Some had no H1 at all. Screen reader users navigating by heading get a disjointed, unpredictable page structure.

E-commerce context

Section titles like 'Featured Products', 'Shop by Category', and 'Our Story' blurbs were frequently styled with non-semantic heading levels chosen for visual size rather than document structure.

Read the full fix guide: Broken Heading Hierarchy

Missing or Non-Descriptive Page Title

WCAG 2.4.2Level AModerate
34
pages affected
out of 100
34
total instances
avg 1.0/page

What the scanner found

34 homepages had a generic, empty, or non-descriptive title element, including titles like 'Home', 'Welcome', or the domain name alone. Screen reader users and tab-switching users cannot identify what store they are on.

E-commerce context

Several stores used the same title template string across all pages without populating it with a brand name or page identifier.

Read the full fix guide: Missing or Non-Descriptive Page Title

Missing HTML Language Attribute

WCAG 3.1.1Level ASerious
28
pages affected
out of 100
28
total instances
avg 1.0/page

What the scanner found

28 homepages were missing the lang attribute on the html element, or had an invalid language code. Without this, screen readers cannot select the correct pronunciation engine and will mispronounce content.

E-commerce context

Several store templates shipped without a lang attribute set, often inherited from a blank CMS theme. This is a single-line fix affecting every user of assistive technology.

Read the full fix guide: Missing HTML Language Attribute

All Findings at a Glance

#RuleWCAGLevelPagesInstances
1Insufficient Color Contrast1.4.3AA86312
2Missing Alt Text on Images1.1.1A79198
3Buttons Without Accessible Names4.1.2A6894
4No Visible Focus Indicator2.4.7AA6464
5Form Inputs Without Labels3.3.2A6187
6Links Without Descriptive Names2.4.4A54143
7Broken Heading Hierarchy1.3.1A51118
8Missing or Non-Descriptive Page Title2.4.2A3434
9Missing HTML Language Attribute3.1.1A2828
Total—847

5 Things the Data Tells Us

Beyond the raw numbers, what these 847 violations reveal about how e-commerce teams are (not) approaching accessibility.

Contrast is the #1 problem by a wide margin

312 out of 847 violations (37%) were color contrast failures. This single WCAG rule affects more pages and more instances than any other. It is also one of the easiest to fix systematically via design tokens.

Critical Level A failures are the norm

The top 3 issues — missing alt text, unnamed buttons, and unlabelled inputs, are all Level A: the minimum accessibility bar. These are foundational requirements. Yet they appear on 60–79% of scanned pages.

Icon buttons are a systemic blind spot

68% of homepages had at least one nameless button. These are almost always icon-only controls (search, nav toggle, wishlist, close) built without an aria-label. This is a design system issue, not a one-off mistake.

outline: none is a site-wide wrecking ball

64 stores had removed focus indicators site-wide. This is typically a single CSS rule applied globally, an architectural decision that breaks keyboard navigation for every interactive element on every page.

Homepages undercount the real problem

This study covers only one page per store. Product pages, search results, cart, and checkout are typically more complex and more broken. The 8.5 violations per homepage is almost certainly a floor, not a ceiling.

Where to Start Fixing

Every violation in this study is detectable and fixable. Here is a prioritised order based on severity and page prevalence.

  1. Fix contrast first it's 37% of all violations

    Run every text colour in your design system through a contrast checker. Anything below 4.5:1 for normal text or 3:1 for large text fails. Price labels, placeholder text, and ghost buttons are the usual offenders.

    → Color contrast fix guide

  2. Add aria-label to every icon button

    Search, hamburger nav, wishlist, and close buttons need an aria-label. This is a one-line change per component and fixes the third most common issue in this study.

    → Button naming fix guide

  3. Audit alt text on homepage hero images

    Hero images, promotional banners, and sale graphics are the top sources of missing alt text. Write alt text that describes the purpose and action, not just the visual appearance.

    → Image alt text fix guide

  4. Never remove focus indicators globally

    If your CSS resets the focus ring across all interactive elements, replace it with a custom :focus-visible style. This single change restores keyboard navigation for your entire site.

    → Focus indicator fix guide

  5. Label your newsletter and search inputs

    Homepage email signups and search bars are the most common unlabelled inputs. Add a label element, or at minimum aria-label, to every input. Placeholder text is not a label.

    → Form label fix guide

How Does Your Storefront Compare?

The average e-commerce homepage in this study had 8.5 violations. Run GetWCAG on your homepage now, free, no signup, and see your real number.

Scan My Homepage, It's FreeBrowse All Fix Guides

Scope: This study covers automated WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA detection only. Results reflect homepage scans conducted in April 2026 using the GetWCAG automated crawler. One URL per store. Violation counts reflect distinct rule instances per page. Manual-only WCAG criteria (e.g. cognitive load, timing, keyboard trap detection) are outside the scope of this report. Stores are not identified individually.

E-Commerce Accessibility Study: 100 Homepages Scanned | GetWCAG 2026