Return Policy Template for Australian Online Stores

A return policy template for an Australian online store must keep consumer guarantee rights separate from any optional change-of-mind terms. Use the copy-ready policy below, choose your exchange terms and set refund timings your team can meet. A US-style deadline can’t remove a customer’s rights for faulty goods.

What Australian Consumer Law Requires

Australian Consumer Law (ACL) gives customers rights when goods fail to meet consumer guarantees. Your policy must preserve those rights even for discounted goods or products outside a manufacturer’s warranty.

For a major failure, the customer chooses a refund or replacement. An unsafe product is one example. A product that differs substantially from its description can also have a major failure.

For a minor failure, you can repair the product without charge within a reasonable time. You can choose a replacement or refund instead. If you can’t fix it within a reasonable time, the customer has further rights, including a refund or replacement.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigates misleading statements and uses reports for enforcement. It doesn’t resolve individual refund disputes. State and territory consumer protection agencies also enforce the ACL and can help with complaints.

Read the ACCC’s repair and refund guidance and NSW Fair Trading’s guidance on refund rights and complaints. For the broader rules behind your policy, read the guide to consumer guarantees.

Change-of-Mind Terms Are Your Choice

Change-of-mind returns are optional under the ACL, but you must honour the policy you publish. State whether you accept them and which conditions apply. Keep those conditions under a separate heading so they don’t appear to limit faulty-goods rights.

Your optional terms can specify an exchange window, unused condition and exclusions. An exclusion for opened hygiene products can govern change-of-mind returns. It can’t remove consumer guarantee rights when a product is faulty.

The template starts with no change-of-mind returns. A separate clause lets you offer size or colour exchanges. For help deciding your wider terms, read the guide to change-of-mind returns.

Return Policy Template

This refund policy template for Australia covers your return and refund policy in one document. It is written for a store selling goods. The base policy below declines change-of-mind returns while preserving consumer guarantee rights.

Before copying it, confirm that your Contact page has working contact details and your team can meet the example processing target. Change that target to match your actual process. Put the policy in your store’s name and add any product-specific terms without restricting ACL rights.

Returns and refunds

Faulty items and consumer guarantees

Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law apply to goods you buy from us. This includes sale items. Our change-of-mind terms do not limit those rights.

For a major failure, you can choose a refund or replacement. You may also have a right to compensation for reasonably foreseeable loss or damage.

For a minor failure, we will repair the item without charge within a reasonable time. We may replace the item or refund you instead. If we cannot fix the problem within a reasonable time, you have further rights under Australian Consumer Law, including a refund or replacement.

Change of mind

We do not accept change-of-mind returns or exchanges. This applies when you order the wrong size or colour and receive the item as described. Your rights for faulty, misdescribed or otherwise non-compliant goods still apply.

How to request a return

Contact us through our Contact page with your order number or other proof of purchase and a description of the problem. Photos can help us assess the issue. We will explain the next steps and where to send the item if a return is needed.

A receipt is not the only acceptable proof of purchase. You do not need the original packaging for a consumer guarantee claim. You can contact us about a problem even after a warranty or our optional return window has ended.

Return postage

For items that can be posted or easily returned, you can send the item back for assessment. Keep your postage receipt. If we confirm a problem covered by consumer guarantees, we will reimburse reasonable return costs you have paid.

For faulty goods that are large, heavy or hard to remove, we will arrange collection or pay reasonable shipping costs within a reasonable time. Contact us to arrange this before booking transport.

Refunds

Where you are entitled to a full refund for the item, we will refund the amount you paid for it. We will not deduct an amount for your use of the item.

We will refund the original payment method unless we agree on another method with you. We will confirm when we issue the refund.

For straightforward returns, we aim to assess the item and issue an approved refund within two business days of receiving it. If further assessment is needed, we will explain the reason and expected timing. Any remedy required by Australian Consumer Law will be provided within a reasonable time.

The payment provider and your bank control when the money appears in your account after we issue the refund.

If you offer exchanges, replace the base policy’s change-of-mind paragraph with the following example clause. Its 30-day window is a store choice. Change the window and postage terms to match what you offer.

Change-of-mind exchanges

We accept size or colour exchange requests within 30 days of delivery for unused items with their tags and original packaging. Exchanges depend on stock availability. Contact us through our Contact page before sending an item back.

You pay the return postage and the delivery cost of the replacement for a change-of-mind exchange. We will tell you the delivery cost before you agree to the exchange.

If you choose a more expensive replacement, you pay the difference before we send it. If the replacement costs less, we refund the difference to your original payment method. If your chosen replacement is unavailable, we will discuss the available options before proceeding.

These conditions apply only to change-of-mind exchanges. They do not limit your rights under Australian Consumer Law.

