If you scanned a hundred Shopify stores tomorrow, you would not find a hundred different problems. You would find the same dozen, over and over, wearing slightly different themes.
We know this because the pattern is well documented. Every year WebAIM runs an automated scan of the top one million home pages on the web, and the results barely move: a small handful of failures account for the large majority of detectable issues. Those same failures live inside popular Shopify themes too, because themes reuse the same components, and stores reuse the same themes.
Here are the ones worth checking first, roughly in the order you are likely to hit them.
1. Low-contrast text
This is the single most common failure on the web, present on roughly four out of five home pages in WebAIM’s analysis. On Shopify it usually shows up as light grey helper text, faint placeholder text in forms, or sale prices in a color that looks nice but does not clear 4.5:1 against the background. Fix it by checking every text color against its real background, not the design mockup.
2. Missing image alt text
Missing alternative text sits near the top of every report, on more than half of pages scanned. On a store this is product images with no description, or worse, image links to collections that a screen reader announces as nothing at all. Every meaningful image needs alt text. Purely decorative images should be hidden from assistive tech, not given filler.
3. Unlabeled form fields
Newsletter signups, search bars, and address forms often rely on placeholder text instead of a real label. Placeholders disappear the moment someone types, and many screen readers do not announce them reliably. Give every field a proper label, even if you hide it visually.
4. Empty links
A link with no text inside it, usually an icon-only link like a cart or account button, gets announced as “link” and nothing else. Add an accessible name so it reads as “View cart” or “Your account.”
5. Empty buttons
Same problem, different element. Icon buttons for menu, search, close, and quantity steppers frequently ship with no accessible name. A screen reader user hears “button” and has to guess.
6. Missing document language
If your theme does not declare a language on the page, screen readers can mispronounce everything. It is a one-line fix in the theme, and it is missing more often than you would expect.
7. Weak heading structure
Themes love to style text to look like a heading without using a real heading tag, or they jump from an H1 straight to an H4. Assistive tech uses headings to navigate, so a broken outline makes the page much harder to move through.
8. Keyboard traps in the cart drawer
Slide-out cart drawers and quick-view modals are the classic offenders. Focus goes in and cannot get out with the keyboard, or the page behind stays active while the drawer is open. Every drawer and modal needs proper focus handling.
9. No visible focus indicator
Tab through most stores and the outline that shows where you are just vanishes, usually because a theme removed the default focus ring for looks. Keyboard users are then navigating blind. Keep a clear, visible focus style on every interactive element.
10. Meaning carried by color alone
Required fields marked only in red, sale badges that rely on color, error states with no text. If color is the only signal, anyone who cannot distinguish it is left out. Add text or an icon alongside the color.
11. Inaccessible variant pickers
Custom dropdowns, swatches, and size selectors built without the right roles and states are a frequent source of trouble. A native select is boring but accessible. A custom one needs correct ARIA to match.
12. Motion with no controls
Auto-advancing hero carousels and animations that cannot be paused fail for people who are distracted or made unwell by movement. Give users a way to stop it.
Where to go from here
None of these are exotic, and most are quick to fix once you know they are there. The hard part is finding all of them and knowing which ones actually create legal exposure.
You can start with our accessibility checklist and work through your own store. When you want a person to verify it properly, including the parts automated tools miss, that is what a manual audit is for.