Shipping & Returns Policy Extractor – Costs, Times, Returns

Turn any online shop's shipping and returns policy into structured data. Give it shop domains and get one flat row per shop: free-shipping threshold, shipping costs per country/zone, delivery times, carriers, express option, return window, free returns, return costs and the legal withdrawal period (Widerrufsfrist). Every value comes with a confidence level and a short evidence snippet from the policy page.

Works with English and German shops, knows Shopify policy pages, and also reads shippingDetails and hasMerchantReturnPolicy JSON-LD.

What it does

For each shop domain or URL:

1. Reads robots.txt and fetches the home page over plain HTTP. It uses no browser, no login and no bot-protection bypass, which keeps it fast and cheap.
2. Finds the shipping, returns and withdrawal pages from footer and navigation links. It matches link text and URLs such as shipping, delivery, Versandkosten, Versand & Lieferung, Lieferbedingungen, Zahlung & Versand, returns, refund, Retoure, Rücksendung, Rückgabe, Widerrufsbelehrung. If that is not enough it follows help-centre links (Hilfe, Service, Kundenservice, FAQ), tries Shopify's /policies/ pages, the sitemap and common paths such as /versandkosten, /lieferung, /hilfe/versand, /service/ruecksendung or /widerrufsbelehrung, and uses the AGB page for the withdrawal period. Login, account, cart and click-&-collect pages are never used as policy pages.
3. Pulls the policy details out of the page text with English and German patterns:
   • Shipping: free-shipping threshold and currency, shipping cost min/max, a per-country/zone cost list (table layouts too), delivery days min/max, named carriers (DHL, DPD, UPS, FedEx, GLS, Hermes, USPS, Royal Mail, Evri, Deutsche Post and more), express option
   • Returns: return window in days, free returns yes/no, return cost (with a per-country table when the shop lists one)
   • Withdrawal: the legal withdrawal period, e.g. "Die Widerrufsfrist beträgt vierzehn Tage" → 14
4. Reads JSON-LD OfferShippingDetails and MerchantReturnPolicy from the home page and one product page.
5. Applies plausibility rules: standard shipping costs 0–50 (order-value bands, minimum order values and bulky/freight rates are not taken as the shipping cost; outliers only as a low confidence fallback), free-shipping threshold > 0, delivery days 0–30 from the most specific standard-parcel sentence, return window 7–365 days.
6. Returns one flat row per shop with a confidence value (found / inferred / missing) and an evidence snippet of up to 200 characters for every field.

Who it's for

• Merchants comparing their shipping and returns offer with competitors (free-shipping threshold, return window, free returns)
• E-commerce agencies and consultants auditing many shops at once
• AI shopping agents and LLM apps that need machine-readable delivery and return terms
• Market researchers tracking shipping and returns terms across a whole niche

Why use this instead of the alternatives

• Policy data, not just links. Most store scrapers stop at "here is the refund policy URL". This actor extracts the numbers.
• German shops supported. It knows Versandkosten, Lieferzeit, Werktage, Rückgaberecht, Retourenkosten and Widerrufsfrist, including spelled-out numbers like "vierzehn Tage".
• Not Shopify-only. It finds policy pages on any platform through links and the sitemap.
• Traceable. Every value has an evidence snippet and a confidence level, so you can check it or filter out guesses.
• Cheap and fast. Plain HTTP, about 5–15 page requests per shop, and the three default shops finish in under 10 seconds.

Input example

{
  "shops": ["www.allbirds.com", "www.bergfreunde.de", "www.manufactum.de"],
  "language": "auto",
  "checkProductPage": true,
  "respectRobotsTxt": true
}

• shops: domains or URLs (required)
• language: auto (default), en or de. English and German patterns always run; the hint sets the Accept-Language header and the reported language.
• checkProductPage: also read the JSON-LD of one product page (default true)
• respectRobotsTxt: skip pages that robots.txt disallows (default true)
• maxConcurrency, proxyConfiguration: optional

Output example

This row comes from a real run (the zone lists are shortened):

