Return and Warranty Eligibility Rules

Overview

Return and warranty eligibility rules let you create exceptions to your store’s standard return and warranty windows. Your default settings cover most orders, and eligibility rules adjust them for specific products, customers, or time periods (like the holiday season).

In the Corso Admin, these rules are the Return or Warranty Eligibility automation. They are the most common way to make items final sale or exchange only, extend windows for VIP customers, or run a holiday return policy.

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What You Can Expect

With return and warranty eligibility rules, you can:

• Shorten, lengthen, or remove the refund, store credit, exchange, and warranty windows for the items a rule matches.
• Make tagged products final sale or exchange only.
• Offer longer windows to VIP customers, seasonal shoppers, or specific product groups.
• Set a fixed “returnable until” date, such as for a holiday promotion.
• Show a short note, like Final Sale, on items a rule makes ineligible.
• Allow customers to submit warranty claims even after the warranty window has ended.

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Features and Functionality

Default Return and Warranty Windows

Your store-wide windows are set in your settings:

• Returns: The Refund Window, Store Credit Window, and Exchange Window on the Returns settings page. See Returns General Settings.
• Warranties: The Warranty Window on the Warranties settings page, either a number of days or Lifetime.

Every window counts from your Return Window Start Date setting (for example, the order’s fulfillment date) and closes at the end of its last day in your store’s time zone. These defaults apply to every item unless an eligibility rule changes them.

A rule can only change a window for a resolution your store offers. If a resolution is turned off in your settings (or its window is 0), or returns or warranties are turned off entirely, customers never see that option, whatever a rule says.

How Rules Apply to Each Item

Eligibility rules run at Order Lookup, when a customer enters their order in the customer portal. Corso checks them separately for each line item, using that item’s product details along with the order and customer details. Different items in the same order can match different rules.

If more than one enabled rule matches an item, only the one with the highest priority (the lowest number) applies. Rules don’t combine: any field left blank on the winning rule uses your store default, not a value from another matching rule. See Prioritization of rules below.

Rule Options

When you create a Return or Warranty Eligibility rule, choose how to set the windows:

• Eligibility Window Days: Set each window as a number of days from the Return Window Start Date.
• Returnable Until Date: Set each window to close on a specific calendar date, no matter when the order was placed.

The form starts on Returnable Until Date. Switch to Eligibility Window Days to enter days or turn on Lifetime.

Then fill in the windows you want to change:

Field	Controls
Refund	The refund window
Gift Card	The store credit window
Variant Exchange	The exchange window
Warranty Review	The warranty window. With Eligibility Window Days, turn on Lifetime for a lifetime warranty.

For each field:

• Leave it blank to keep your store default. The field shows Using Store Defaults.
• Enter 0 to stop offering that resolution for matching items. The field shows, for example, Refunds Not Offered.
• Enter a number of days (or pick a date) to replace the default for matching items.

A Returnable Until Date can’t remove a resolution, because a date has no zero. To stop offering a resolution, use Eligibility Window Days. Neither option can turn on a resolution your store settings turn off.

You can also set these options:

• Ineligible Line Item Footnote: A short note (up to 30 characters) that customers see under an item the rule makes ineligible, such as Final Sale or Holiday Sale Item. Without a footnote, ineligible items show Not Eligible.
• Allow Warranty Claims Outside Eligibility Period: Let customers submit warranty claims for matching items after their warranty window ends. See Allowing warranty claims outside the eligibility period.

Conditions

Most eligibility rules use a Product Tag (At Purchase) condition so they apply to tagged products. You can also use:

• Product details: Product Type, Product Collection, Product Group, Product SKU, Product Vendor, Order Line Item Custom Property Name, or Compare At Price % Discount.
• Order details: Order Created, Order Days Since Created, Order Country, Order Tag, Order Number, Order Discount, or Order Total Value.
• Customer details: Customer Tag or Customer Email.
• Registration details: Registration Channel, for products registered outside your store.

Because these rules run before the customer picks a reason or resolution, claim details like the return reason aren’t available as conditions.

Caution

Compare At Price % Discount compares the item’s price on the order with the product’s current Compare-at price in Shopify, as a percentage. For example, an item sold for $70 with a compare-at price of $100 is 70. It doesn’t account for discount codes, and items with no compare-at price never match. If your store leaves compare-at prices on full-price items, or doesn’t set them on sale items, this condition will treat items as discounted (or not) incorrectly. Keep compare-at prices accurate, or use a product tag for sale items instead.

Note

Product Tag (At Purchase) matches a tag the product had when the order was placed or a tag it has now. Adding a final sale tag to a product in Shopify also affects past orders of that product. The Any Of operator needs an exact match, including capitalization. Contains matches part of a tag and ignores capitalization.

Example: Items Shipped by a Supplier

If some of your products are fulfilled by another company (for example, through Shopify Collective), add a Product Vendor condition so those items follow their own rules instead of your standard return policy.

