What should a Shopify store do in the first 48 hours after an ADA demand letter arrives?

Do not panic, do not ignore it, and do not start frantically editing the site. The first 48 hours are about preserving information and buying time the smart way: log the letter, freeze the site as evidence, loop in counsel, and run a fast baseline scan so you negotiate from facts instead of fear. Stores that follow this order usually settle faster and cheaper than stores that either rush a redesign or go silent.

Hour zero: log and preserve the letter

Save the letter itself first, every page, including the envelope or email headers if it arrived digitally. Note the exact date and time it arrived and who received it. Screenshot or print the version of the letter with its metadata intact, because dates matter later: response deadlines in the letter, your own timeline of action, and any future argument about when you knew all run from this moment.

Then preserve the site exactly as it is. Do not touch the theme, do not update apps, do not change a single product description. Take full-page screenshots of the pages the letter names, and capture the site's code state if you can, a theme backup or an export, dated today. The plaintiff's scan is a snapshot of the site as it was; if you change things before documenting them, you lose the ability to check their claims against reality.

This feels counterintuitive. The instinct is to fix the alleged barriers immediately. But evidence first, fixes second, because the settlement conversation will reference specific alleged violations, and you need to know which ones are real.

Hours 1 to 6: get counsel, not the internet

Forward the letter to a lawyer experienced in ADA website defense, not your general business attorney, and not a forum thread. This is a specialized area with its own repeat players, typical settlement ranges, and procedural quirks. Counsel who has handled these claims knows which senders negotiate, which ones file fast, and what the letter's specific allegations are worth.

Do not reply to the sender yourself, and do not call the number in the letter to explain or argue. Anything you say becomes part of the record, and early unguarded statements have a way of appearing in later filings. A short acknowledgment through counsel, noting receipt and requesting a reasonable response window, is the only communication that should go out.

If you have business liability insurance, notify the carrier now, not later. Some policies cover website accessibility claims under advertising injury or personal injury provisions, and late notice can jeopardize coverage. The letter about insurance coverage in this blog's archive covers the details; the action item is simply to put the carrier on notice within the first day.

Hours 6 to 24: verify the claims yourself

With the site frozen and counsel looped in, run a baseline accessibility scan of the pages the letter names. Compare the alleged violations against what you find. In volume-filed claims, letters sometimes allege barriers that do not exist on your site, or that existed in an old theme version, or that describe a different store entirely. Knowing which allegations are real changes the negotiation completely.

Document what you find, page by page, with screenshots. For each alleged barrier, note: does it exist, on which page, and how severe is it. A missing alt text on a decorative image is a different fact than a keyboard trap in the checkout. This inventory becomes the factual backbone of your response strategy.

Do not start remediation yet. There is a strategic reason: fixes made in a panic, without a plan, often introduce new barriers, and uncoordinated changes complicate the question of what the site looked like when the claim arose. Remediation is step three, not step one, and it should be scoped from the inventory you just built.

Hours 24 to 48: plan the response

With counsel, decide the posture: negotiate, remediate and negotiate, or prepare to litigate. For most Shopify stores facing a first demand letter from a volume filer, the answer is negotiate from a position of documented facts, with remediation already scoped so you can offer a concrete compliance timeline. Plaintiffs' firms prefer fast settlements; showing up organized and informed usually shortens the process.

Scope the remediation with a professional audit, not a guess. The audit checklist from this blog's earlier post is a starting point, but a demand letter deserves a proper audit of the full purchase path. Get a quote and a timeline in the first 48 hours even if the work starts later; having a plan with dates is leverage in settlement talks.

Finally, brief your team. Nobody on the store should be discussing the letter publicly, on social media, in reviews, or in support chats. One careless public comment can complicate a negotiation that was going well. A short internal note, this happened, counsel is handling it, say nothing publicly, is enough.

The honest bottom line

A demand letter is the start of a process, not the end of the business. The stores that fare worst are the ones that ignore it or the ones that panic-remodel the site overnight. Preserve, get specialized counsel, verify the claims, then plan. Forty-eight hours of disciplined response turns a frightening letter into a manageable project with a known scope and a known cost, which is exactly what it should have been from the start.