Platform guide · Shopify
Shopify accessibility and the BFSG
Selling to consumers in Germany puts a Shopify store in scope regardless of where the company is. Shopify controls part of the stack; your theme and your apps control the part that usually fails.
- In scope wherever your company sits
- Checkout is Shopify’s; the storefront is yours
- Apps are the usual culprit
Who owns which part
- Shopify owns the hosted checkout, and has done real work on it — but you still have to verify what your configuration renders
- You own the theme, which is where the storefront markup comes from
- You own every app you installed, including the ones that inject markup into pages you did not edit
- You own your product content: alt text, headings in descriptions, colour-only variant swatches
- You own the accessibility information Annex 3 BFSG requires, which Shopify does not write for you
Platform guide · Shopify
What we find on Shopify stores
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App-injected widgets
Review widgets, upsell popups, cookie bars and chat bubbles inject markup nobody reviewed. Popups that trap focus are the most common serious finding.
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Variant swatches with no name
Colour squares rendered as empty elements with a background colour. The colour is the only information and it is announced as nothing.
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Rich-text descriptions
Merchandising teams paste from Word, so descriptions arrive with bold pseudo-headings, empty links and inline styles that fail contrast.
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Theme sections built for the mouse
Sliders, tabs and accordions in a bought theme, implemented without the keyboard behaviour their ARIA roles promise.
Where to look first
Each links to a plain-language page on that criterion: what it asks for, how it fails in practice, and how far an automated check can get.
A sensible order of work
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Inventory your apps
List what each one injects on which template. Anything that renders a dialog or a form is a candidate for the worst finding on the store.
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Name the swatches
A swatch needs an accessible name and a non-colour cue. It is a small theme change and it fixes a criterion on every product page.
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Clean up the description template
Give merchandisers a constrained editor. It is cheaper than remediating descriptions forever.
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Verify your checkout configuration
Checkout extensions and custom fields are yours, not Shopify’s. Test the configuration you actually ship.
Shopify questions
Shopify says its checkout is accessible. Does that cover us?
For the standard hosted checkout it covers a lot, and it is genuinely one of the better ones. It does not cover your storefront, your apps, your theme or anything you added to checkout — and it is the whole service that is in scope, not the part somebody else built.
Will an accessibility app make us compliant?
No. Overlay widgets do not fix the underlying markup, and they are named in a growing number of complaints and lawsuits. They also do not produce the evidence you would need to answer a market surveillance enquiry.
Written to be useful, not to be legal advice. It reflects our reading of the BFSG and EN 301 549 as of 12 October 2026; for a binding assessment of your obligations, ask a lawyer.
Further reading
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Shop systems & CMS
One guide per shop system and CMS: what the platform gives you, what it does not, and where to test first.
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WooCommerce
Block checkout and accessibility-ready themes are a start. Consent banners, swatch plugins, AJAX filters and payment iframes are where WooCommerce shops fail.
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Wix
Wix writes the markup; you choose order, headings, colours, apps and alt text. Freely placed elements and App Market apps are where Wix sites fail.
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Webflow
Webflow's tested elements and Audit panel are a start. Interactions without a reduced-motion condition and widgets built from div blocks are where Webflow sites fail.
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Jimdo
First check whether the BFSG applies at all. If it does: Jimdo colour sets that fail contrast, three heading sizes used for looks and pasted-in widgets are where Jimdo sites fail.
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Squarespace
Squarespace ships a skip link, focus outlines and labelled checkout fields. Free Fluid Engine layouts, colour choices and pasted-in code are where sites fail.
See what this finds on your site
Send a URL. We scan up to 100 pages, send the keyboard agent through the page you name and email you the report — free, once, no strings.