Returns: the part nobody designs until it happens to them

Anyone who has built an online shop knows the order things get done in. First the product. Then the photo. Then the basket, the checkout, the payments, the shipping. And somewhere at the end, if there is time, the terms page.

The part nobody designs is the one that comes after: the customer who changed their mind.

I know because I lived it from the other side. This month I implemented the right of withdrawal inside my own checkout, and I discovered that half of what I «knew» were variations on the correct answer. So I sat down and read the law itself, not articles about the law. What follows comes from there.

The fourteen days, and when they really start

The consumer has fourteen calendar days to withdraw, without giving a reason. Calendar, not working days. Weekends count, and so do public holidays.

The interesting part is not the «fourteen», it is the starting point. And this is where most people make the same mistake, counting from the order. The law says otherwise:

For services, the period runs from the day the contract was concluded. For goods, from the day the consumer, or a third party they nominated, takes physical possession. If the order contains several goods delivered separately, it is the last one that counts. If a good is delivered in lots or pieces, it is the last lot or piece. And for regular delivery of goods over a defined period, the opposite applies: the first delivery counts.

So the customer who ordered three items and received three parcels over ten days does not have three deadlines. They have one, and it starts with the third parcel.

The omission that costs a year

Here is the provision every shop owner should know by heart, and almost nobody does.

If you do not inform the consumer about the right of withdrawal, the period expires twelve months after the end of the original one. Not fourteen days. Twelve months and fourteen days.

There is a middle case too: if you inform them at some point within those twelve months, the period expires fourteen calendar days from the day they received the information. In other words, without that information, the customer’s fourteen days become a year and fourteen days.

Do you see what that means for a shop with its terms buried in a page nobody visits? That every order of the past year can, in theory, come back. This is not a detail for lawyers. It is stock you do not know you are holding.

Who pays for what, without sweetening it

Two different shipments, and they are almost always confused.

The original delivery cost, what the customer paid to receive the product, you refund. The law says the supplier refunds every payment, including delivery costs. With one exception worth knowing: if the customer chose a more expensive delivery method than the cheapest standard one you offer, you do not refund the difference. They chose same-day over three-day, they pay that difference.

The return shipping, what it costs to send the product back to you, is borne by the consumer. But, and it is a large but, only if you have informed them. If you failed to tell them, you pay. And of course, if you have agreed to cover it as a commercial policy, that is what applies.

The refund happens without undue delay and in any case within fourteen calendar days, using the same payment means the customer used for the original transaction, something worth checking in your own payment gateway before it happens to you. Not a voucher, not store credit, unless they agree to it.

One thing that takes the pressure off: you may withhold the refund until you receive the goods back, or until the customer supplies evidence that they sent them, whichever comes first. You are not obliged to pay blind.

And the customer’s side? They return the goods within fourteen calendar days, and they are liable for any diminished value resulting from handling beyond what was necessary to establish the nature and functioning of the goods. They tried it on to see if it fits, fine. They wore it to their cousin’s wedding, different matter. But watch the pattern repeat: if you did not inform them of the right of withdrawal, they are not liable for the diminished value either.

What does not come back

The law lists thirteen categories of exception. I will not write them all out, only the ones that genuinely affect a Greek online shop.

Excluded are goods made to the consumer’s specifications or clearly personalised. The mug with the child’s name on it does not come back. Excluded are goods that are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly. Excluded are sealed goods which are not suitable for return for health protection or hygiene reasons, where the customer broke the seal after delivery. The same goes for sealed audio or video recordings and software, if they were unsealed.

Three more we meet often: goods that after delivery were inseparably mixed with other items, newspapers and periodicals other than subscriptions, and services for accommodation, transport, car rental, catering or leisure tied to a specific date of performance. If you rent rooms, that last one concerns you more than all the others.

The two cases that need a button, not a paragraph

Two exceptions remain, and they are different from the rest, because they do not apply on their own. The customer activates them, and only by doing something explicit.

The first is the service that has been fully performed. The right is lost only if performance began with the consumer’s prior express consent and with their acknowledgement that they will lose it once the contract has been fully performed.

The second is digital content not supplied on a tangible medium, meaning the download, the video, the licence key. Same logic: prior express consent to begin, and acknowledgement that this is how the right of withdrawal is lost.

«Express» is the word doing all the work, and that is where most checkouts fall down. A paragraph in the terms is not express consent. A box that is already ticked when the page loads is not express consent, because the customer did nothing.

That is why, when I implemented it in my own checkout, I made it a separate box, unticked, with its own wording, and I store the moment it was ticked along with the order. Not because I like tick boxes. Because if I ever have to prove the customer knew, a paragraph in the terms proves nothing, while a timestamped record proves it.

Withdrawal and warranty are not the same thing

I see this confusion everywhere, including in texts circulating as guides.

Withdrawal is a right exercised for no reason at all. The product does not need to have anything wrong with it. The customer changed their mind, full stop. It exists because the purchase was made at a distance, without seeing or handling the product, and it runs within the fourteen days above.

Liability for a faulty product is an entirely separate right. It presupposes that something is wrong with the product, it has its own conditions and its own deadlines, and it applies whether someone bought online or in a physical shop. It is a subject of its own, a large one, and I will not squeeze it into this article and end up writing half of it.

Hold the difference like this: withdrawal is about the change of mind, warranty is about the defect. A customer returning a broken product on the sixteenth day is not out of time, they are simply not talking about withdrawal.

What to build before it happens to you

If you already run a shop, three things, in this order.

First, inform people where the purchase happens, not only on a terms page. Without it, the customer’s window is not fourteen days, it is a year and fourteen days. Second, a written policy on return shipping, because if you have not said it, you pay it. Third, the two express boxes for services and digital content, if you sell either, with the moment recorded.

And a fourth that the law does not mention, experience does: write the return procedure as if somebody else will carry it out. Who receives the parcel, where it goes, who checks the condition of the product, who presses the refund button. While you are on your own it looks unnecessary, right up until the day you are away and three returns arrive together.

The part nobody designs

I started by saying that returns are the part nobody designs until it happens to them. Let me close with why it is worth designing first.

A customer who returns something is not a lost customer. They are a customer who tried something because they knew they could send it back. A clear returns policy is one of the few texts in an online shop that increase orders, alongside costs and payment methods shown early. A vague one does the opposite, and on top of that leaves you exposed for a year.

One clarification, because I like readers to know where they stand: this article describes what the law says, it does not replace legal advice for your own case. For the details that apply to your shop, ask a lawyer.

If you want the information at the point of purchase, the express boxes and the return procedure built into your shop from the start rather than patched in later, we take on the technical side. We put into the shop the policy you have approved with your adviser, where the customer sees it before paying. Send us through the form your shop’s address, its platform and the text of your policy, if you have one. This work is part of our web development service.

The whole picture: this article covers one part of a larger subject. If you are after the whole of it, from the platform to returns, it is in the guide to your e-shop.