Earlier this month, Google introduced support for organization-level return policies, enabling businesses to specify a general return policy instead of defining one for each product. This change simplifies the management of return policy markup and reduces the size of Product structured data markup, making it easier for businesses to handle their return policies efficiently.
Today, Google updated its documentation to clarify the precedence of return policy markup. Specifically, Google emphasized that product-level return policy markup takes precedence over organization-level return policy markup. If both types of markup are used, along with settings in the Merchant Center, the Merchant Center return policy information takes precedence for any products submitted in your Merchant Center product feeds.
Why the Update?
This update addresses user feedback regarding the confusion over which return policy method takes precedence. Google's aim is to provide clear guidance to businesses on how to structure their return policy data effectively.
MerchantReturnPolicy
For businesses, the following guidelines apply:
- Organization-Level Policies: Use these to describe general return policies applicable to your entire organization.
- Product-Level Policies: Use merchant listing markup for specific policies for individual products.
This clarification ensures that businesses can maintain accurate and consistent return policy information across their product listings and organization as a whole, enhancing the customer experience and reducing potential conflicts or misunderstandings regarding returns.