Example: Holiday Policy

• Conditions: Order Created After October 31 and Order Created Before December 31.
• Windows: Set Refund, Gift Card, and Variant Exchange to 60 days. Leave Warranty Review blank.
• Result: Holiday orders get 60 days to return. All other orders follow your default policy.

Example: Make Sale Items Exchange Only

• Condition: Product Tag (At Purchase) Any Of sale.
• Windows: Set Refund and Gift Card to 0. Leave Variant Exchange blank.
• Result: Customers can exchange sale items within your normal exchange window, but can’t request a refund or store credit. The customer portal labels these items Exchange Only.

Allowing Warranty Claims Outside the Eligibility Period

By default, once an item’s warranty window closes, the customer can’t submit a warranty claim for it. The Allow Warranty Claims Outside Eligibility Period setting changes this for items that match the rule.

When this setting is turned on:

• Customers can still select matching items for a warranty claim after the warranty window has closed.
• After selecting the item, the customer sees a message explaining that the window has closed. Customize it with Outside Eligibility Title and Outside Eligibility Disclaimer, or leave them blank to use the default text.
• The claim comes into the Corso Admin with an Outside Eligibility Window badge on the item. You can also filter your claims list by Outside Eligibility Window.
• Items that don’t match the rule keep following your default settings or other rules.

This setting only applies to items that had a warranty window that has since closed. It doesn’t apply to items with no warranty at all, such as when the rule sets Warranty Review to 0 or warranties are turned off. If Allow Multiple Claims is off in your warranty settings, an item that already has a warranty claim can’t be claimed again.

This is useful when you want to review late claims case by case instead of turning them away, such as for high-value products, VIP customers, or items with known quality issues.

Example: Late Warranty Claims for VIP Customers

• Condition: Customer Tag Any Of VIP.
• Policy Adjustment: Turn on Allow Warranty Claims Outside Eligibility Period.
• Result: VIP customers can submit warranty claims after their warranty has expired, and your team reviews each claim before choosing a resolution.

Orders With Special Rules

Some orders follow fixed rules, whatever your eligibility rules say:

• Gift returns never offer refunds.
• Orders created from a product registration only offer warranty claims.
• Exchange orders Corso created never offer refunds. Exchanges are offered only if Allow Exchange of Exchange is on in your Returns settings, and store credit only if Offer Credit for Exchange of Exchange is also on. Windows on an exchange order count from the original order’s start date.

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Prioritization of Rules

Within Order Lookup, Corso checks every enabled eligibility rule against each item and applies only the highest-priority match:

• Each rule has a number on the Automations page. Lower numbers win.
• Drag and drop rules in the Flow view to change their priority. New rules are added to the bottom.
• If two rules show the same number, drag one to set a clear order.
• Put your most specific rules first. For example, keep a Final Sale rule above a VIP rule so final sale items stay final sale for VIP customers. If the VIP rule is higher, it wins and VIP customers can return final sale items.

New stores start with Make Items Final Sale and Make Items Exchange Only rules. Check where your new rules sit relative to these.

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Implementation Steps

1. Go to Settings > Automations in your Corso Admin.
2. Click Create, then choose Return or Warranty Eligibility under What would you like to do? The rule runs at Order Lookup.
3. Enter a Name, such as Holiday Policy 2025.
4. Add your conditions, and choose whether the rule Matches all of the following or Matches any of the following.
5. Choose Eligibility Window Days or Returnable Until Date, then fill in only the windows you want to change.
6. Add an Ineligible Line Item Footnote if the rule makes items ineligible.
7. If you want to accept warranty claims after the warranty window ends, turn on Allow Warranty Claims Outside Eligibility Period.
8. Save the rule and check its priority in the Flow view.

To confirm a rule is working, look up an affected order and click View Eligibility. See Order Eligibility in Corso.

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FAQs

Q: Do eligibility rules replace my default settings? No. They only apply to items that match their conditions. Every other item uses your defaults, and any field you leave blank on a rule also uses your defaults.

Q: What happens if multiple rules apply to the same item? Only the rule with the highest priority (the lowest number) applies. Settings from lower-priority rules aren’t combined with it.

Q: Can a rule offer refunds if I’ve turned refunds off in my settings? No. A rule can shorten, lengthen, or remove a window for a resolution you offer, but it can’t turn on a resolution your store settings turn off.

Q: Can I use eligibility rules for VIP customers? Yes. Add a Customer Tag condition and extend the windows you want, or allow late warranty claims.

Q: Can I create rules for “final sale” items? Yes. Add a product condition, set every window to 0, and add a footnote like Final Sale. See Final Sale Items.

Q: Can customers submit warranty claims after their warranty has expired? Yes, if the item matches a rule with Allow Warranty Claims Outside Eligibility Period turned on. Those claims are marked Outside Eligibility Window for your team to review.

Q: Do I need technical knowledge to set this up? No. Rules are created through a no-code interface on the Automations page.