Shipping and Return Policy information have a major effect on the performance of your ads. Studies show that:
Searches for "next day delivery" have grown 100% in the past year.
84% of shoppers say that delivery experience stands out the most.
67% of shoppers consider ease of returns more than they did pre-COVID
Best Practices for Shipping Information
Shipping information is rendered by Google automatically on your shopping ads.
Recommended Shipping Information for domestic orders:
Handling window: 0-1 day (Mon-Fri)
Transit window: 1-2 days (Mon-Fri)
If you have a fast delivery, even in a higher cost, we recommend you set your delivery (sum of Handling and Transit windows) to 3 days.
If the shipping cost is free, "Free Delivery" will be shown on Shopping Ads.
If the shipping window (handling + transit time) is less than 3-4 days, the delivery date on the ad would make it much more effective.
To be eligible to show the free and fast shipping annotation on your ads, you'll need to meet certain checkout and landing page requirements. These are in place to ensure a consistent user experience. Here are some example checkout shipping scenarios:
Checkout shipping language on your ads and listings | Might also look like | Meets requirements? | Why? |
“3 business days” + “same day processing” | “3-day delivery” + "no additional processing time” | Y | Shipping + handling/processing is 3 days or less |
“Arrives by July 23” (date is 3 or fewer business days from today) | “Friday, July 23” | Y |
|
“Free and fast shipping” |
| N | Phrasing doesn't explicitly indicate 3 day shipping |
* For more examples, visit Google's help document here.
Best Practice for Return Policies
Return information is rendered by Google automatically on your shopping ads.
Recommended Return Policy Information is:
90-day returns
You need to set your return policy directly in the Merchant Center. Here is a quick step-by-step process on how to do it:
From the page menu, click Shipping and returns then click the Return policies tab.
Click Add policy.
3. Choose where you sell the majority of your products, and click Next.
4. Add the URL to your return policy, and choose whether or not you accept returns from the countries you entered.
5. Follow the guided steps to finish. Check out Google's help article here for more details on how to set up your return policies for free listings and Shopping ads.