3 Business Risks of Lacking Website Accessibility

The need to have an accessible website should be the top priority of every business with a website today.

The main factor driving this need is the increase in web accessibility lawsuits. In 2021, US businesses received a record 300,000 ADA lawsuits and demand letters, costing $3 billion in legal fees and settlements. For many businesses, this lawsuit liability tsunami feels like it came out of nowhere. This sort of lawsuit was virtually nonexistent in 2013; website accessibility lawsuit filings weren't even tracked until 2017.

Since the numbers have grown year after year.

Which businesses are at risk?

Last year, approximately 85% of ADA lawsuits in federal and state courts were filed against small and medium retail businesses. While these ADA compliance lawsuits were originally focused on large brands like Target and Chick-fil-a, the National Retail Federation (NRF) issued a warning to small-to-medium businesses urging them to start taking web accessibility seriously:

"Equal access to the internet is increasingly important with the rapid growth of online commerce and particularly the spike in online shopping we’ve seen during the pandemic." - NRF Chief Administrative Officer

Since the cost of defending a lawsuit could destroy even a medium-sized business, many business owners feel that they must settle out of court -- the average ADA website lawsuit settlement is $25,000. Oh, and don't forget the costs AFTER the lawsuit -- the business must then invest another $5,000 to $20,000 for an accessibility audit and remediation plan to bring the website into compliance.

Why accessibility matters to all businesses

Web accessibility refers to the practice of designing and developing websites that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities such as blindness, deafness, mobility impairments, cognitive impairments, and more. Over 25% of the US population is negatively affected by the lack of web accessibility. Consider all the possible disabilities that affect one's online experience:

1. eCommerce is booming: In 2022, total eCommerce sales reached an all-time high of over $1 trillion USD; online retail purchases now represent almost 15% of all retail spending. As such, web accessibility lawsuits follow the money -- e-commerce companies are sued most often, accounting for 74% of federal cases. Even industries without e-commerce are targets of these lawsuits, including restaurant/food services, finance, healthcare, education, and automotive.
   

2. Accessibility is a good user experience: Only 3% of the internet is accessible to people with disabilities, and the majority of business owners still don’t know how to make their websites accessible. But those businesses that do invest in web accessibility to unlock the potential of this overlooked population. Accessibility boosts a brand's reputation, opening the consumer base to the disability community totaling more than one billion people globally. An investment in web accessibility is an investment in increasing revenue by attracting and converting more customers.
   

3. Legal environment makes it easy: High-profile lawsuits mean that people with disabilities now know they have legal recourse when they can’t conduct activities online. A person with a disability has nothing to lose by filing a lawsuit since ADA Title lll requires the defendant to automatically pay the plaintiff’s legal fees. In an effort to reduce the number of private lawsuits, a 2020 bill referred to as the Online Accessibility Act sought to establish a dispute resolution process and a maximum violation fine of $20,000 for a first offense and up to $50,000 for subsequent offenses; it failed.

SHERPA requires clients to adopt accessibility

Web agencies like SHERPA Global need to keep ADA title III requirements in mind too. If a client gets sued for having a non-accessible website, that client may turn to the agency that designed it. The client could insist on getting their money back, ruin that agency’s reputation for failing to comply with legislation, or even sue the agency for having created a non-ADA-compliant website.

To help ensure that their clients can achieve and maintain web accessibility, SHERPA Global partnered with AccessiBe to offer an AI-powered solution as low as $49/month. Not only does achieving compliance help their clients mitigate legal risks, but it aligns with SHERPA Global's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for all website visitors.

Is your website ADA compliant?

Today, web accessibility is a business necessity. The best way to achieve digital accessibility is to test and remediate websites according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, which were cited in 54% of the lawsuits filed in 2020.

Request a complimentary ADA compliance website review to see how your site stacks up to accessibility standards by contacting SHERPA today.