E-commerce represents roughly 67% of all federal ADA Title III website lawsuits filed in the US (see Lawsuit Statistics 2025). To understand what plaintiff firms actually see when they scan, we ran the Scrutia audit (WCAG 2.1 AA aligned) on five publicly accessible mid-market US e-commerce sites.

Important disclaimers:

This article reports automated audit findings on publicly accessible homepages. It does not certify litigation risk and is not legal advice.
Sites are anonymized to "Site A through E" to focus on patterns, not target specific companies.
Findings reflect a single point-in-time scan; sites are typically updated frequently.
We did not contact the audited companies before running these public-data audits.

Methodology

For each site we ran:

Scrutia AI-augmented WCAG 2.1 AA audit on the homepage (/)
The same 88 success criteria a plaintiff's expert would check
Manual review of the top 5 reported issues for false positives

Site-by-site summary

Site A — Apparel / fashion, ~$80M ARR estimated

	Value
Scrutia score	49/100
Critical failures	11
Most common WCAG issue	1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) — 7 instances
Lawsuit risk band	High

Key issues found:

Product card titles in light gray (#9CA3AF) on white → contrast ratio 2.8:1 (target 4.5:1)
Add-to-cart button uses <div onclick> without role="button" or tabindex → not keyboard-accessible
Search filter expandable panels lack aria-expanded state announcements
Hero carousel auto-rotates without pause control (WCAG 2.2.2)

The combination of e-commerce conversion-critical components (cart, filters) failing keyboard + screen-reader access is exactly the profile plaintiff firms target.

Site B — Beauty / cosmetics DTC, ~$40M ARR estimated

	Value
Scrutia score	57/100
Critical failures	8
Most common WCAG issue	4.1.2 Name, Role, Value — 5 instances
Lawsuit risk band	Medium-High

Key issues found:

Sticky "Mini cart" icon button uses an SVG without accessible name (no aria-label, no nested <title>)
Product image carousel uses dots as navigation, dots are <div> without role
Newsletter modal: focus is not trapped, Escape key does not close, screen reader announces nothing on open
Several decorative images lack alt="" (announced as filename to screen readers)

Pattern: the brand spent design budget on a polished visual experience but didn't allocate accessibility QA time for screen-reader / keyboard scenarios. Common DTC profile.

Site C — Food specialty marketplace, ~$15M ARR estimated

	Value
Scrutia score	62/100
Critical failures	6
Most common WCAG issue	1.3.1 Info and Relationships — 4 instances
Lawsuit risk band	Medium

Key issues found:

Product category navigation uses <div> with click handlers instead of <a> or <button>
Quantity selector +/− buttons have no accessible label (only visual symbols)
Form field labels are placeholders only — disappear when typing
Site loads on a slow 3G to roughly 4 seconds of progressive content rendering, with intermediate states that don't announce loading status to assistive tech

This site is mid-range: not catastrophic, but the listed issues are common citations in ADA complaints.

Site D — Home goods / DTC furniture, ~$25M ARR estimated

	Value
Scrutia score	71/100
Critical failures	4
Most common WCAG issue	2.4.4 Link Purpose — 3 instances
Lawsuit risk band	Medium-Low

Key issues found:

Multiple "Shop now" links on the homepage with identical text — no programmatic distinction
"View details" buttons for product cards lack context (which product?)
Color filter on product listing page uses color swatches alone (no text alternative for color names)
Otherwise: solid semantic HTML, working keyboard navigation, focus indicators visible

This is the strongest profile of the five. Plaintiff firms typically deprioritize sites scoring above 70 in favor of easier targets — but the link/button labeling issues are exactly the type cited even on stronger sites.

Site E — Direct-to-consumer mattress / sleep brand, ~$120M ARR estimated

	Value
Scrutia score	78/100
Critical failures	3
Most common WCAG issue	1.4.11 Non-text Contrast — 2 instances
Lawsuit risk band	Low

Key issues found:

"Add to cart" button border in light gray on white (UI contrast)
Mini-cart drawer opens with focus jumping to the first focusable element below the page footer instead of into the drawer
One form has placeholder-only labels for an optional referral field

The brand has invested in an accessibility-aware design system. The remaining issues are minor but present — and even at 78/100, the site is not immune to opportunistic lawsuits.

Patterns observed across all 5

1. Decorative-vs-informative images are misclassified

All 5 sites have at least one image with confusing alt strategy: decorative images announced to screen readers, or informative images marked alt="". This is consistently cited in complaints as WCAG 1.1.1 failure.

2. Custom interactive components miss ARIA basics

Carousels, modals, filters, mini-carts — every site has at least one custom component built with <div> + JavaScript that fails basic ARIA attribution. Pattern recognition for plaintiff firms is now automated — they scan thousands of sites for exactly these patterns.

3. Form field labels are placeholders

Of the 5 sites, 4 use HTML5 placeholders as the only label on at least one form. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 and 3.3.2. It's a one-line fix per field, but it shows up everywhere.

4. Keyboard navigation breaks at conversion-critical components

The exact components that make e-commerce work — add-to-cart, checkout buttons, filter panels — frequently fail keyboard navigation. This is what a tester targeting your site will demonstrate first.

5. Focus indicators are inconsistent

Either suppressed by outline: 0 for visual reasons, or so subtle they fail WCAG 2.4.7. None of the 5 sites had focus indicators that an experienced auditor would call clearly compliant.

What this means for your e-commerce site

Statistically, if you run a US-facing e-commerce site with annual revenue between $5M and $500M:

You are in the most-targeted segment for ADA Title III lawsuits (see stats)
You almost certainly have at least 5 of the criteria-typically-cited failing on your homepage
Your competitors have either already audited (and fixed), or are about to get sued

Two reasonable choices:

Wait for a demand letter and pay the $50K median settlement
Run a $499 pre-emptive Scrutia audit and remediate the cited criteria first

The math is not subtle.

Run the same audit on your site

The 5 audits above used the free version of Scrutia that anyone can run in 5 minutes. Try it on your own homepage now — you'll get the same data: score, list of failures, exact code locations.

Run my free audit →

We audited 5 US mid-market e-commerce sites — here's their lawsuit-ready ADA exposure

Methodology

Site-by-site summary

Site A — Apparel / fashion, ~$80M ARR estimated

Site B — Beauty / cosmetics DTC, ~$40M ARR estimated

Site C — Food specialty marketplace, ~$15M ARR estimated

Site D — Home goods / DTC furniture, ~$25M ARR estimated

Site E — Direct-to-consumer mattress / sleep brand, ~$120M ARR estimated

Patterns observed across all 5

1. Decorative-vs-informative images are misclassified

2. Custom interactive components miss ARIA basics

3. Form field labels are placeholders

4. Keyboard navigation breaks at conversion-critical components

5. Focus indicators are inconsistent

What this means for your e-commerce site

Run the same audit on your site

Further reading

Reduce your ADA lawsuit risk