When you run an online business, it may be essential for your website to display legal information on your terms of services, privacy policy, shipping terms, etc.
This article will guide you how to add this information in your store and explain about each page and why it is important for an online store or site to have them.
- How to add legal pages in the store
- How to obtain links to legal pages?
- What legal pages do I need for my site? What content do I need to have?
- How to enable customers to agree to the store terms before checkout.
How to add legal pages in the store.
Online store allows creating the following legal pages:
- Legal Info
- Terms
- Revocation Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Shipping Cost/Payment Info
You can enable display of the pages in your Control panel at Settings > General > Legal Info tab.
Click on Edit button to unfold the page's settings and content form. You can specify any title to your page. If you already have similar page on your website, you can attach the page's URL here.
The pages links will be automatically attached and shown in your Instant Site and Facebook shop, at the bottom of each store page.
How to obtain links to legal pages?
If you run Online store on a website, you will be able to place these links to any spot on your site:
- Enter your Instant Site, check the bottom of a page for the legal pages links,
- Click on a link and check your browser address bar. Copy the part of the link starting from #!/ Each page will have its own ending. For example, privacy policy page - #!/~/terms/page=privacy
- Open your website and enter your store page, get the URL from your address bar and append the copied part to it. You will have the URL to your privacy page in your store.
- Place this URL on your website. Exact instructions depend on what platform or content management system your site is ran.
What legal pages do I need for my site? What content do I need to have?
The right answer to this question is ‘it depends’. What legal pages you need, what content they are to display - these depend on your business type, what you sell, what regulations are imposed by your government, etc. You should look through your website and store content and evaluate what type of legal information you need. You may want to hire a lawyer for consultation, to make sure you will meet all regulations.
Here are some suggestions on legal page content.
Terms and Conditions.
Or simply TOS. It is a document that explains the rules for using your site/store, what is allowed and what is disallowed. You may want to include the following items:
- copyright for the material offered on the website and store pages, trademark,
- ownership of the site,
- requirements to use the store, e.g., whether the registration is required
- etc.
Return policy
This is a document specifying your terms for refunds and product returns.
Privacy Policy
You need to let your customers know what information your store collects and how it will be used. Customers want to know if their contact information will be anyhow exposed to 3rd parties, sold, or use for newsletters. By providing a clear explanation on this matter, you will be sure to increase liability among your clients.
The Privacy Policy clarifies what information is collected through your website and store. This may include:
- use of cookies,
- how you process personal information like email, address, name, etc.
- whether you distribute this information to any 3rd party and if so what for,
- etc.
Shipping cost/Payment info
Shipping cost page will explain your delivery policy and may include the following information:
- what items are allowed for shipment
- to what regions you deliver your goods
- terms of delivery
- estimated shipping
- how to handle returns
Payment info should cover all possible questions about payment methods in your store. Online store allows you to offer several payment options to your customers. If you have specific requirements or instructions on how to pay, it is good to explain it to your clients.
Additionally, you can append payment instructions to each payment method you have in your store. The instructions will be shown on checkout once customer selects a payment method. The instructions are setup in Control panel > Settings > Payment.
There are number of online tools generating various templates for privacy policies, terms of user, etc. You can embrace these services to get the content for your legal pages that would be streamlined and up to date. For example, https://termsfeed.com, http://www.iubenda.com
How to enable customers to agree to the store terms before checkout.
Usually customers are prompted to accept the terms and conditions prior to making a purchase. So you can enable “Terms and Conditions” checkbox. It will show checkbox "I agree with Terms and Conditions" above the 'Checkout' button. The 'Terms and Conditions' will be a link opening a popup window displaying the page text.
The window will also contain links to the other legal pages that you have enabled in your Control panel.