Blog Details

Author - Associate Sonal Dubey

Introduction

Terms and Conditions agreement (T&C), is also known as a Terms of Service or Terms of Use understanding. It is the legitimate understanding that presents the guidelines, prerequisites, provisions and gauges of utilizing a website or eCommerce Platform.

For instance, primary segments of a T&C incorporate data on copyrights, account deactivation if specific clients misuse the site or application, charging and memberships (particularly for SaaS organizations), taboo exercises and employments of the site stage, and different disclaimers.

Communicating the T&C agreement establishes the legal relationship between the user and the service provider. This agreement is legally binding and may be changed without notice upon the service providers’ discretion.

Benefits of T&C

The T&C, though not a legal requirement, is recommended to have as it forms the legal basis of the site's relationship with the user. It helps to a great extent if any legal dispute arises. It proves to be very useful to make a group and publish information such as acceptable use, disclaimers of responsibility, privacy, cookies, registration, warranty, termination, etc.

It is remarkably prescribed to have T&C as users often misuse the website or eCommerce portal in many ways. Issues such as copyright encroachment can be prevented which occur due to customers or visitors using site’s data without authorization or treat the information inaptly, for example, spamming or posting disparaging material on the site. A T&C agreement enables a chance to restrict such activities and can provide a cure such as accounts cancellation.

Composition of T&C

A well-drafted T&C incorporates a right mix of:

• Adequate use of the content statement
• Authorisation of using guest content would be proper if so is the case
• Conditions about administering customers’ or visitors’ accounts and access permissions
• Conditions defining the material law
• Disclaimer of obligation and restricting the extent of lawful cases or situations that a customer or visitor may raise
• Permit of the copyright
• Rules identifying with guest content such as denials on disparaging and unequivocal material
• Variety provision that enables to change these terms and conditions

Need of T&C

The reasons why a website or eCommerce portal needs the T&C may be discussed at length.

Prevent Abuses

The T&C acts as a legally binding contract from the site between its users and itself. This agreement sets the rules and guidelines which users must agree to and adhere to while accessing the site.

Ownership of Content

The T&C significantly helps in owning the content and various other critical things like the logo, content, design, etc. other than the user’s content. Perhaps, such content belongs to the site significantly as it often connects and makes sense with the context present at the site. In the T&C agreement section, the website may comprise of such Intellectual Property Clause and inform users about its ownership of such content and that the content it owns is protected by international copyright laws.

Terminate Accounts

This also helps in preventing abuses. The site may suggest that it could temporarily ban users or restrict their access permissions in case of violation of T&C. It may be in Termination Clause of the T&C.

Limit Liability

The T&C agreements usually include a warranty disclaimer, which limits the website's liability should there be errors found in the content on the site. Such a clause advises users that the site can not be held responsible for any errors in the presented content or information for being accurate, complete, or suitable for any purpose.

Set The Governing Law

The Governing Law clause of a T&C agreement is that which relates to the jurisdiction applicable to the terms presented in the agreement. This is highly advised for the website or eCommerce platform operating in more than one territory of different laws.

eCommerce specifics

The terms and conditions become critical to provide the customers with awareness in terms of finance, refund, returns, and privacy policies. A well presented T&C helps achieve excellent customer service. It is vital to show them the T&C as useful information before they purchase.

There are certain areas which particularly and must be mentioned in the terms and conditions section of an eCommerce portal. They help the customers to set their expectations right, gain better visibility of the course of the transaction and other cases which might arise accidentally.

Return Policy

This manages the return process of customers exchanging or returning defective products which they had purchased previously from the eCommerce portal. Setting generous policies often encourages customers to abuse the return system. The return policy must be drafted, and crafted carefully, to discourage such abuse and encourage sales.

Refund Policy

As the name depicts, this dictates the process of refund of customers willing to return the product for various reasons and seeking their money back. The refund policy on the portal should be simple, easy to understand and straightforward including what proofs the portal would require from the customers to qualify for the refund, duration of refund, etc. along with what the customers can expect from the portal.

Delayed Refunds

These are some exceptional cases when the refund is processed by the portal but the bank does not issue it to the customer. The portal must be prepared to manage these cases as they have an impact on the portal’s reputation. The portal needs to have clearly defined steps to cope up with such a situation.

Lost Items

These are the cases when the portal’s reporting system reports the product as delivered but it does not reach to the customer. There may be several reasons for such things to happen but a portal must be ready for this too on the lines of delayed refunds.

Conclusion

As every business has it’s own concerns, each website or eCommerce needs different types of terms and conditions. What is certain is that these terms and conditions have a direct impact and contribute to the customer base. A website or eCommerce portal with well-defined policies may attract customers by creating faith in them. Two words – transparency and detail – in terms and conditions play a critical role to make this dream come true of success, smooth operations, happy customers and growth.

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