Ecommerce: Adding Legal Pages
Including legal information on any website is critical; it becomes even more important when running an ecommerce business, which deals with billing and contact information. Ensure you have up-to-date legal docs, including a Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions, visible on your store for all customers to see.
Adding legal pages to your ecommerce store
The built-in store allows you to create the following pages:
- Legal Info
- Shipping & Payment Info
- Return Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Privacy Policy
To enable any (or all) of these pages, simply open up your Store using the left menu, select “Settings,” then “General” and click on the “Legal Pages” tab.
You can select “Enable” or “Disable” from this section.
As well, you can select “Edit” to add content for each specific page. If you already have an existing page with this information, you can add the link here (links will be shown at the bottom of each store page).
You can also add a “I agree to Terms & Conditions” checkbox to ensure that customers are providing a positive opt in. This checkbox will appear above the checkout button before they purchase and include a link to your terms, as well as links to other enabled legal pages.
Legal Pages – Best Practices
The specific pages required on your site and in your store depend on your company, what kind of information you collect and where you operate. Consider any regulations that might apply to you and remember that you need to consider both your location, as well as the location of your customers.
For example, you may operate an ecommerce business in the US and are ruled by US regulation, but if you sell to customers in Europe, you also need to consider relevant regulations governing those countries (e.g. GDPR).
We have a few suggestions for legal pages below but consider hiring an expert to evaluate your company and your site to ensure you are completely compliant.
LEGAL INFO
Use this page for any general legal information you might want to include. You can include summaries for other pages, or simply alert users to visit the specific pages for more information.
SHIPPING AND PAYMENT INFO
This page will describe how products or services are delivered and how payment is processed. Consider including:
- What areas you ship to (and which you don’t)
- Terms of delivery
- Estimated shipping time and cost
- What payment options you offer (and which you don’t)
- Any specific instructions for customers when paying online (you can also append payment instructions to each method: select “System Settings” and click “Payment)
RETURN POLICY
Use this page to explain the specific rules of returns, exchanges, and refunds.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This page explains the rules of using your site and purchasing your product. You may want to include:
- A statement of your ownership of the site, including all assets and content
- Any copyrighted or trademarked items
- Customer requirements for using the store or service offered.
PRIVACY POLICY
This page is extremely important, as it tells customers and users what personal information is being collected, how it is used and how it can be deleted if requested by them. Include specific details on what, how and why you are collecting to ensure they understand clearly. Consider including:
- A statement that you use cookies
- How you process information and what kind you require (name, email, etc)
- If you share this information with any third party companies and your liability for that information
- How they can request that you delete their information
Resources
These legal pages are critical documents for any company and if you run an ecommerce business you will want to ensure you’ve considered your liability. Ensure you research your regional regulation and any other rules that may apply to you if you have international customers. We suggest enlisting legal assistance to create specific policies and documents but have included some resources here for your reference.