Shipping, Returns & Privacy Policies in WooCommerce

If you own a WooCommerce online store it’s worth thinking through and documenting policies for things like shipping, returns and privacy.

Here are a couple areas that your staff and customers will want to be clear about.

• what are your shipping rates and delivery times
• which countries do you ship to (or not ship to)
• who is used to ship products
• whether someone needs to be present to sign for/receive deliveries
• whether customers can track their shipment
• what happens if an ordered item is out of stock
• regulations relating to your products (for example, age restrictions)
• insurance
• returns
• import/export considerations
• issues that are specific to your business / your products
• your policy in relation to privacy

Some businesses publish a single Terms & Conditions page that covers all related policies. Others publish separate pages for specific policies (such as Shipping, Returns or Privacy). The choice is yours.

To develop your policies, first of all document what’s important to your business. You might review the policies being used by other businesses that you consider relevant.

Once you have drafted and refined your own policy (or policies), consider whether you need a review from your business adviser and/or legal adviser. It’s particularly important to make sure that your policies comply to local consumer law.

It really is worth having a set of these business policies. It’s up to you to decide what they should be and how they should be communicated.

A clear set of well considered policies will help your staff deal with issues efficiently and confidently. For your customers, clear policies help build trust and clarify what can be expected from your business.

As a business owner you might find that working out your terms and conditions requires some time and effort. It’s still worth doing it because you’ll feel more organised and in control of your business and how it operates.

Once you have your policy (or policies) written, we recommend publishing them on your website as a WordPress page, and then configuring WooCommerce’s Terms and Conditions setting (which is Dashboard, WooCommerce, Settings, Checkout, Checkout Options, Terms and Conditions), so that when your customers checkout, they will need to accept your terms before they can complete their order.