A returns policy is read before the purchase far more often than after it. Written as a defence against fraud it costs you sales; written as a promise it becomes one of the strongest reasons to order.
A returns policy sets out what a customer can send back, within what period, in what condition, and who pays the postage. Most shops write it as a legal shield after their first bad experience, which is understandable and expensive: the page is read overwhelmingly by people deciding whether to buy, not by the small number who eventually return something.
That is the fact worth building around. A clear, generous, plainly written policy removes the last hesitation before checkout. A defensive one — conditions, exclusions, restocking fees, capital letters — tells a first-time buyer that returning will be a fight, and they resolve the doubt by not ordering.
Write it in the second person and in ordinary language. You have 30 days from delivery to send anything back, and we pay the postage does more for conversion than three paragraphs beginning The Customer shall. Legal-sounding text on a small shop reads as borrowed rather than authoritative, because it usually is.
Most consumer-protection regimes set a minimum right to cancel distance purchases — the EU gives fourteen days for most online orders, and other jurisdictions have their own equivalents, with different rules for faulty goods, digital products and personalised items. Your published policy can be more generous than the law but never less, and the specifics of what applies to you depend on where your customers are. That is a question worth answering properly for your market rather than by copying another shop's page, which is where most incorrect policies come from.
Ettex Sites hosts the policy as a standing page linked from the footer and from the checkout, which matters — a policy nobody can find before paying is doing none of the work described above. The purchase step itself is covered in checkout page, the surrounding site terms in terms and conditions, and delivery expectations in shipping policy.
To be clear about the limits: we do not provide legal templates, do not generate a policy compliant with your jurisdiction, and do not process returns or issue return labels. What we host is the page; the promises on it are yours to make and to keep.
At least the legal minimum where your customers are — fourteen days in much of the EU for distance sales — and often longer as a commercial decision. Thirty days is common because it is easy to remember and reduces hesitation.
In most categories it lifts conversion by more than it costs, particularly for anything people need to try. If free is impossible, say the cost plainly rather than burying it.
The footer of every page and the checkout. It is read before purchase far more often than after, so hiding it defeats its main purpose.
No. You can be more generous than the statutory minimum but never less, and the minimum depends on where your customers are rather than where you are.
Terms and conditions are the contract between you and whoever uses your site. Copied from another business, they describe somebody else's arrangements — which is how most small sites end up with terms that contradict their own product.
Most complaints about delivery are not about speed. They are about a date that was implied and then missed — which makes the shipping policy a page about honesty rather than logistics.
Alt text is the shortest writing task on a website and the one most consistently done badly — either skipped entirely or stuffed with keywords for a search engine that stopped rewarding it years ago.