Terms & Conditions

Terms and Conditions agreements are very helpful for protecting your business and letting customers know what is expected of them.

Terms and Conditions for e-commerce stores typically include clauses that give a business the right to terminate an account with a customer if certain conditions aren't met or if violations occur, and that limit the way a customer can interact with the business.

You can typically allow customers to create accounts on your website for quicker online shopping, order management and tracking, and things like loyalty and rewards points for shopping regularly.

If your store has these features or allows users to create accounts online where they can log in and interact with your website, including a Terms and Conditions agreement may allow you to:

• Maintain control over how your website can be used

• Help maintain the integrity of your website by allowing you to limit abuses, such as:

  • Spamming

  • Screen-scraping

  • And hacking attempts by shutting down accounts that engage in these abuses.

Include a link to your Terms and Conditions somewhere where a customer can easily find it, such as in the website footer, as seen below with the "Online Terms" of Shopko linked in the footer located on every page of the website:

 

This type of legal agreement can be useful for stores that offer coupons, discounts, sales, gift card programs, and loyalty/reward programs to users who shop in-store.

If you offer a weekly flyer with sales and coupons, consider including a short Terms and Conditions in your flyer and refer to these terms on any printed coupons.

When customers sign up for your loyalty/reward program, make sure they're provided with a copy of the Terms and Conditions of the loyalty program.

You can either provide a hard copy if you don't have an online presence, or, the easiest way would be to simply refer these customers to your website where the agreements are hosted and can be accessed from.

Shopko has a separate "Loyalty Program Terms and Conditions" page agreement that's linked along with other legal agreements. While separating legal information about your loyalty program from your main Terms and Conditions isn't necessary, it's an option you can consider and helps make things clearer for your customers.

 

For gift cards, include a hard copy of the legal agreement attached to the card or include a summary of all pertinent information in small print on the back of the card.

Here's an example from the back of a John Lewis gift card that lists out the different "Terms" of the card, including information about how and where the card can be used, what happens in the event that the card is lost or stolen, expiration information, and a link to the full Terms and Conditions that's available online:

 

Here's another example from The Bass Pro Shop that shows how the Terms & Conditions that can be included on the back of a gift card, and how it can be referenced to a link online:

 

E-gift cards can include a link to any terms or conditions that you host online when the digital gift card is mailed to the recipient.