Issue reference
No returns path for agents to find
- POST_PURCHASE_NO_RETURNS_PATH
- Return an order
- —
- Medium
What it means
tragent reports this at the “Return an order” stage. The question there is “Can it start a return?” Returns handled by a person are returns an agent cannot make on a customer's behalf.
What it does to an agent
Agents can usually carry on, but more slowly or less sure of what they found, and an unsure agent is likelier to recommend another store.
Before buying, a shopper asks whether they can return it; after buying, they ask the agent to start the return. Both need a returns policy, and ideally a returns portal, linked from the store. Without one, an agent cannot answer the first question and cannot do the second.
tragent looks for links to a returns or refund policy, a returns path, or a returns app's portal. This is advisory, filed under Return an order, and does not move the readiness score.
How to fix it
Link the returns policy and returns portal from the footer.
On your platform
Shopify
Write the policy under Settings › Policies › Return and refund policy, then link it from the footer. Shopify serves it at /policies/refund-policy.
<a href="{{ shop.refund_policy.url }}">Returns and refunds</a>WooCommerce
Recent WooCommerce versions create a draft Refund and Returns Policy page. Publish it, fill it in, and add it to the footer menu.
Any site
If you use a returns portal, link it beside the policy, so an agent asked to start a return has somewhere to go.
In practice
Say the important parts near the top of the policy page: how many days, whether returns are free, how to start one, and when the refund arrives. Agents summarise policies for shoppers in a sentence or two, and they take those sentences from the first paragraphs. A policy that opens with legal boilerplate gets summarised as boilerplate.
If returns are started online, link the portal from the policy page and the footer, and let a shopper start one with an order number and email. Returns portals that need an account the shopper never created stop agents and people alike, and turn a return into a support email.
State the exceptions where an agent will find them. Final-sale items, hygiene products, personalised goods and opened software are commonly excluded from returns, and a shopper asking about one of those deserves the answer before buying. Put the exceptions on the policy page in a list, and mark final-sale products on their own pages too, in words rather than only a badge.
Check the fix
- Check the footer links the returns policy, and the portal if you have one.
- Run the scan; the finding under Return an order should be gone.
Run the check that reported POST_PURCHASE_NO_RETURNS_PATH again after the change. The scan needs no account; an issue found during an AI shopping test needs that test run again.
npx @tragent/cli scan https://your-store.comCommon mistakes
- A policy page that exists but is linked only from checkout.
- A portal that requires an account the shopper never made.