Are E-Commerce Websites Required to Be ADA Compliant?

“Is my e-commerce website required to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act(opens in a new tab) (ADA)?” It’s one of the most common questions in the retail industry, and it is worth understanding before a demand letter forces the issue.

Below, we’ll cover what this means for retail stores specifically, including which parts of a storefront must be accessible and the state laws that increase legal exposure for retailers selling nationwide.

The Legal Basis for Online Stores

Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination in public places, which previously applied only to physical spaces like stores and restaurants. Since then, courts have extended that definition to online storefronts that businesses run, and retail is where the precedent is sharpest. 

The precedent that shaped this for stores came out of Robles v. Domino's Pizza. Guillermo Robles, who is blind, could not complete an order on Domino’s website or app using a screen reader. He sued under Title III. In January 2019, the Ninth Circuit ruled the ADA applied because the site and app connected customers to the goods and services of a public accommodation. Domino’s asked the Supreme Court to review the decision, but the Court declined to hear the case in October 2019. This left the Ninth Circuit ruling in place as a binding law across nine states.

For online retail, the logic is direct: a store’s website is the store. If a customer cannot complete a purchase because the site is inaccessible, that is the digital version of a barrier. 

The Lawsuit Data: E-Commerce is the Number-One Target

The numbers are what make retail exposure real. AudioEye’s 2026 Web Accessibility Litigation Report found that total accessibility lawsuits have more than doubled since 2020, and that 78% of them target e-commerce. That makes online retail the single most sued category, by a wide margin.

The reason is structural; it comes down to how stores are built. A storefront carries dense, interactive flows like product filters, carousels, and multi-step checkout, and each one is a place where a barrier can appear and a complaint can arise. Our data found that most accessibility lawsuits start with a customer who could not complete a purchase.

Two findings from our report matter most for store owners: 

First, litigation has moved to the states: nearly 8 in 10 lawsuits are now filed in state courts, where statutory damages and varying standards can multiply exposure for a store selling nationwide. Second, having a tool installed is not the same as being protected. AudioEye found that 38.5% of businesses sued in 2025 already had an accessibility solution in place when the lawsuit arrived, usually a widget that left checkout, forms, and navigation inaccessible. 

This is not only a large retailer problem. Small and mid-sized stores make up the majority of defendants, not just big-name brands. The bottom line: any size retail store can face legal consequences for an inaccessible website.

Illustration of a store front

What Must Be Accessible on Your Online Storefront

Every storefront has five pressure points. They are where customers act, where barriers cost you sales, and where plaintiffs look first:

• Product pages: Images need descriptive alt text, prices and variant options need to be compatible with screen readers, and the page needs a proper heading structure. Any product a screen reader can’t read or interact with is something they cannot buy, resulting in lost sales and revenue for your store.

• Search: Site search must be operable via keyboard, and results must be announced clearly to assistive technology. If a shopper can’t find a product, nothing downstream matters. 

• Cart: Adding, removing, and updating items must work without a mouse, and quantity changes and totals must be communicated clearly. A common failure is a cart that updates on-screen but tells a screen reader that nothing has changed.

• Checkout: This is the highest-stakes flow in the store. Form fields need labels, errors need to be identified in text, not just color, and every step has to be reachable via keyboard. A broken checkout is the barrier most likely to end in a complaint.

• Account: Sign-up, login, and order history need accessible forms and clear focus states. Locking a customer out of their own account is a direct denial of service.

Each of these failures maps to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(opens in a new tab) (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, the standard courts and settlements point to. Ensuring your online store includes all WCAG standards is the clearest way to close the gaps plaintiffs look for.

How State Laws Compound Your Federal Exposure

Federal ADA risk is the floor. Two state laws raise the ceiling for any store that ships nationwide.

California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act ties directly to the ADA, meaning an ADA violation is automatically an Unruh violation in California. Unruh carries what federal law does not: statutory damages of at least $4,000 per violation plus attorney fees, with no need to prove financial harm. For a retail store, that turns a single inaccessible checkout into a four-figure liability before damages are even argued.

New York’s State Human Rights Law(opens in a new tab) applies a similarly broad reading of public accommodation to websites, and New York remains the most active state for these filings. A retailer selling into both states can face federal, Unruh, and New York claims on a single inaccessible page.  One barrier is not one risk. For a nationwide store, it is federal exposure plus every state claim the store opens itself to.

Internet browser with a green staircase

The Practical Path for E-Commerce Compliance

When it comes to compliance, most stores reach for the fast fix, and the fast fix usually fails. An accessibility overlay or widget that promises instant compliance does not deliver it, and stores relying solely on overlays for accessibility have been named in a meaningful share of lawsuits. A one-time audit is better, but it goes stale the moment you change your theme, add more products, update checkout, or add any type of new content. 

Comprehensive compliance for e-commerce comes from continuous effort: automation that catches and fixes common accessibility issues paired with human expertise for the more complex issues. That combination is what holds up as your storefront changes and keeps your legal risk low.

How AudioEye Helps E-Commerce Stores

The hard part is maintaining accessibility. A store is never finished. Products turn over, themes get updated, checkout gets rebuilt for the holidays, and every change is a chance for a new barrier to slip in. Compliance that holds has to move at the speed the store does. That is the gap most tools leave open, and it is the gap a real solution has to close.

AudioEye is built for how online stores actually operate. As your catalog changes and promotions cycle, Active Monitoring scans continuously while Expert Audits from accessibility professionals catch what automation alone misses, so issues get fixed, not just logged. And when a legal claim arrives, AudioEye Assurance backs you with real support instead of leaving you to face it alone. The result: a storefront that stays accessible through every product drop and seasonal rush, and a measurably smaller litigation target.

Ready to see how accessible your online storefront is? Use our free accessibility scanner or schedule a demo to see AudioEye in action.