Our client sells consumer products through a Shopify storefront. Customers browse collections, compare models, configure options, and check out entirely online. The site was already in good shape on accessibility, ahead of most ecommerce stores. The gaps that remained were the subtle, high-impact ones that only surface when someone shops the site with a screen reader or a keyboard.
The client engaged Fetchly's ADA team to audit the full shopping experience against WCAG 2.1 and guide remediation across the site. We reviewed the home page, collection and product pages, the product comparison tools, cart, checkout, search, the interactive quizzes, and every mobile equivalent.
Problem space
Accessibility on a mature ecommerce site is a different problem from a broken one. The obvious fixes were already in place. What remained were the barriers buried in the parts of the site that change as you use them: product configurators, comparison tables, modals, cart updates, price changes. These are where accessibility tends to break, and they are the parts a shopper cannot skip.
Our audit found 108 issues across the shopping journey, and the patterns were consistent. Buttons, links, form controls, product selectors, and ratings often gave screen readers nothing to announce. Interactive elements could not always be operated by keyboard. Images, marketing graphics, and video were missing text alternatives. Focus got lost inside modals and galleries. And dynamic updates (product selections, price changes, cart changes) were never announced to assistive technology.
Most of these sat directly in the path to purchase. A shopper using a screen reader could reach a product, fail to operate the size selector, and have no way forward. That is the kind of barrier a quick automated scan does not catch. It shows up when a person tries to buy something.
Solution space
We paired automated scanning with manual testing, because the two find different things. Axe DevTools and Google Lighthouse flagged the issues a machine can catch: contrast ratios, missing labels, structural problems. The manual testing is where the harder barriers surfaced. Our team worked through the site with the top screen readers and by keyboard alone, checking focus behavior, form handling, semantic structure, and how the site held up on mobile with VoiceOver and TalkBack.
Every issue was documented with implementation guidance and mapped to the specific WCAG success criterion it violated. That turned a long list of problems into something a development team could work through efficiently, with each fix tied to a standard and a reason.
We sequenced the work by severity and business impact. The critical barriers in the purchase flow came first: product detail pages, product configuration, the comparison tools, cart, checkout, and the main menu, plus mobile. The reasoning was simple. A barrier that stops a sale outranks one that only slows it down.
Outcome space
The audit and remediation cleared the issues that mattered most, in order of how much they blocked customers:
- 100% of critical issues resolved, both the ones affecting the entire site and those limited to specific sections
- 100% of serious and moderate issues resolved
- Every WCAG Level A issue resolved, and the large majority of Level AA
- 96% of mobile accessibility remediation complete, across VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android
- 83% of the broader ecommerce accessibility enhancements complete, with work continuing
Accessibility on a store this size is a standard the site has to hold as it keeps changing, which is why the engagement continues. The remaining work, mobile polish, the last of the ecommerce enhancements, and heading structure consistency across the platform, is underway.
The engagement also changed how accessibility gets handled going forward. The audit established standards and processes the client's team can apply to new pages and features, so compliance holds as the platform grows. Accessibility moved from a one-time review into part of how the site gets built.
The business case tracked alongside the customer one. Closing the critical barriers across the buying flow reduced the client's ADA compliance exposure. It also opened the store to shoppers it had been quietly turning away: people using screen readers, keyboard-only shoppers, customers with low vision, anyone on mobile assistive technology, and shoppers with cognitive disabilities. They can now browse products, compare options, configure a purchase, add to cart, and check out with far fewer barriers in the way.