Store policy pages AI agents can find: returns, shipping, contact

Why it matters for AI agents

Before an AI shopping agent recommends a store or completes a purchase, it needs the same answers a careful shopper wants: Can I return this? How much is shipping, and how long does it take? How do I contact someone if something goes wrong? These answers live on policy pages.

Agents find policy pages the way people do, by following clearly labelled links, usually in the footer. A store whose return policy sits behind a chat widget, a PDF, or an unlabelled link forces the agent to guess or leave the question unanswered. Google’s own guidance treats return policies as merchant information worth exposing to automated systems, through return policy structured data.

Policy pages also need to be readable without JavaScript. A policy rendered by a client-side app or embedded in an iframe from a help-desk tool may never reach a text-only agent.

What the scanner checks

The scanner reads every link on the homepage and looks for five policy types, matching the link text, aria-label and URL path:

Policy	Matches
Returns/refunds	return, refund, exchange
Shipping	shipping, delivery
Terms	terms, conditions, tos
Privacy	privacy
Contact	contact, support, help, customer service, or any mailto: / tel: link

Each same-site link found is fetched and must return a successful (2xx) response. Links to another domain (for example a hosted help center) and mailto:/tel: links are counted as reachable without fetching.

Result	When
Pass	All 5 policy types linked and reachable
Partial	2 to 4 reachable; the score is proportional (for example 4 of 5 = 0.8)
Fail	0 or 1 reachable
Inconclusive	The homepage could not be loaded

How to fix it

1. Publish each policy as its own page with server-rendered text and a stable URL.
2. Link all five from the footer of every page, with descriptive link text:

<footer>
  <nav aria-label="Store policies">
    <ul>
      <li><a href="/policies/refund-policy">Return policy</a></li>
      <li><a href="/policies/shipping-policy">Shipping information</a></li>
      <li><a href="/policies/terms-of-service">Terms of service</a></li>
      <li><a href="/policies/privacy-policy">Privacy policy</a></li>
      <li><a href="/pages/contact">Contact us</a></li>
    </ul>
  </nav>
</footer>

3. Put the facts agents need in plain text on those pages: return window in days, who pays return shipping, shipping regions, carriers, costs and delivery times, and a real contact channel.
4. Add the same return and shipping facts to your Product or Organization structured data; see return and shipping structured data.
5. Verify: curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}\n" on each footer link prints 200.

Common mistakes

• Icon-only or vague links like “Info” or “Help center” for the return policy, which don’t match what agents (and the scanner) look for.
• Links that redirect to a login page or a 404 after a theme or domain change.
• Policies only inside an FAQ accordion rendered by JavaScript, with no dedicated page.

How to fix it on Medusa

Medusa’s DTC starter footer has no policy links. Add returns, shipping, terms, privacy and contact pages as routes in the Next.js storefront (or pull their content from your CMS), render them on the server, and link all five from the footer component. Then add the matching structured data; the Medusa agent-readiness guide shows where.

Sources

• Google: merchant return policy structured data
• schema.org MerchantReturnPolicy
• WCAG 2.2 SC 2.4.4 Link Purpose