If you own or bought an eCommerce website, you might have ignored the purpose of terms and conditions. Most website owners have one page specified to display terms of services, but some make the web page more valuable than others. When you see a website selling eCommerce products, you will usually see a link that leads you to their terms of services on their checkout page. Unfortunately, this is a habit that most website developers tend to ignore.
Even though the terms of services are long and boring, they are on your website for a reason. Whether they are in electronic form through the Internet or in physical form by investing lots of time and energy, we tend to ignore them and continue to proceed. However, have you ever realized what they are? Are they just a combination of a few sentences displayed for a certain formality? If you are thinking about building a new website and displaying terms of services on it, you are at the right place.
What are Terms and Conditions?
If you are new to website building and want to display terms of services on your website, you must first understand what are terms and conditions. They are defined as a group of sentences defining how users and visitors are allowed to interact with it. They are like an agreement signed between the users or visitors and the website owner. They put the rights and responsibilities on both sides of the table and determine what is legal and illegal, allowing both parties to interact.
Image taken from YouTube
When a user goes through a website and tends to use it, they must abide by all the terms of services mentioned on the site. You can agree with those terms by simply checking the specified box and clicking on “Next”.
On the other hand, the responsibility also lies on the website owner to provide the services based on the information displayed on the terms of services.
Reasons to Include Terms of Services
1. Full Ownership
The biggest purpose of terms and conditions is that it gives you complete ownership of your website content. When we talk about website content, we discuss the website logo and all the written content, i.e, blog section, gallery section, niche, and themes. By having terms & conditions on your website, you can tell your users that you have complete authority over your website content.
Furthermore, you can also inform your audience that your website content is fully protected by international copyright laws, so they don't plagiarize or copy any form of your published content.
2. Prevent Abuse
Probably the biggest reason you create terms and conditions is to prevent abuses from happening on your website. The terms & conditions act as a contract between a website owner and the users. Through this, some users may tend to conduct some malicious activity and break the system of your website. This is mostly the case with those websites that provide a “free trial” business model, which the users take for granted. The users create unlimited free trials by registering with a different mobile number to the website.
Other examples of abuse include harassing other users with inappropriate content, posting informal content on your website, or infecting your platform with malware or viruses. Terms & conditions will protect your website from all such abuses and build your credibility. You can even mention that such abuses will not be tolerated in your statement.
3. Improve Security
One of the biggest reasons you display terms and conditions is to improve security. Even though this point overlaps with the previous one, it gives you a proactive approach to what to do with the wrong people on your website. If you find people who threaten your website security and don’t learn from all your warnings, it might be time for you to consider banning or deleting them permanently from your website. Even if they have done something good for you or have a special relationship with you, you cannot make professional decisions based on sentimental values.
Elements to Include in Terms and Conditions
1. General Conditions
When you create terms and conditions, the first element you usually consider is the general conditions. They are the most commonly accepted terms for anyone to use on your professional website. When you look at the first page of your terms of services page, it usually contains a list of general guidelines and prohibitions that must be followed by all website visitors. General conditions can be displayed in a specific form or in broad terms.
If you want an example of a broadly displayed clause, you can show that some products or services cannot be used for unlawful practices. For example, if you own an ammunition store, you can state that the guns you sell cannot be used for illegal activities or testing purposes. You can also mention that your users shouldn’t have the power to breach the vulnerability of your business network. If you want your users to collaborate with you, you must ensure common guidelines. For example, you can allow your visitors to share your website content on their social media platforms.
2. Product and Services
If you sell eCommerce products or services through your website, this is the most important point when you create terms and conditions. This section sends a message to your audience that you have done everything in your power to make your product descriptions accurate. However, you shouldn’t be the one taking responsibility if there are deficiencies found in the dimensions, colors, shape, or other features. This can happen because sometimes, the customers’ computers show certain products differently.
The same concept applies to product stock or availability. You can mention what you are doing to ensure that the ordered product is in stock but won’t be the one to blame if it gets sold out. The dream of every online store owner is to make sure that their eCommerce product is sold at best possible rate. In this section, you rectify all the errors related to your products and services. Many businesses state that they have the authority to change the functionality of their products from time to time.
3. Payment Information
If you accept payments from your customers on your website, it is important that you display payment options when you create terms and conditions. If you have a subscription model at your disposal, you must tell the exact rate that you will charge your customers. If the customers want to cancel their subscription, they should be aware of their charges. If you provide your customers with a trial period, you must tell them what will happen at the end of this period.
Image taken from Strikingly
The payment system is the most significant talking point when selling products on your website. If you are looking for a website builder that promotes multiple payment systems, you don’t need to look further than Strikingly. We enable our users to convert the currency based on their location. After that, they can choose the best digital payment system for their purchase. The most common payment gateway is Paypal on Strikingly. However, we also have other options, such as Stripe. We also enable our users to make offline payments.
Display Terms of Services in Strikingly Website
Certain countries require you to display terms and conditions on your website. This is usually the case with eCommerce websites. However, Strikingly provides you with a plan to display your policies on your website. If you want to display your terms and services on your Strikingly website, ensure that you go through the following steps:
- Click on the “Settings” option on the Strikingly website editor
Image taken from Strikingly
- After clicking on “Legal”, you will see the option to “Show Terms & Conditions”, which you must click
- You must have created terms of services in a doc file. Ensure that you copy all the text of your terms of services and display it in the text field.
- Click “Update” to ensure that your terms of services will be found on your footer
Image taken from Strikingly
- You must tick the “Display footer at the bottom of the page” option. Otherwise, your terms & conditions won’t be displayed
- Make all the necessary changes to your live website
Image taken from Strikingly
Conclusion
Whenever website owners create a website on any website building platform, they forget many things. These mistakes are usually common if you are a beginner as you are still on the learning curve. However, website owners forget to display terms and conditions on their websites. This may look meaningless, but it has a huge say on the credibility of your website and your profession.
Terms & conditions are massively important to your website design and content. They are not just another part of your website content that you use to attract traffic. It is the form of website content that ensures data protection and creates a mutual agreement between the customers and the website owners. Strikingly provides you with all the professional tools required to build a website. The best thing about it is that you can create a website design on Strikingly without writing a single line of code. Therefore, create your Strikingly website today and integrate terms & conditions into it to gain the trust of your customers.
