Shopify Store Policies India Needs Before Gateway Approval

Most new Indian Shopify stores hit the same wall a few days before launch: the payment gateway will not go live until the website has the right pages, and nobody wrote them. Policy pages are also where Indian consumer law expects you to disclose who you are and how complaints are handled. This guide covers which pages you need, what Razorpay, Cashfree and PayU say they look for, what the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 require a D2C store to display, and how to set it all up in Shopify.

Checked on 9 October 2026 against the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 as published in the Gazette of India on 23 July 2020, the Shopify Help Center, and the onboarding documentation of Razorpay, Cashfree and PayU. This is practical guidance, not legal advice. Have a lawyer review your final policies, and check whether the rules have been amended since.

Which policy pages does a new Indian Shopify store need?

At minimum: About us, Contact us, Terms and conditions, Privacy policy, Refund or return policy, and Shipping policy. Those six cover what the main Indian payment gateways ask for and most of what the E-Commerce Rules expect a store to display. Add a grievance officer section, either on the Contact page or as its own page.

For a store shipping physical products, treat every row as required. The conditional items in Cashfree's list apply to almost every D2C brand.

What do Razorpay, Cashfree and PayU check on your website?

Each gateway publishes a different level of detail, so here is only what their own documentation states.

Razorpay. Its business website details page asks for links to About us, Contact us, Pricing details, Terms and conditions, Privacy policy and Refunds policy. Razorpay states that without your live website or app details "you will not be able to access live mode API keys and hence cannot accept payments from your website or app." When you add or update a website, it says "instant checks are run to validate your website, policy pages and business industry", and if the requirements are not met you can enter corrected URLs or create policy pages with Razorpay.

Cashfree. Its onboarding FAQs say the website must be live, with mandatory sections for terms and conditions, about us, contact us with one email ID and a valid phone number, privacy policy, and your registered business name. Refund or return policy, shipping and delivery policy, products or services, and pricing are listed as conditional on your business model. Cashfree also notes an account can be deactivated if the website is later found non-compliant, so the pages need to stay accurate after approval, not just exist on the review day.

PayU. We could not find a public PayU page listing website requirements for onboarding. Its refunds documentation says PayU "recommends publishing the refund policy on your website, including the time taken to refund for failed transactions and the refund process." Anything beyond that, ask your PayU contact during onboarding rather than guessing.

Two practical points follow from Razorpay's wording. First, the store has to be reachable, so reviewers can open the pages; a store hidden behind Shopify's password page may fail the check. Second, the "business industry" check means your website should clearly sell what you declared in your application. If you declared apparel and the homepage still shows a theme demo, expect questions.

What do the E-Commerce Rules 2020 require a D2C store to show?

A brand selling its own products from its own Shopify store fits the rules' definition of an "inventory e-commerce entity", which "owns the inventory of goods or services and sells such goods or services directly to the consumers and shall include single brand retailers." The rules apply to that model as well as to marketplaces. The main display duties are in Rule 4 (all e-commerce entities) and Rule 7 (inventory entities).

Rule 4(2) requires these to be shown "in a clear and accessible manner on its platform, displayed prominently to its users":

• Legal name of the business
• Principal geographic address of its headquarters and all branches
• Name and details of its website
• Contact details such as email address, fax, landline and mobile numbers of customer care and of the grievance officer

Rule 7(1) adds, for inventory entities:

• Accurate information on return, refund, exchange, warranty and guarantee, delivery and shipment, cost of return shipping, modes of payment and the grievance redressal mechanism
• Information on payment methods, their security, how to cancel regular payments, any fees or charges, chargeback options, and the contact information of the payment service provider
• The total price in a single figure with the breakup, showing compulsory and voluntary charges such as delivery charges and applicable tax
• A ticket number for each complaint, so the customer can track its status

A few other Rule 4 duties shape how you write your policies. Under Rule 4(6), if you sell imported goods you must mention the name and details of the importer. Rule 4(8) says you cannot impose cancellation charges on a customer who cancels after confirming, unless you bear similar charges when you cancel an order yourself. Rule 4(9) says consent to a purchase must come from "an explicit and affirmative action", and no consent may be recorded through pre-ticked checkboxes. That last one matters if an app adds pre-selected add-ons or insurance at checkout.

What does the grievance officer role involve?

Rule 4(4) requires every e-commerce entity to appoint a grievance officer and display that officer's name, contact details and designation on the platform. Rule 4(5) says the grievance officer must acknowledge a consumer complaint "within forty-eight hours" and redress it "within one month from the date of receipt of the complaint."

For a founder-led brand, the grievance officer is often the founder or the person running customer support. What matters is that the name and contact on the site reach a real person who checks them, and that complaints get a reference number you can track, since Rule 7(1)(f) asks for a ticket number per complaint. A shared support inbox with no owner meets neither requirement in practice.

What should an Indian refund and return policy say?