{
  "domain": "bergfreunde.de",
  "status": "ok",
  "shippingPageUrl": "https://www.bergfreunde.de/lieferung-und-zahlung/",
  "returnsPageUrl": "https://www.bergfreunde.de/rueckgabe/",
  "withdrawalPageUrl": "https://www.bergfreunde.de/widerruf/",
  "freeShippingThreshold": 99,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "shippingCostMin": 3.95,
  "shippingCostMax": 9.95,
  "deliveryDaysMin": 2,
  "deliveryDaysMax": 4,
  "carriers": ["DHL"],
  "expressAvailable": null,
  "returnWindowDays": 100,
  "freeReturns": true,
  "returnCost": 0,
  "returnCostCurrency": "EUR",
  "withdrawalPeriodDays": 14,
  "shippingCostsByZone": [
    {"zone": "Germany, France", "method": "standard", "amount": 3.95, "currency": "EUR", "evidence": "Germany, France: 3,95 €"},
    {"zone": "Austria", "method": "standard", "amount": 4.45, "currency": "EUR", "evidence": "Austria: 4,45 €"}
  ],
  "returnCostsByZone": [
    {"zone": "Germany, Austria", "amount": 0, "currency": "EUR", "evidence": "Germany, Austria: 0,00 €"},
    {"zone": "France", "amount": 2.95, "currency": "EUR", "evidence": "France: 2,95 €"}
  ],
  "jsonLdShipping": null,
  "jsonLdReturnPolicy": [
    {"returnPolicyCategory": "MerchantReturnFiniteReturnWindow", "merchantReturnDays": 100, "returnFees": "FreeReturn", "returnMethod": "ReturnByMail", "applicableCountry": ["DE"]}
  ],
  "confidence": {
    "freeShippingThreshold": "found", "shippingCostMin": "found", "deliveryDaysMax": "found",
    "returnWindowDays": "found", "freeReturns": "found", "withdrawalPeriodDays": "found", "expressAvailable": "missing"
  },
  "evidence": {
    "freeShippingThreshold": "In Deutschland liefern wir bereits ab 99 EUR Bestellwert versandkostenfrei!",
    "deliveryDaysMin": "So dauert es durchschnittlich für Lieferungen nach Deutschland 2-4 Werktage, bis das Paket bei Dir ankommt.",
    "returnWindowDays": "Dein gesetzliches Widerrufsrecht bleibt von den nachfolgenden Regelungen zum 100 Tage-Rückgaberecht unberührt.",
    "withdrawalPeriodDays": "Mit diesem Formular kannst Du Deinen Vertrag innerhalb der gesetzlich geltenden Frist von 14 Tagen widerrufen."
  },
  "language": "de",
  "pagesFetched": 6
}

Other rows from the same run:

• manufactum.de: free shipping from 250 €, otherwise 6.95 €, delivery in 2–3 working days, DHL, Deutsche Post or freight forwarder, free returns within 14 days
• allbirds.com: free ground shipping over $100, 30-day return policy, freeReturns: false (evidence: "Customers are responsible for return shipping charges.")

Other fields: platform (shopify when detected), jsonLdSourceUrls, inputUrl, skippedByRobots, checkedAt, error.

status values:

status	meaning	charged
ok	at least one shipping, returns or withdrawal page was found and parsed	yes
no_policy_pages	the site is readable, but no policy page was found	no
policy_pages_not_reachable	the site blocks non-browser requests (bot-protection challenge, HTTP 403, tarpit/timeout) or is a JavaScript-only app shell; error says which	no
blocked_by_robots	robots.txt disallows the home page	no
error	other failures (DNS, invalid URL, HTTP 404/5xx)	no

Each shippingCostsByZone entry has method (standard, express or bulky) and plausible (false for amounts above 50).

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.003 per shop ($3 per 1,000 shops). You are charged only when at least one shipping, returns or withdrawal page was found and parsed. Unreachable shops, shops without policy pages and shops blocked by robots.txt are free.

Use via API, n8n or MCP

API (synchronous, returns the rows):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fast_data_asap~shop-shipping-returns-extractor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"shops":["www.bergfreunde.de","www.allbirds.com"]}'

n8n / Make / Zapier: use the Apify node or app, choose Run Actor with fast_data_asap/shop-shipping-returns-extractor, pass shops, then read the dataset items.

MCP (Claude, Cursor, other AI agents): add the server https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fast_data_asap/shop-shipping-returns-extractor. Your agent can then look up any shop's shipping and returns terms on its own.

Limits and notes

• The actor reads only public policy pages and collects no personal data.
• Values are extracted with heuristics. Check confidence and evidence. inferred means a weaker signal, such as a free-shipping banner on the home page, JSON-LD only, or the EU statutory 14 days when a withdrawal page exists but states no number.
• Shops that serve different policies per region (for example gymshark.com) list many zones. The min/max values are then taken in the main currency of the shipping page, and the full list is in shippingCostsByZone.
• Shops that need JavaScript to show their policy text, or that block plain HTTP requests (for example amazon.de, zalando.de, flaconi.de, hornbach.de or dm.de), come back with status: "policy_pages_not_reachable" and are free. Using a residential proxy in proxyConfiguration can help in some cases.