What is a Return & Refund Policy
A return and refund policy outlines how, when, and under what conditions your customers can return purchased goods and services. Broadly speaking, it should set out:
- What goods are returnable (or which are not)
- When you will offer a refund
- How customers can claim a refund, or make an exchange
- Your exchange rules
- How long it takes to receive a refund
- The customer’s right to cancel an order
- When refunds or exchanges are prohibited
In other words, your Refund Policy sets out what a customer can expect from you if they make a purchase.
Why do I need a Return & Refund Policy?
- Safeguard against legal backlash
- A return policy safeguards you in case of any legal liability relating to the product. You must also have other applicable website policies such as Terms and conditions of use, Privacy policy, Cookie Policy, Disclaimer etc.
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Customers expect clear refund and return policies. With the marketplace shifting toward online shopping, consumers need to know if and how they can be refunded for a product or service purchased entirely over the internet.
- Protect your business from complaints
- Your business’s policies are important to your customers as well as yourself. Mitigate the potential for claims of dissatisfaction, false advertising, or an unclear store refund policy by clearly presenting your shop’s return policy.
- Increase sales
- It will slow down your sales. If you put a “no refunds” policy on display on your website
How to write a Return & Refund Policy?
- Returns
As the name implies, a return policy should clearly indicate if customers are allowed to return purchased products or claim refunds on paid-for services.
- Refunds
When accounting for the refunds section of your return policy, there are two main approaches: refund and no refund policies.
No refund policy — If you don’t allow refunds for purchased goods or services, state this explicitly.
Refund policy — If you do allow refunds, indicate the conditions and time limitations of the refund process, how customers can get their refunds, and what type(s) of refund(s) you offer, including Money back, Full refund / partial refund, Store credit, Replacement product / service and another item of similar value. - Exchanges
Many businesses offer an explicitly-named return and exchange policy. Exchange policies are simply a specific form of refund policy. As mentioned earlier, refunds can include replacement goods or goods of similar value.
- Shipping
Your shipping policy should be written into your return policy whether you have an ecommerce business or a brick-and-mortar store. Outline if users have the option to return items via mail, who is responsible for shipping costs, whether you have specific shipping guidelines, and what shipping address customers should use.
- Warranty
If your products include warranties, detail how a customer can act specifically when dealing with a warrantied good.
FAQs
Display your Return and Refund Policy via link in your website footer. People know to look here for important legal agreements and information, such as your return information.
You do not need to get agreement to your Return Policy to enforce it. Simply posting it will be enough to make your policy enforceable. However, if you want to go above and beyond to make sure your bases are covered, you can add an unticked checkbox to the final checkout screen of your ecommerce store that users will have to check to show they “Agree to your Return Policy.“
Irrespective of the business domain, almost all the businesses need return statement or return policy. If you are selling some products, you should have a return policy.
A Privacy Policy is not only the legally required document to disclose your practices on protecting personal information, but it’s also a great way to show users that you can be trusted, and that you have procedures in place to handle their personal information with care.