It should state your real process in plain words. Rule 7(1)(a) lists the topics: return, refund, exchange, warranty and guarantee, and the cost of return shipping. Cover these:

• Return window and conditions. How many days after delivery, which products cannot be returned (for example innerwear, personal care, made-to-order items), and the condition the product must be in.
• Who pays return shipping. The rules specifically mention the cost of return shipping, so state it.
• Refund method and timing. Prepaid orders back to the original payment method, and how COD orders are refunded (bank transfer, UPI, store credit). PayU's documentation suggests including the time taken to refund failed transactions.
• Defective, wrong or late items. Rule 7(4) says an inventory entity cannot refuse to take back goods or refund if the goods are defective, deficient, spurious, not as advertised, or delivered late from the stated delivery schedule (unless the delay was due to force majeure). Your policy should not contradict this, even for sale items.
• Exchanges. Whether size exchanges are allowed and how many.

COD refunds are where Indian policies most often go vague. If you refund COD orders only as store credit, say so clearly before purchase. Our guide to returns and exchanges for Indian Shopify stores covers the operational side, and the one on cutting COD RTO losses covers the orders that come back undelivered.

What should the shipping policy cover?

Delivery areas, how long dispatch and delivery usually take (give your own honest ranges, not your courier's best case), shipping charges and any free shipping threshold, COD availability and any COD charge, what happens when a customer is unavailable or refuses delivery, and how to report a damaged parcel. Rule 7(1)(e) asks for the total price in a single figure with the breakup of charges such as delivery charges, so the charges in the policy should match what checkout actually adds.

Shopify adds a link to your shipping policy on product pages and in the cart once you have published one, according to its store policies documentation. That makes inaccuracies more visible, not less.

Can you use Shopify's generated policy templates as they are?

No. Use them as a starting point only. Shopify can generate templates for the return policy, privacy policy, terms of service, shipping policy, legal notice and subscription policy, but its own documentation says: "Although Shopify can generate templates, you're responsible for following your published policies. Review your policies carefully before adding them." It also notes that templates can be generated only in English and for checkouts set to English.

The templates are generic. They will not contain your legal name and address, your grievance officer, your COD refund method, your return window, or which products are excluded. A privacy policy should name the apps that actually receive customer data on your store, such as your payment gateway, shipping aggregator, WhatsApp provider and analytics tools. Shopify's automated privacy settings, switched on by default for new stores, can keep parts of the privacy policy updated when certain store settings change, but they cannot know which third-party apps you rely on.

How do you add these pages in Shopify?

Policies and ordinary pages are set up in two different places.

1. Written policies. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings then Policies. In the Written policies section, open each policy, write it or click Insert template, edit it, and save. Shopify links saved policies in your checkout footer automatically.
2. About us and Contact us. Go to Online Store then Pages and click Add page. For the contact page, choose the contact theme template so it shows a contact form. Shopify's contact page guide notes that form submissions go to your store's sender email address, which you can change in notification settings.
3. Grievance officer details. Add a clearly headed section on the Contact page with the officer's name, designation, email and phone, plus your legal business name and registered address.
4. Footer menu. Go to Content then Menus and add every policy and page to the footer menu, so they appear on every page and not only at checkout.
5. Remove the password page before submitting your website to the gateway, or arrange how the reviewer will access it.

Then submit the exact page URLs in your gateway dashboard. Shopify policies sit at fixed paths such as /policies/refund-policy and /policies/privacy-policy, which makes them easy to paste. Settle your GST settings on Shopify around the same time, because the legal name and address on your policies, invoices and gateway application should all match.

What mismatches cause trouble at gateway review?

Based on what the gateways say they check, these are the gaps worth closing before you apply:

• Business name on the website differs from the name on your PAN, GST or bank documents. Cashfree lists the registered business name as a mandatory website section.
• Contact page has only a form, with no email ID or phone number. Cashfree asks for both.
• Policy links lead to empty pages or to unedited template text with placeholder brackets.
• The products on the site do not match the business category you declared. Razorpay says it validates business industry.
• The site is still password-protected, so pages cannot be opened.

If you are comparing gateways before you apply, our Razorpay and Cashfree comparison for Shopify covers fees and features. If a developer is building your store, add these pages to the list of checks before you sign off the build.

Want help getting your store policies launch ready?

Free policy page review. Get in touch or email hello@exactwhy.com with the subject "Store Policies Review" and your store URL. Tell us which payment gateway you are applying to, how you handle COD refunds and returns, and whether you sell any imported products. We reply within 4 hours with the pages that are missing, the disclosures your current pages lack, and anything likely to be questioned at gateway review.

If you go ahead. We set up your policy and contact pages in Shopify, add grievance officer and business disclosures, connect them to your footer menu and checkout, and prepare the page links for your Razorpay, Cashfree or PayU application. Your lawyer still signs off the final wording.