Why when people invest in an e-commerce website do they then make things more complicated? I'm talking here about the average high street shop that ventures out into the internet.
I was recently in a hardware store and the person being served wasn't sure what size lock he needed - he'd forgotten to measure it. The owner simply said "If it doesn't fit, bring it back and we'll swap it."
Sounds fair enough? Looking at the shop's website, the terms and conditions for that shop run to 2,000 words, without postage etc details. Lots of complicated terms about rights to cancel an order, how to return, when to return etc.
Why?
They aren't the only ones. I saw a restaurant website that had a huge page of T&C, including that you must be over 18 to visit the website and that if you do anything that damages the website you are liable for costs? I'm guessing they had copied the T&C from an adult website.
Then there's the shops that go into great detail about how secure their shopping services are; that you see the padlock during the whole order process and that your order details are encrypted. When you actually order there's no encryption - just your order passed to PayPal. Another case of someone copying irrelevant T&Cs.
It happens loads of times. There's tons of websites out there with endless T&Cs, and I know for a fact that a lot of their T&Cs are actually against UK trading laws - for example not allowing enough time to return unwanted goods (as stated under the distance selling regulations).
If you are creating a shop website think before you create your T&C. You don't need to add lot's of conditions. Protect yourself & the customer, but don't over do it!
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