Return and refund policy requirements for Google Merchant Center
By Terry Ecom · Last reviewed 2026-08-31 · Source: Google Merchant Center Help
“We have a returns page” is not the requirement. The audit asks for a refund policy a customer can act on — and Shopify’s default template states almost none of the terms that matter.
What Google published
The website audit for Misrepresentation and “Website needs improvement” asks for explicit links to shipping, refund and privacy policies. The fully-functional-store article lists a return policy among the pages a site must contain.
Editorial requirements go further: business information a customer cannot act on — contact, shipping or FAQ copy that answers nothing — is itself a problem. A refund page with no numbers on it is that failure mode.
The facts the page has to state
A reviewer opening your refund policy should be able to answer these without emailing you. GMC Scout reads the policy HTML for exactly these operational facts:
- Return window — how many days after delivery a return is accepted.
- Who pays return shipping — you or the customer.
- Refund processing time — how long after you receive the item the money moves.
- Restocking fee — the amount, or an explicit statement that there is none.
- Exchanges — whether you accept them at all.
Where this goes wrong on Shopify
Shopify generates a refund policy at /policies/refund-policy. Generated is not the same as customised: the default text is a template with the specifics left out, and shipping it unedited is one of the most common storefront gaps we see.
The second common miss is placement. A hand-built /pages/returns duplicate can drift out of sync with the /policies/ version, and a policy linked only from the homepage footer is harder for a reviewer to reach from a product page. Link the canonical policy from the footer on every template.
What GMC Scout flags
Scout checks whether the returns policy exists at all, then reads it for the five facts above — return window, return shipping cost, refund processing time, restocking fee and exchanges are each a separate check, so a page that exists but says nothing still fails several.
It also reports where the policy lives, because a non-standard location is a discoverability problem rather than a missing page. We read what is published on the storefront; we cannot confirm you honour the policy in practice.
FAQ
Is a 14-day return window long enough?
Google does not publish a minimum return window we can cite. The requirement is that your policy states the window clearly. Consumer law in your market may set a floor — that is a separate obligation from the Merchant Center audit.
Do returns and refunds need separate pages?
No. One policy page is fine as long as it is linked explicitly and covers the terms. What fails is a page that exists but defers every number to a support email.
Does Shopify’s auto-generated refund policy pass?
Only once you edit it. The generated template is a skeleton, and template copy with the specifics missing is exactly what the editorial requirements flag.
Sources
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