Shopify just rolled out a game‑changing feature for merchants: automatically generated policies that stay in sync with your store settings and Shopify’s legal recommendations. This update streamlines the launch process and reduces the time spent drafting compliance documents.
What’s New?
The Merchant Changelog now includes an “Automated Policy” toggle for the five core policies—Return & Refund, Contact Information, Terms of Service, Shipping, and Legal Notice. When enabled, Shopify builds each policy using the data you’ve already entered (like shipping rates, return windows, and contact details) and updates them automatically whenever those settings change.
Who Is Affected?
• Merchants: Store owners who want to get up and running quickly without drafting legal text from scratch. The feature is designed for merchants of all sizes, especially those expanding into new markets where policy requirements differ.
• Developers: Theme and app developers who expose policy content via APIs or custom pages. While the policies are generated in the admin, the underlying data is still accessible through the Storefront and Admin APIs, so any custom rendering logic should pull the latest policy text rather than hard‑coding it.
How to Activate Automated Policies
Repeat for each policy you’d like to automate. The policies will now refresh automatically whenever the related store settings are edited.
Developer Considerations
If you expose policy content via Liquid, keep your templates dynamic. For example:
liquid
{{ shop.policy.terms_of_service.body }}
The shop.policy object always returns the latest version, whether it’s manually edited or auto‑generated. This means you don’t need additional webhook logic to sync policy changes.
Actionable Takeaways
• Enable automated policies for all five core sections as soon as you’re ready to launch. It removes a major compliance bottleneck.
• Periodically review the generated text, especially when entering new markets, to ensure it meets local legal requirements. Shopify’s automation follows its own recommendations, but ultimate responsibility remains with the merchant.
• Update any custom apps or themes that reference policy content to use the shop.policy Liquid object or the Admin API’s policy endpoints, guaranteeing they always display the current version.
• Document the activation steps in your internal SOPs so new team members can enable or verify policies without digging through the UI.
Conclusion & Next Steps
Automated policies are a small but powerful upgrade that can shave days off your store launch timeline and keep your legal pages fresh as you grow. Activate them today, test the output, and adjust your custom code to pull the live policy data. Need help integrating the new policy objects into your theme or app? Reach out to a Shopify Expert or drop a comment below—we’re here to help you launch faster!
