Is your returns policy described in a format AI shopping agents can read?
Confirms your structured data declares how returns work in machine-readable terms.
What this signal tests
We check whether your site (preferably at the Organization level, or per Offer) emits a MerchantReturnPolicy block that includes the country it applies to, the policy category (such as FiniteReturnWindow), the number of return days, and any return fees. This is the structured equivalent of your returns page, written so AI shopping agents can interpret it without reading prose.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
Return policy is decision-critical for shoppers. AI shopping agents that recommend products without considering returns risk pushing buyers into bad purchases, so most agents weight returns heavily in their decisions. A structured MerchantReturnPolicy tells the agent exactly what to expect; without one, the agent has to either parse your free-text policy page (unreliable) or skip your product in favour of one with clearer terms. This matters most for higher-consideration purchases: electronics, furniture, fashion, anything where buyers actively check returns before deciding. Competitors with structured returns policies win those comparisons even when their products are otherwise less attractive. The fix is to declare the policy once, at the Organization level, and inherit it across the catalogue.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| Site-level MerchantReturnPolicy with required fields. |
How we test it
We look for hasMerchantReturnPolicy at the Organization level in your homepage structured data, and at the Offer level on your product pages. We confirm it includes applicableCountry as an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, a returnPolicyCategory matching the Schema.org enumeration, a merchantReturnDays integer, and a returnFees declaration. Any required field missing fails the signal.
Show technical detection method
Parse hasMerchantReturnPolicy on Organization/Offer with required fields.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Locate your existing returns policy and extract the structured facts: which countries it covers, how many days customers have to return items, and whether returns are free, fixed-fee, or paid by the customer.
- Add a hasMerchantReturnPolicy block to your Organization JSON-LD on the homepage (or sitewide). Use applicableCountry as the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (US, GB, CA, etc.), returnPolicyCategory as one of the Schema.org enums, merchantReturnDays as an integer, and returnFees as the matching enum.
- If different products have different policies (some non-returnable, some longer windows), add the block per Offer on those product pages. Otherwise the Organization-level block covers the whole catalogue.
- Make sure the structured policy matches what your visible returns page says. Inconsistencies are flagged by validators and downweighted by AI tools.
- Validate the homepage and a few product URLs in Google's Rich Results Test under the Merchant Listing or Product test types.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | medium |
| Category | Structured Data |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
Should I emit this on every product page or just the homepage?
Emit at the Organization level on the homepage when the policy is uniform across your catalogue. Add an Offer-level override only on specific products with different terms (such as final-sale items or hygiene products). Repeating the same policy on every product page is allowed but wasteful.
What if I offer different policies in different countries?
MerchantReturnPolicy supports multiple entries, each with its own applicableCountry and terms. You can include one block per country, or one block per region. The agent will match the buyer's country to the relevant policy. Do not collapse country-specific policies into a single generic block; that defeats the point.
Is this the same as the returns information in my Google Merchant Center feed?
Closely related but separate. Merchant Center accepts a parallel set of returns fields. Where possible, the values should match what you emit in structured data. Sites that maintain both have the strongest visibility in Google Shopping plus AI shopping; sites that rely on only one channel are weaker than they need to be.
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