How do you show your shipping costs and return policy to Google and AI shopping assistants?

Why shipping and returns matter for AI answers

When someone asks an assistant to compare two stores, the price is only part of the answer. Delivery cost, delivery time and the return window are the facts that decide whether the cheaper store is really cheaper. If the assistant can't find them, it may leave them out, or guess.

Most stores make this hard without meaning to. The real numbers sit in a checkout calculator, a pop-up, an image banner ("Free shipping over €50!") or a legal page written in long paragraphs. A person can work it out. A crawler reading the page text may not.

The fix is not one trick. It's making the same facts available in the three formats that machines actually use:

Step 1: Write a policy page a machine can quote

Start with the page, because both the markup and the feed should copy what it says. Make it boringly clear:

• One page, one URL, for example /shipping-returns, linked from your footer and product pages.
• Numbers in text, not images: "Standard delivery to Portugal: €3.95, free on orders over €50, 1 to 3 business days."
• A short table per country or zone if your rates differ.
• Return terms as plain facts: how many days, counted from when, free or paid return, refund or store credit, and which items can't be returned.
• A visible "last updated" date, so a reader knows the numbers are current.

A page like this helps every AI system, including the ones that don't read schema at all. It also gives you a single place to update when your carrier raises prices.

Step 2: Add shipping and return policy markup

Google's documentation describes two store-wide types. You place them inside your Organization markup (or OnlineStore, a more specific type), ideally on the policy page itself.

What the return policy needs

For MerchantReturnPolicy, Google gives you two ways to meet the requirements:

Option A is the useful one. Google also recommends returnFees, returnMethod and refundType, and supports separate fees for "changed my mind" returns and for faulty items.

What the shipping policy needs

For ShippingService, the one required property is shippingConditions: one block per combination of destination, order value, weight or number of items, each with a shippingRate and a transitTime. If more than one block applies to a product, Google says it uses the cheapest rate, and if rates tie, the fastest delivery. You can also add a handlingTime with an order cutoff time.

An example for a store shipping to Portugal and Spain

Here is a simplified example. It describes a 30-day free return by mail with a full refund, and standard delivery to Portugal and Spain with free shipping over €50. Replace every value with your real terms.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "OnlineStore",
  "name": "Example Store",
  "url": "https://www.example.com",
  "hasMerchantReturnPolicy": {
    "@type": "MerchantReturnPolicy",
    "applicableCountry": ["PT", "ES"],
    "returnPolicyCountry": "PT",
    "returnPolicyCategory": "https://schema.org/MerchantReturnFiniteReturnWindow",
    "merchantReturnDays": 30,
    "returnMethod": "https://schema.org/ReturnByMail",
    "returnFees": "https://schema.org/FreeReturn",
    "refundType": "https://schema.org/FullRefund"
  },
  "hasShippingService": {
    "@type": "ShippingService",
    "name": "Standard delivery",
    "handlingTime": {
      "@type": "ServicePeriod",
      "cutoffTime": "14:00:00+00:00",
      "duration": { "@type": "QuantitativeValue", "minValue": 0, "maxValue": 1, "unitCode": "DAY" }
    },
    "shippingConditions": [
      {
        "@type": "ShippingConditions",
        "shippingDestination": [
          { "@type": "DefinedRegion", "addressCountry": "PT" },
          { "@type": "DefinedRegion", "addressCountry": "ES" }
        ],
        "orderValue": { "@type": "MonetaryAmount", "minValue": 0, "maxValue": 49.99, "currency": "EUR" },
        "shippingRate": { "@type": "MonetaryAmount", "value": 3.95, "currency": "EUR" },
        "transitTime": {
          "@type": "ServicePeriod",
          "duration": { "@type": "QuantitativeValue", "minValue": 1, "maxValue": 3, "unitCode": "DAY" }
        }
      },
      {
        "@type": "ShippingConditions",
        "shippingDestination": [
          { "@type": "DefinedRegion", "addressCountry": "PT" },
          { "@type": "DefinedRegion", "addressCountry": "ES" }
        ],
        "orderValue": { "@type": "MonetaryAmount", "minValue": 50, "currency": "EUR" },
        "shippingRate": { "@type": "MonetaryAmount", "value": 0, "currency": "EUR" },
        "transitTime": {
          "@type": "ServicePeriod",
          "duration": { "@type": "QuantitativeValue", "minValue": 1, "maxValue": 3, "unitCode": "DAY" }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
</script>

A few details that are easy to get wrong:

• Country codes are two-letter ISO codes (PT, ES), and Google allows up to 50 countries in a return policy.
• Free shipping is a rate with "value": 0, not a missing rate.
• Don't mix fee types: with FreeReturn, leave out returnShippingFeesAmount. Only add an amount when returnFees is ReturnShippingFees.
• Products with different terms, like final-sale items or bulky goods, get their own hasMerchantReturnPolicy or shippingDetails inside that product's Offer. Google supports fewer properties at product level.

Step 3: Check which source Google will actually use

This is the step most guides skip. Google can get your policies from several places, and it doesn't merge them. Its documentation lists this order, strongest first:

So if someone on your team once filled in return settings in Search Console, Google will use those and ignore the markup you just added. Before you add markup, look at what's already set in Merchant Center and Search Console. If the settings are there and correct, you may not need organization-level markup at all. If they're outdated, fix them first, because they win.

For many small stores, the settings are actually the simpler route. Google suggests them if your policies are complicated or change often. Markup is useful when you don't use Merchant Center, or when you want the policy described on your own site in a form any crawler can parse.

Step 4: Fill in the shipping and return fields in your feeds

If you send product feeds, the same facts need to be there too, per product.

OpenAI's product feed spec for ChatGPT has optional fields for this:

Two notes from the spec are worth knowing. OpenAI says shipping support depends on your feed setup, so confirm it during onboarding. And the standard OpenAI-format upload currently targets the US, so stores selling only in Europe should check what applies to them before building a feed. If you want the bigger picture on feeds, see how shoppers use ChatGPT to find products.

Step 5: Test it and keep it in sync

1. Validate the markup. Paste your policy page URL into Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator and fix any errors.
2. Check the page is reachable. Google reminds you the page must not be blocked by robots.txt, noindex or a login. The same goes for AI crawlers. Our guide on checking which AI crawlers can access your site shows how.
3. Compare the four versions. Policy page, markup, Merchant Center or Search Console settings, and feeds. They should all say the same thing.
4. Update them together. When rates or return terms change, change all four the same day. Wrong data is worse than missing data, because an assistant may repeat it to a customer.

A quick checklist

Check your own site

The free Web2Agents AI check tells you whether your homepage has structured data that AI systems can read, with a readiness score out of 30. The €19 AI-Ready Kit gives you paste-ready Organization schema, which you can extend with the shipping and return blocks above. More guides like this one are in our structured data for AI section.