On the legal pages of your shop (such as the Terms & conditions), you need to provide your customers with information about different legal topics and provide transparency with regard to various legal aspects. These are mandatory in many countries. Which information you need to display on these pages may depend on the country.
In the article Legal pages, we explain how to edit these pages.
Links to the legal pages of your shop are automatically displayed in your shop’s footer, which is also where your customers expect them to be placed.
There are service providers who specialize in helping merchants with their legal pages. For instance, you can use the services of Trusted Shops. By using such a service you can keep your legal pages automatically up to date.
The content of your legal pages
Legal notice
The legal notice is intended for information about the shop operator, such as address and further contact data. Here you can state who is responsible for the content of your shop and how this person can be contacted. You should make it easy for your visitors to contact you in case they have any questions. For many online retailers, it is necessary that they provide a clickable link to the “Online dispute resolution platform“ in the legal notice. More information on this topic can be found for instance in this article from ecommerce-europe.eu (please note that we do not guarantee the accuracy of the content in this article).
Privacy policy
Provide your customers with general privacy policy information. This includes the type, range and purpose of all personal data that is collected, and processed. For instance, it could be important to state that your shop uses cookies that are stored on your visitor’s devices, what kind of information you collect from them and if you use Google Analytics to track the behaviour of your customers. You can also note information about any other third-party companies that may store information about your customers - for instance, if you use certain apps from the App Store.
Cookie policy
When a customer visits your shop it places cookies on the user's device. Cookies are used for instance to save the shopping basket. On the page about cookies, you can educate the visitors of your shop about their usage. You can find more information about this page, the cookie banner of your shop and about cookies in general in the article Cookies.
Payment & shipping
Inform your customers about available shipping methods, shipping providers as well as incurring costs. On this page you can give your customers detailed information on these topics. For instance, you can list all possibilities for delivery alongside the delivery costs in a table. You should note here if you offer free delivery (and under what conditions). Can your customers collect their order in a physical store or in your office? Then you should also note this on this page. If you want to, you can also add information on returns and refunds to this page. In addition, you could make transparent what type of personal data is forwarded to the logistics company for the shipment e.g. just address or also an email address for working with tracking links etc.
Terms & conditions
In the Terms & conditions, you define the legal context for the business deals with your customers. Here you can note under which conditions your customers can use your shop, mention copyright-related information, display notes on trademarks or add disclaimers.
Right of withdrawal
Sometimes customers would like to send back the products they received from you or want to cancel their order for whatever reasons. On this page, you should provide your customers with information about the right of withdrawal, amongst others the conditions, revocation period as well as a withdrawal form. You should leave no question about this unanswered. Having detailed information about this on your page also generates trust and fewer customers might be hesitating to order from you.