6.2 KiB
S03|L21 - how to add legal pages
Links
Review
Summary
This lesson explains how to create the essential legal pages for a Shopify store using built-in templates and AI assistance.
Core Idea
Legal pages are required for trust and compliance, and Shopify simplifies most of the process with templates.
Practical Value
- Create refund policy from template
- Customize privacy policy (auto-generated)
- Create terms of service from template
- Write shipping policy using AI
- Optionally create contact information policy
- Policies are automatically linked in store footer
Required Pages
- Refund Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Shipping Policy
- (Optional) Contact Information Policy
Customization Points
- Refund window (e.g. 30 days)
- Return conditions (e.g. damaged vs change-of-mind)
- Business address (if returns required)
- Shipping times per region
- Contact details
Warnings
- Policies must reflect real business practices
- Shipping times must match actual fulfillment expectations
- Legal requirements vary by region (especially EU)
- Contact policy may be required for EU compliance
- Do not leave placeholders or incorrect information
Key Insight
Legal pages are not just legal protection.
They also:
- build customer trust
- reduce disputes
- clarify expectations
My Recommendation
Keep policies simple and clear:
- avoid legal overcomplication
- write in plain language
- match actual store behavior
For print-on-demand:
- consider limiting returns to damaged items OR
- accept returns if you are comfortable absorbing low refund rates
AI Usage Insight
- Claude → better for natural customer-facing policy text
- Always review and edit output manually
Additional Insight
This is a one-time setup task.
Once done correctly: → minimal ongoing attention needed
Focus should remain on:
- products
- listings
- marketing
Transcript
00:00 Okay. Now, we're gonna go ahead in this video and
00:02 set up your legal pages, things like your refund policy
00:05 and terms of service. And Shopify actually makes this surprisingly
00:09 easy. Click settings in the left menu and then go
00:12 over to the policy section. Section. You'll see that there
00:14 are spaces in here for your refund policy,
00:16 privacy policy, terms of service, shipping policy, and a contact
00:21 information policy. So we're gonna start with the refund policy.
00:24 Click create from template. Shopify will then generate a basic
00:28 refund policy for you which you can then customize. For
00:31 example, the default refund window is 30 days. So you
00:34 can change this to match your own policy. You can
00:36 also add in your own address if you were going
00:39 to require customers to send items back before issuing refunds
00:43 for them and you can also adjust your policy based
00:46 on your local laws. For example, if the countries you're
00:49 selling to do not require change of mind refunds, you
00:52 could choose to specify that you only accept returns for
00:56 faulty or damaged products. Many print on demand stores do
00:59 this because each item is technically made to order. But
01:03 a lot of people say to me, Sarah, what do
01:05 you do? Do you offer refunds for change of mind?
01:08 And the answer is actually yes. I do offer refunds
01:11 for change of mind. I let customers return items because
01:14 the truth is is that my refund rate is super
01:17 low. Less than 1 percent of my customers
01:20 return and refund their items.
01:23 So I personally don't mind absorbing that cost as part
01:26 of just doing business. But yes, once you've customized your
01:29 refund policy, you can click publish. Now, you're probably gonna
01:32 notice that Shopify has already generated for us an automatic
01:36 privacy policy,
01:38 which is very convenient.
01:40 So you actually don't need to write this from scratch.
01:42 Then next, we're gonna set up our terms of service.
01:45 So click create from template here as well and go
01:48 through and update any sections that need your details,
01:51 such as the information
01:53 for your contact info. And then once you're happy with
01:55 it, you can just click save. So now we need
01:57 to add in a shipping policy and this is the
02:00 only policy interestingly
02:01 that Shopify does not generate automatically but that is totally
02:05 fine because we can easily write 1 ourselves
02:09 using AI. First, go to your shipping settings and review
02:13 the estimated delivery times for each country that you are
02:16 shipping to, then open your AI of choice. You can
02:19 use ChatGPT,
02:21 Claude, Gemini.
02:22 Personally, I like using Claude when I'm writing customer facing
02:26 text because as I've said before, it tends to sound
02:29 a lot more natural than the others. So I gave
02:32 Claude my shipping time estimates and I asked it to
02:34 write a clear, friendly shipping policy for my store and
02:38 the result was excellent. It gave me a very good,
02:41 solid draft that I slightly tweaked and I pasted it
02:44 back into Shopify. Then once your shipping policy is done,
02:48 there is just 1 more optional policy and that is
02:50 the contact information policy.
02:53 Shopify has a template for this too. This policy is
02:56 primarily required for stores selling to the European Union under
02:59 specific regulations.
03:01 So if you're not shipping to the EU, you might
03:03 not need this policy. But if you are, make sure
03:06 to complete it. Then once all of your policies are
03:09 filled in and saved, Shopify will automatically add links to
03:12 them in your store's footer, which is very handy. Customers
03:15 will now be able to see them at the bottom
03:17 of your store and they can click through to read
03:20 each 1. And then just like that, you are done
03:22 creating the legal pages for your store and we can
03:25 now proceed on to the next video.