Accessibility of online shops 2026: 289 home pages in 5 countries

We checked the home pages of 289 well-known online shops in 5 countries with the same automated rules as the weekly Pandus check (WCAG 2.2, levels A and AA). The median score was 78 out of 100. Text with too little contrast was the most common barrier: it appeared on 159 home pages (55%). 103 home pages (36%) had at least one critical problem, one that can stop a visitor with a screen reader or a keyboard from using the page at all.

This is an automated check of one page per shop, not a full audit, and not legal advice. Automated tests find only part of accessibility problems; the rest needs a manual review.

How did we check the shops?

• Selection. In each country, an editorial list of large and well-known online shops from different categories: electronics, fashion, home, beauty, pharmacies, books, groceries, marketplaces. It is not a traffic ranking and not a random sample. Shops owned by companies from Russia or Belarus are not included. Of the 417 shops on the lists, 128 showed our browser a bot check, a country chooser or an error page instead of the home page; they have no score and are not part of the numbers.
• What we checked. Only the home page, in a regular Chromium browser without signing in, with axe-core and the rules of the weekly Pandus check. Only the required WCAG 2.2 A and AA criteria count; AAA criteria and best practices do not.
• Score from 0 to 100. For every rule the page fails, we subtract points by severity: critical −15, serious −8, moderate −3, minor −1. How often the same problem repeats does not change the score, so a long page is not punished for its length.
• Low contrast means that the page fails the axe-core colour contrast rule (WCAG 1.4.3) at least once. Critical problem means at least one failed rule of critical severity.

What are the limits of the study?

• One page per shop. The cart, the checkout, product filters and the account were not checked, and they often have more barriers than the home page.
• Automated tools find only part of the barriers. They cannot tell whether an image description makes sense, whether the Tab order is logical or whether an order can be placed with a keyboard.
• The lists are editorial and differ between countries in size and in the mix of categories, so the countries are not strictly comparable.
• The result is a snapshot of the day of the check. Shops change their pages often.

What does this mean for shops?

A high score does not mean that everyone can use a site with ease, and a low score is not a legal judgement. A low score does mean that there are barriers on the very first page that are easy to find and usually not hard to fix. Each problem in the tables is explained, with how to fix it, in the rule library. Whether the European Accessibility Act applies to a shop depends, among other things, on its size: see who the EAA applies to.

How can a shop ask for a correction?

If a result for your shop looks wrong or you have fixed something, write to us through the contact form: we check again for free and update the ranking and the data. You can check any page of your own site with the free check. We plan to repeat the study and keep the date of each check in the data.