Ecommerce Terms and Conditions UK: The Clauses Online Shops Need

Good ecommerce terms and conditions for a UK online shop do two jobs: they tell customers the information consumer law says they must get before ordering, and they set out how cancellations, refunds, delivery and faults work in a way that matches the law rather than fighting it. The core clauses are the 14-day cancellation right, refund timing, delivery timescales, who pays return postage, faulty goods and your business details. Anything that tries to remove statutory rights is not just unenforceable, it makes your whole document look untrustworthy.

What are ecommerce terms and conditions for?

Most shop owners think of terms as protection for the business. In UK consumer selling they are mostly a disclosure document. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, usually shortened to the consumer contracts regulations, list information you must give a customer before they are bound by an order. Your website terms of sale are the natural place to hold much of it, alongside the product page and checkout.

That changes how you should write them. A clause that says "no refunds" does not protect you, because the customer's rights come from statute, not from your page. What does protect you is being clear: a customer who was told the return postage rule, the exemptions and the refund timing before buying has far less to argue about later. Clear terms also cut support emails, which is a real cost for a small shop.

One scope point first. These rules apply to consumers, meaning individuals buying outside their trade. If you sell only to businesses, different terms make sense. Many shops sell to both, and if so, write consumer terms and add a separate trade section rather than blending the two.

The information online shop terms must include

The GOV.UK guidance on online and distance selling for businesses sets out what a customer must be told before an order. It has to be easy to understand and given in a form they can keep, such as an email or a document they can save. Here is that list turned into a checklist for your terms, product pages and order confirmation:

• Your business name, contact details and geographic address.
• A description of the goods or services.
• The price including all taxes.
• The payment methods you accept.
• Delivery arrangements, costs and timescales.
• Minimum contract length and billing period, if the product is a subscription.
• Conditions for ending the contract.
• Cancellation rights and when they lapse, plus a standard cancellation form where cancellation is allowed.
• Any charge for reasonable use of a service before cancellation.
• Conditions for deposits or financial guarantees.
• For digital content, what it does, including language and software updates.
• Any phone or communication cost above the basic rate.

Not all of this belongs in the terms page itself. Price and description sit on the product page, delivery cost in the basket. The terms page should hold the rules, and your order confirmation email should include or link a saved copy so the customer has it in durable form. The same guidance says the customer should get a copy of the contract no later than delivery.

Cancellation rights: the 14-day clause

This is the clause most shops get wrong, usually by copying a template from another business. The rules from the GOV.UK pages are:

1. The customer can cancel within 14 days after the goods are delivered, for any reason.
2. Once they have told you, they have 14 more days to send the goods back.
3. You must refund within 14 days of receiving the goods back.
4. If you never told them about the right to cancel, the window runs for up to 12 months. If you tell them partway through that year, they get 14 days from the point they were told.

That fourth point is why the clause matters commercially. A missing cancellation clause does not remove the right, it extends it. A customer could, in principle, return goods many months later and you would have little ground to refuse.

What your cancellation clause should say

Keep it practical. Say how the customer tells you (email address, account page or the model form), where to send goods, the time limits in days, and what condition you expect items back in. The returns guidance says customers can handle goods the way they would in a shop, such as unboxing or trying on. If an item comes back used beyond that, you can make a deduction, so state that in your terms too.

Items that are exempt from cancellation

Some goods can be refused for change-of-mind returns and only refunded if faulty. The GOV.UK returns and refunds guidance lists personalised or made-to-order items, perishables like flowers or frozen food, newspapers and magazines, unwrapped CDs, DVDs and software, and sealed items that cannot go back once opened for hygiene reasons, such as underwear. If you sell any of these, name the categories in your terms and flag it on the product page. A shop selling engraved gifts that says nothing about it will spend December arguing with customers.

Refunds and delivery charges

Refund clauses need three facts: timing, what is refunded and what can be deducted.

Question	The rule for distance sales	What to put in your terms
When must I refund?	Within 14 days of receiving the returned goods	State the timescale and the payment method you refund to
Do I refund delivery?	Yes, the standard delivery charge. If they paid for a faster option, only the standard cost	Say that premium delivery is refunded at the standard rate
Can I charge a restocking fee?	No deductions unless the item was used or damaged	Explain that reductions apply only for handling beyond what a shop would allow
Who pays return postage?	The customer, unless you agreed to pay or failed to tell them they would	Say plainly who pays, before the order is placed

The return postage point comes from regulation 35 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013: the consumer bears the direct cost of returning goods unless the trader agreed to bear it, or the trader did not give the required information about that cost. So silence costs you money. Many shops choose free returns as a selling point, and that is fine, but make it a decision rather than an accident.

