Shopify Can Now Write and Update Your Store Policies

Most merchants write their store policies once, at launch, yet Shopify puts them in front of every buyer. Links sit in the checkout footer, the return policy is linked again on the order review page, and the shipping policy appears on product pages and in the cart. When a store changes its fulfilment times, starts shipping to new countries or tightens its returns rules, the written policy rarely keeps up.

Automated policies are Shopify's answer. Switch one on and Shopify generates the text from a template, fills in details from your admin settings and updates it when those settings change. It is opt-in, policy by policy, and Shopify adds that the merchant remains responsible for the policies and for complying with the law. That caveat matters in the UK, where consumer and company law set what these pages must say, and Shopify's Help Center says the templates are not legal advice.

How it works

In Settings > Policies, open a policy under Written policies, turn on Use automated policy, review the generated text and click Save. The changelog lists five policies: return and refund, contact information, terms of service, shipping and legal notice. The store policies page in Shopify's Help Center describes automation for the first four only, so check in your admin whether the legal notice offers the toggle.

The page lists the 17 Liquid variables the templates use, showing which admin settings now flow into public policy text:

• Contact information policy. Your company name (or your store name, if no company name has been entered), store address, phone number and store email, all from Settings > General > Store contact details, plus your EU or UK VAT registration number from Settings > Taxes and duties. If you hold several, the first one added is used.
• Shipping policy. Your store name and email, the countries you ship to (those that are in both your shipping zones and your markets) and your fulfilment time, such as 2 business days. The fulfilment time comes from your estimated delivery date settings and is used only when those are set to Manual or Automated.
• Return and refund policy. The store email for return and cancellation questions, a last-updated date, and a statement that requests depend on the policy terms and applicable law. Shopify says the return terms themselves come from your return rules.
• Terms of service. Your store name and email, and links to your privacy, return and refund, shipping and contact information policies. If one of those policies is not visible on your storefront, its name appears without a link.

Three behaviours decide how safe it is to switch on. First, automation replaces what is already there: your own text gives way to Shopify's template, and so do custom translations in languages that have an automated template. Second, turning automation off keeps the published text but stops it updating, and turning it back on replaces your custom wording again, so Shopify advises keeping a copy. Third, there is now a record: Shopify keeps past versions of these policies for two years, exportable with Get past policies.

Shopify's Sidekick assistant cannot change a policy while automation is on. The privacy policy is not part of this release, as it already has its own automated privacy settings.

Examples / Use cases

A new store is the case Shopify leads with. A founder used to face a run of empty policy pages, or templates with placeholders to fill in, before the store looked finished. With automation, the contact, shipping, returns and terms pages fill themselves from settings the founder enters anyway, and link to each other correctly. That takes one item off the launch list in our guide to building a Shopify store, though someone still has to read the pages.

Expansion is the second. Because destinations come from the countries in both your shipping zones and your markets, a UK store that adds Ireland as a market and ships there gets an updated shipping policy without editing it. Fulfilment times work the same way: move from 1 to 3 business days for the Christmas peak in your estimated delivery date settings and the policy follows.

Returns are the third. Because the return terms come from your return rules, a store that changes its default window, or adds the return window overrides Shopify introduced in late September, should see the automated policy reflect its rules rather than whatever was typed at launch. The Help Center still does not show how a collection-level window is worded, so if you use overrides, read the generated policy and confirm each one is described.

What this means for UK merchants

For online sales to consumers, regulation 13 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 says the information in Schedule 2 must be given or made available before the customer is bound, in a clear and comprehensible way. That includes the trader's identity, geographical address, phone number and email where available, delivery charges and timescales, and the conditions, time limit and procedures for cancelling. Under regulation 31, if a customer is not given the information on the right to cancel, the cancellation period is extended and can end up to 12 months after it would otherwise have closed.

The contact page has two more sets of rules. Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 requires an online business to make its name, geographic address and email address easily, directly and permanently accessible, with its registration number if it is on a public register such as Companies House, and its VAT number if its activity is subject to VAT. Under the 2015 trading disclosures regulations, a UK company must also show on its website the part of the UK in which it is registered, its registered number and its registered office address.

Compare that with Shopify's variable list. The automated contact information policy carries a company name, address, phone number, email and VAT number, but none of the 17 variables is a registration number, registered office or part of the UK. Unless the template text adds them, a UK limited company still needs to show those details elsewhere on the site, and many small companies whose registered office is their accountant's address may need both addresses to appear. If no company name is entered, Shopify uses the store name, which may be a brand rather than the legal entity.

Then the terms of service. Under section 62 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, an unfair term in a consumer contract does not bind the consumer, and section 68 requires written terms to be plain and intelligible. A template is not unfair by default, but it was not written around your products, and Shopify's own caution lists cases that may need changes: auto-renewing subscriptions, regulated products such as alcohol, products with market-specific rules such as cosmetics or children's products, and child-directed sites. If you are partway through a Shopify build or migration, settle the policy approach before launch, because turning automation on later overwrites any wording you carried across.

Enforcement is closer than it was. Since April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has let the Competition and Markets Authority decide for itself whether consumer law has been broken and fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover, with unfair contract terms and hidden fees among its stated priorities. On 14 October 2026 it fined Wayfair, Appliances Direct and Gold's Gym a combined £6 million for misleading sales tactics. None of those cases concerned a policy page, but they show the powers are in use. This is our reading of the rules, not legal advice.

Practical considerations

Before switching anything on, keep a copy of your current wording and export your policy history with Get past policies. If your returns or terms were drafted by a solicitor, that copy is the version to compare the template against.

Then fix the settings rather than the page, because an automated policy is only as accurate as the settings it reads. Check the company name, address and phone number in Store contact details, the store email (the public contact for returns), the order of your VAT registrations, and your shipping zones, markets, estimated delivery dates and return rules. Shopify's own advice is to check the content reflects how the business actually works and not to promise delivery times you cannot meet. For home-based sellers Shopify suggests a PO box or a separate business number, but warns that some legal disclosures need a physical address, and UK rules ask for a geographical one.

Read the generated text against the UK requirements above, especially the 14-day cancellation right, who pays return postage and the company disclosures. Where something is missing, add it elsewhere on the site, such as the footer, or turn automation off for that policy and edit the text, accepting that it then stops updating. The variable list has no duty terms either, so check the shipping policy says who pays import charges on international orders. Managed Markets stores need particular care, because that changed in August when Shopify ended DDU support and moved duties to the checkout.

The privacy policy stays with its own settings, so review it whenever you change how you contact customers. If you have added a channel such as the WhatsApp marketing campaigns now built into Shopify Messaging, check the privacy policy still describes it.

Put a review in the diary. Automated text changes whenever the relevant settings do, and Shopify says its templates might not reflect the latest legal developments, so read the policies again after any change to shipping, returns or markets.

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