How to fix empty table header on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. In your BigCommerce control panel, go to Storefront → My Themes → click 'Edit Theme' (Advanced) to open the Stencil theme editor, or download the theme for local editing.
2. Tables commonly appear in `templates/components/products/description.html`, comparison pages, or custom widgets. Use your editor's search to find empty `<th>` tags.
3. Add the missing text label or `aria-label` to each empty `<th scope='col'>` and save/upload the theme.
4. For Page Builder content: go to Content → Web Pages, open the relevant page, switch to HTML source in the editor, and fix `<th>` elements there.
5. Use BigCommerce's built-in 'Accessibility' settings (Storefront → Accessibility) as a starting point, then re-test with the WAVE extension.

<th scope="col">Price (USD)</th>

<!-- Visually hidden label for a decorative/spacer corner cell -->
<th scope="col" aria-label="Product thumbnail"></th>

<!-- Icon-only header with aria-label -->
<th scope="col" aria-label="Add to cart"></th>

What is empty table header?

A table header cell (`<th>`) is the label that sits at the top of a column or the start of a row in an HTML table — it tells everyone what kind of data that column or row contains (e.g., "Product Name," "Price," "Quantity"). An "empty table header" means one or more of those label cells exists in your page's code but contains no readable text. The cell may look fine visually (perhaps it's a decorative spacer or uses an icon), but it has nothing for a screen reader to announce. Screen readers rely on header text to describe a table's structure, so when a header is blank, users who are blind or have low vision lose the context they need to understand the data.

**Accessibility & legal risk:** Empty table headers violate WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships), which is the benchmark used in accessibility lawsuits and regulatory audits (ADA, EN 301 549, EAA 2025). A single empty header in a product-comparison or pricing table can make that entire table unusable for customers who rely on assistive technology — costing you sales and exposing you to legal liability. **SEO:** Search engines also use table structure to understand tabular content; properly labelled headers improve the semantic clarity of your pages, which can contribute to better crawlability and richer structured understanding of your data. **Conversions:** Accessible, well-labelled product or size tables are easier for all customers to scan, reducing the friction that causes shoppers to abandon a purchase.

See the complete Empty table header guide for every platform and the full background.