Delivery timescales and the 30-day rule

The GOV.UK guidance says goods should be delivered within 30 days unless you agreed otherwise. If you sell made-to-order furniture or items you dropship from abroad, set a realistic timescale on the product page and repeat it in the terms, because "agreed otherwise" needs the customer to have actually been told.

A good delivery section covers:

• Where you deliver to, and any postcodes you exclude, such as the Highlands or offshore islands if your courier charges extra.
• Your dispatch cut-off time and which days you dispatch.
• What happens if nobody is in and the parcel goes back to the depot.
• When the order is treated as delivered, for example signed for or left in a named safe place.
• What the customer should do if a parcel arrives damaged.

Keep these in step with your actual shipping settings. A terms page promising next-day dispatch while the checkout says three to five working days is the kind of mismatch that generates complaints. If your platform is WooCommerce, the shipping zones and the terms page should be updated together whenever you change courier.

Faulty goods: rights you cannot remove

Faulty goods rights come from the Consumer Rights Act 2015, separate from the 14-day cancellation right. Under section 22, the short-term right to reject a faulty item lasts 30 days, starting the day after the goods are delivered (or installed, where installation is part of the deal), with a shorter period for perishable goods.

The returns guidance adds the later stages. If a fault shows within 6 months, you must repair or replace unless you can prove it was not faulty when sold. After 6 months, you can ask the customer to show the fault was there at purchase. Claims can be brought for up to 6 years, or 5 years in Scotland.

Your terms should describe this process honestly: how to report a fault, whether you need photos, and that your returns policy does not affect statutory rights. Do not write a 14-day limit on faulty returns. It is simply wrong, and a customer who knows their rights will point it out publicly.

Other clauses worth including

Beyond the legally required pieces, a few clauses make day-to-day trading smoother:

• When the contract is formed. Consider stating that the contract forms when the order is dispatched, not when it is placed, so you cancel an order with an obvious pricing error before it ships.
• Pricing errors. Say what happens if a price is clearly wrong, and that you will contact the customer before taking payment or dispatching.
• Stock. If you sell limited runs, explain what happens if an item sells out between ordering and picking.
• Promotions and discount codes. One code per order, expiry dates, exclusions.
• Accounts. If customers can create accounts, cover passwords and closing accounts, and link your privacy policy for data handling.
• Complaints. Who to contact and how quickly you respond.

Subscriptions need extra care: the GOV.UK list includes minimum contract length, billing period and conditions for ending the contract. If you sell boxes or memberships, those details must be visible before the first payment.

Getting the terms onto your site properly

Where your terms live matters almost as much as what they say. A few practical points from building online shops:

• Link the terms in the footer and at checkout, next to the place-order button.
• Use a tick box or a clear "by placing your order you agree to our terms of sale" statement at checkout.
• Send the terms, or a link to a saved version, in the order confirmation email, so the customer has a durable copy.
• Version your terms with a date at the top and keep old versions, so you know what a customer agreed to on the day they ordered.
• Put the model cancellation form somewhere easy to find, or build a returns request form into the customer account.

The last point is where a bit of development pays for itself. A returns form that captures order number, reason and photos sends structured requests to your inbox instead of vague emails. If you are planning a new shop, our guide to ecommerce website development in the UK covers how checkout, accounts and returns fit together, and our guide to UK payment gateways explains how refunds are processed through Stripe and similar providers.

The GOV.UK guidance also warns that breaking these rules can lead to being made to supply goods as agreed, paying compensation, or in serious cases an unlimited fine or prison. Few small shops reach that point, but it shows how the rules are treated. Our terms here are a guide to what to cover, not legal advice; for a shop with unusual products, a solicitor's review is worth the fee.

Frequently asked questions

Next steps for your shop

Open your terms page and your checkout side by side and check them against the list above: cancellation window, refund timing, standard delivery refunds, return postage, exemptions and faulty goods. Where the page and the checkout disagree, fix both. If your shop needs a proper returns form, versioned terms or a checkout rebuild, our web development team builds these into WooCommerce and custom shops. Start a project or get in touch and tell us what you sell.