Writing a returns policy for a shop run from your kitchen table
What to promise, what to refuse, and how to word it so that a return costs you the postage rather than an evening of argument.
The message reads: 'Hi, sorry to be a pain, is it possible to send this back?' You stare at it for a while. You do not have a policy. You have a feeling, which changes depending on how the day has gone, how much the item cost you and how the message is phrased. So you improvise, and whatever you decide becomes an unwritten precedent that the next person will eventually find out about. Writing the policy down is not about being strict. It is about only having to make the decision once.
Why this is harder for a small shop
Large retailers absorb returns because they have volume to average across and a warehouse that can restock an item in minutes. You have a kitchen table, a roll of tape and one of the thing. A single return can wipe out the margin on the three orders around it, especially once you count the outbound postage you already spent and the packaging you cannot reuse.
There is also the emotional part, which nobody puts in a guide. Every return feels like a verdict on the work. It is not, but it lands like one, and that is exactly why an improvised policy drifts: some days you refund instantly to make the feeling go away, other days you defend a decision that is not worth defending. A written rule protects you from your own mood.
The hardest genuine call is the made-to-order item. If you signed a print to someone's name, or poured a scent they chose, nobody else can buy it. That is not a case where a general returns clause helps you; it needs its own sentence, written before anyone asks.
No policy versus a written one
The comparison is not generous shop against mean shop. It is a shop where the terms are known against one where they are negotiated per message.
| No written policy | A policy on the product page |
|---|---|
| Every request is a fresh negotiation | Every request is measured against the same short paragraph |
| Return postage argued about after the fact | Who pays it is stated before anyone buys |
| Made-to-order items refunded because you felt cornered | Personalised items excluded in writing, with a reason |
| Damaged parcels handled inconsistently | One rule: photo within a set number of days, replacement or refund |
| Refund timing unclear to both of you | Payments sit in your own Stripe account, so you refund directly and say when |
| Policy lives in your head, and changes with your mood | Policy lives on the page, and changes only when you rewrite it |
Drafting it in six decisions
Do not write prose first. Make the six decisions, then write two short paragraphs from them. The whole thing should fit on a phone screen without scrolling.
- 1Damaged in transit: what do you need to see, and by when? A photo of the item and the packaging within seven days of delivery is the usual answer, because it is easy for the buyer and enough for you.
- 2Your fault: wrong item, missing piece, obvious flaw. Replace or refund at your cost, no return required if returning it costs more than the item is worth.
- 3Changed their mind: do you accept it, in what condition, and within how many days? Fourteen days, unused and in original packaging, is a common line.
- 4Return postage on a change-of-mind return: your cost or theirs? For a shop this size, theirs is defensible, provided you say so before the sale rather than after.
- 5Personalised and made-to-order: excluded, and say why in one clause: 'Items signed or made to your specification cannot be returned unless they arrive damaged.'
- 6Timing: how long after you receive the return, or the photo, do you refund? Give a number you can hit on a busy week, then beat it.
Damaged on arrival: send me a photo within seven days and I will replace it or refund you, whichever you prefer. Changed your mind: post it back within fourteen days, unused, at your cost, and I will refund the item price. Signed and made-to-order pieces are not returnable unless they arrive damaged.
What a policy is worth in real money
Take an item priced at 38 with a 6 delivery fee. It costs you 14 to make and about 5 to post. A change-of-mind return where you pay the return postage and refund the delivery fee costs you roughly 16 plus the packaging, and you get back an item you may or may not be able to sell again. The same return under a written policy, where the buyer pays return postage and the item price alone is refunded, costs you the outbound postage and the packaging: around 7.
Across a quarter with a handful of returns, that difference is the price of your next stock order. It is not about squeezing anyone. The buyer knew the terms before paying, chose to buy anyway, and got a clear answer within a day. That combination is what people actually mean when they say a small shop was good to deal with.
Put your terms on the product page itself, where the buyer reads them before paying rather than after.
Start a free storeThe mistake most people make
They copy a big retailer's policy: free returns, no questions, thirty days. It reads generously and it is unpayable at your volume, so the first time someone uses it you either lose money you needed or quietly break your own promise, which is worse than never making it. Write the policy you can honour on your worst week, and then be more generous than it in individual cases when you feel like it. Being kinder than your stated terms is a pleasant surprise. Being stricter than them is a complaint. There is more on the same principle for digital work in the refund policy playbook.
That depends on where you and your buyer are. Consumer law in a number of countries gives buyers a cooling-off period on distance sales, and it overrides whatever you write. Check the rules that apply to you and treat them as the floor, not the ceiling.
If the fault was yours, yes, along with the item. If the buyer simply changed their mind, most small shops refund the item price only, because the delivery fee paid for postage that was genuinely spent. Whichever you choose, write it down.
They need a separate line, because a download is delivered instantly and cannot be returned. Say what you will do instead: a refund within a set window if the file will not open, and a replacement if it is faulty. When you update a file, everyone who already bought it gets the new version on their order page, which removes a whole category of complaint.
In the product description, near the delivery information, not on a separate page nobody opens. If you sell several physical items, write it once and paste the same paragraph into each listing so the wording cannot drift.
A returns policy is a piece of writing that saves you from having the same conversation twenty times. Six decisions, two paragraphs, pasted into every physical listing you run. Then when the apologetic message arrives, you already know the answer, and the reply takes a minute instead of an evening. If you are still deciding how to structure the shop around it, the features page shows how physical orders sit alongside the rest, and the FAQ covers how payments reach your own account.
Set up a shop where the terms, the delivery fee and the money are all visibly yours.
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