To publish a Shopify refund policy, follow the Shopify Help Center’s policy instructions:

1. Open Settings > Policies in your Shopify admin.
2. In Written policies, select your return and refund policy. Turn off Use automated policy if it is on and you want to maintain this custom text.
3. Paste your finished policy, review its formatting and save it. Shopify adds the policy link to the checkout footer automatically.
4. Open Content > Menus, select your footer menu and add a menu item for the policy. Save the menu and confirm your theme displays it in the storefront footer.
5. Open the storefront policy link and checkout policy link. Confirm both show the same finished terms and working contact details.

If the checkout link exists but your storefront footer has no policy link, check the footer menu and theme settings. Saving a policy doesn’t guarantee that your theme adds it to the storefront footer.

Warranty Policy Terms to Include

Warranty terms must explain any manufacturer’s warranty and any extra warranty you sell alongside the customer’s automatic consumer guarantees. A warranty expiry date doesn’t set the expiry date of those guarantees.

Name the warranty provider and give its contact details. State the covered products, duration, exclusions and claim process. Explain who pays claim expenses and how customers claim reimbursement. For a paid extended warranty, explain what extra protection the customer receives beyond their existing rights.

A written promise to fix defects can be a warranty against defects even if you don’t call it a warranty. For goods-only warranties against defects, include the following mandatory wording without changing it:

Our goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law.

You are entitled to a replacement or refund for a major failure and compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage.

You are also entitled to have the goods repaired or replaced if the goods fail to be of acceptable quality and the failure does not amount to a major failure.

The ACCC’s warranty guidance sets out this wording and the other required information. Make that information available with the actual product. A website link alone is insufficient. Different mandatory wording applies to services or combined goods-and-services warranties.

Refund Methods and Timeframes

A full refund for a major failure returns the amount paid for the product, without a deduction for use. Refund through the original payment method unless you and the customer agree otherwise. Don’t force a customer entitled to a refund to take a voucher.

You can assess a claimed fault and ask for proof of purchase. Under the ACCC’s proof-of-purchase guidance, a bank statement or order reference can help show the customer bought the item. Don’t make an original paper receipt the only acceptable evidence.

For faulty goods, the policy must distinguish returning an easily posted item from collecting a bulky one. Once a covered fault is confirmed, reimburse reasonable return postage already paid. Arrange collection or pay shipping for large, heavy or hard-to-remove faulty goods.

For optional change-of-mind returns, state who pays postage in both directions. Don’t apply that postage clause to consumer guarantee claims.

Refund Processing Time for Online Orders

Refund processing time includes your assessment and refund issue time, followed by payment-provider and bank processing. State when each part starts. Avoid promising that money reaches a card on the day a parcel arrives.

The template’s two-business-day target is an example for straightforward returns. Shopify Payments says customers can take up to 10 business days to receive an issued refund. A store using that provider could describe up to 12 business days from receipt for a straightforward approved return.

That example assumes the store issues the refund within two business days and no further assessment or payment problem delays it. Other payment providers have their own timings. Use your provider’s timings when adapting the policy.

Send the customer confirmation when you issue the refund. If it remains missing beyond the provider’s expected timeframe, check the transaction status and provide a tracking reference where available. For Shopify Payments card refunds, an Acquirer Reference Number can help the customer’s bank trace the payment.

Wording That Stays Within the Law

A no refund policy in Australia is misleading when it suggests that faulty goods carry no refund rights. Limit any refusal to the optional change-of-mind terms it actually describes.

Remove these phrases when they appear as blanket rules:

• ‘No refunds on sale items.’
• ‘All returns must arrive within seven days.’
• ‘Original packaging required for every return.’
• ‘Contact the manufacturer for all faulty items.’
• ‘Refund rights end when the warranty expires.’

Use ‘We don’t accept change-of-mind returns’ if that matches your policy. Follow it with ‘Your rights under Australian Consumer Law still apply’. If you offer exchanges only, say that the restriction applies to change-of-mind returns.

Check product-page notices and checkout messages as well as the policy page. A lawful policy doesn’t correct a contradictory sale banner that tells customers they can never receive a refund.

How Shoppers and AI Assistants Read Your Policy

Shoppers and AI shopping assistants need exact policy wording to distinguish a faulty item from a change-of-mind request. Keep each deadline and postage rule beside the type of return it governs. Connect any assistant to the complete policy, including its consumer guarantee clauses.

An assistant must not turn ‘30-day change-of-mind exchanges’ into ‘all returns close after 30 days’. Give customers a clear route to staff for disputed faults or refund decisions. Link your FAQ page to the policy so shorter answers lead to the full terms.

Before publishing, read the policy as a customer with a faulty sale item and as a customer who ordered the wrong colour. The first must see their consumer guarantee rights. The second must see your chosen exchange terms and postage costs.