Policy knowledge
Give the assistant approved shipping, return, refund, cancellation and delivery-exception answers, plus your Shopify return settings.
The chat assistant answers policy questions from two sources: the policies you publish in Lumen, and the return settings in your Shopify admin. Unpublished drafts are never shown to shoppers.
Go to Apps → Lumen → Policy knowledge.
Policy types
| Policy | What to include |
|---|---|
| Shipping policy | Processing times, delivery windows, destinations, rates and carriers |
| Return policy | Eligibility, return window, item condition, exchanges and return steps |
| Refund policy | Refund eligibility, method, deductions and processing times |
| Cancellation policy | When an order can be cancelled or changed, and how shoppers should ask |
| Delivery exception policy | What happens when a parcel is late, lost, damaged, or marked delivered but missing |
Write and publish a policy
- Choose the Policy type.
- Enter a Title and the Policy guidance. Write plain rules the assistant can quote, such as "Orders ship within 2 business days."
- Optionally add the Public policy URL. The assistant links to it so shoppers can read the full policy.
- Your text is a private draft until you publish. Click Publish policy. To update it later, edit and click Publish new version.
The Published answer source card shows exactly what the assistant uses. Publishing history lists earlier versions.
Import from Shopify
Click Import from Shopify to copy the policies you set in Shopify Settings → Policies. Imported policies are published right away.
| Shopify policy | Becomes |
|---|---|
| Shipping policy | Shipping policy |
| Return and refund policy | Refund policy. It answers both return and refund questions. |
| Cancellation policy (subscriptions) | Cancellation policy |
Other Shopify policies, such as the privacy policy, are skipped.
After you've imported once, Lumen re-imports them every day, so a change you make in Shopify reaches the assistant by the next day. A policy you've edited in Lumen is never overwritten. Clicking Import from Shopify again updates them right away. Earlier versions stay in the publishing history.
Return settings from Shopify
Lumen also reads your store's default return rules from Shopify Settings → Policies → Return rules:
- whether you accept returns, and the return window, such as 30 days,
- when the window starts: when an item is delivered, or when the last item of the order is delivered,
- how long shoppers can change or cancel an order, such as within 2 hours of ordering or until it ships.
The Shopify return settings card on the Policy knowledge page shows what Lumen read. It refreshes daily and when you open the page. To change them, edit the return rules in Shopify.
Shopify doesn't share product or collection overrides, final-sale items or market-specific return rules with apps, so Lumen only knows your default rules.
How the assistant uses policies
- It answers from the published text and adds the policy link when you set one.
- With no published return or cancellation policy, it answers from your Shopify return settings, for example "Returns are accepted within 30 days of delivery."
- For a verified order that's been delivered, it can say how many days are left in your default return window, or that the window has ended.
- It never confirms that a specific item can be returned or changed, because some items can have different rules or be final sale. It says the store confirms each request.
- When your published policy and your Shopify settings differ, the published policy wins.
- Shopify's single "Return and refund policy" answers both return and refund questions. If you publish only one of the two in Lumen, it answers both.
- If a policy isn't published and Shopify has no matching setting, the assistant says it doesn't have it here yet. It points the shopper to your store policies or your support contact. It never makes one up.
- Asking about the rules ("Can I cancel?") gets a policy answer. Asking the store to act ("Please cancel my order") opens a ticket.
Policy answers are available on every plan.