Returns and refunds law for UK ecommerce, explained simply

Two different return rights people mix up

Most returns disputes come down to one thing. The shop owner and the customer are talking about two completely different rights without realising it.

The first is about faulty goods. Something arrived broken, stopped working, or was not what the listing described. The second is about change of mind. The customer simply does not want the item any more. It fits, it works, it is fine, they just changed their mind.

These are governed by two different pieces of law, with different time limits and different rules. Getting them confused is where the arguments start. So it helps to keep them in separate boxes from the beginning.

Faulty goods: the Consumer Rights Act 2015

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says goods you sell must be three things. Of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, and as described. If a customer receives something that fails on any of those, they have rights, and those rights work on a timeline.

In the first 30 days, the customer has a short-term right to reject. If the goods are faulty, they can return them and get a full refund. You do not get to insist on a repair first during this window. This is the strongest part of the customer's position, and it is worth knowing exactly where it ends.

Between 30 days and six months, the picture changes. The customer can still claim, but now you usually get one chance to repair or replace the item before a refund becomes due. If that repair or replacement also fails, or you cannot do it without significant inconvenience to them, a refund is back on the table.

After six months, the burden of proof shifts. Up to this point, a fault is generally assumed to have been there from the start unless you can show otherwise. After six months, it is the customer who has to show the fault was present at the point of sale. The right does not vanish, the responsibility for proving it just moves across the table.

The thread running through all of this is that faulty-goods rights are about the condition of the item, not the customer's feelings about it. None of this depends on a returns window you set. It comes from the law, and your policy cannot sign it away.

Change of mind: the 14-day cooling-off period

Now the second box, and this is the one that surprises people. Because you sell online, there is a separate right that has nothing to do with faults at all.

Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, often still called the distance selling rules, an online customer has a 14-day cooling-off period to change their mind and cancel the order. That clock starts the day after delivery. They do not need a reason. The item can be perfect and they can still cancel.

Once they have told you they are cancelling, they have a further 14 days to send the goods back. And you, in turn, must refund them within 14 days of getting the goods back, or within 14 days of them showing proof they have posted the return, whichever comes first. The refund includes the standard delivery cost you originally charged, though not any upgrade to faster shipping they chose.

There are sensible exemptions. The cooling-off right does not generally apply to perishable items like fresh food and flowers, to goods made to the customer's own specification or clearly personalised, or to sealed items that are not suitable for return once unsealed for hygiene reasons, such as cosmetics or earrings, once that seal is broken. If you sell anything in those categories, it is worth being clear in your listings about which items the right does not cover.

The key point is that the cooling-off period sits alongside faulty-goods rights, not instead of them. A customer can use either, depending on their situation.

What this means for your returns policy

Two rules make the rest straightforward.

First, these are minimum rights. Your own policy can be more generous, a 60-day window, free return postage, no-quibble exchanges, whatever suits your store and your margins. What it cannot do is offer less than the law. A policy that says "no refunds after 14 days" does not override a customer's faulty-goods rights or their cooling-off right, however clearly it is written.

Second, write your policy so it tells customers what to expect on both fronts. Cover faulty items and change-of-mind returns separately, because they are separate. State your timescales, who pays return postage, and how long refunds take. A clear policy heads off most disputes before they start, because the customer already knows the answer before they ask.

Where consistent handling comes in

Knowing the rules is half of it. The other half is applying them the same way every time, on a Tuesday morning and on a Friday at five, whether the order is two days old or four months old, whether you are at your desk or away.

That consistency is hard to keep up by hand. It is easy to be generous with one customer and firm with the next without meaning to, to lose track of which 14-day window applies, or to let a refund slip past the deadline simply because it landed in a busy week.

This is the part Omni helps with. Omni is an AI agent for small UK and Ireland stores on WooCommerce, Shopify, and Stripe. Once you have set your returns policy, Omni handles returns and refund requests against that policy and processes them in your store, so every customer gets the same answer for the same situation. It is not a chatbot that reads a script and leaves the work to you. The sensitive actions, the actual refunds, get queued for your approval before anything moves, so you stay in control of the money while the routine handling takes care of itself.

Omni does not decide your policy or tell you the law. You set the rules, informed by your obligations, and Omni applies them evenly. Getting returns right is partly knowing the rules and partly handling them the same way every time. This is the second part.

A short note before you act on any of this

This is general guidance, not legal advice. The rules change, individual situations vary, and the summary here cannot cover every case. Check the latest rules or take advice for your situation before you rely on anything in this article, particularly if a dispute is already underway or a significant amount of money is involved.

Get the policy right, then handle it consistently, and most returns become a quiet, ordinary part of running the shop.

See what Omni handles and start a 30-day trial.