Sponsorship Policy

Sponsorship revenue supplements our primary income from display advertising and affiliate commissions. It helps us fund our policy-verification work, retain editors, and keep the site running without putting content behind a paywall.

We accept sponsorships selectively - not every offer is a fit, and we turn down more than we accept.

We allow three formats of sponsored content, each with its own boundaries:

Paid Partnership Articles

A standalone article where the sponsor has proposed or agreed to the topic, but Retail Returns Policy controls the research, writing, and final copy. The sponsor may review the draft solely to verify the accuracy of their own return policy - they may not approve, alter, or veto any other part of the article.

Paid partnership articles never take the form of a return-policy verdict or appear inside a best-and-worst ranking.

Display Advertising

A paid display ad shown in a clearly marked ad slot - typically the article sidebar. Display ads sit in separated advertising space and never influence the editorial content around them.

Advertisers have no input into the articles their ads appear beside.

Link Insertions

A single contextual link added to a relevant existing article, pointing to the sponsor's page. The link is marked rel=“sponsored” and is only added where it fits the article's editorial logic.

We never insert a link that breaks the flow of a guide or changes a verified policy detail.

These restrictions are non-negotiable, regardless of the sponsorship format or fee:

• Influence rankings or verdicts. A sponsor cannot pay to be ranked higher in a best-and-worst article, receive a better return-policy verdict, or appear as a recommended store in editorial content.
• Suppress competitors. A sponsor cannot pay to have a competing store removed, downgraded, or excluded from any article.
• Control editorial copy. A sponsor cannot review, approve, or request changes to article wording - with one narrow exception: they may fact-check claims about their own return policy (return window, restocking fee, receipt rules, etc.) before publication. This fact-check right does not extend to our subjective assessments, comparisons, or recommendations.
• Stack revenue channels. Sponsored articles do not contain affiliate links to the sponsor's store. We do not collect both a sponsorship fee and an affiliate commission on the same placement.
• Bypass disclosure. A sponsor cannot request that sponsorship labeling be reduced, moved below the fold, or omitted.

We want you to know a piece of content is sponsored before you start reading, not after. Every sponsored placement carries the following disclosures:

Paid Partnership Articles

• A “Paid Partnership” label displayed above the headline, visible before the reader scrolls.
• A sponsorship disclosure in the byline area identifying the sponsor by name.

Display Advertising

• Shown inside a marked advertising slot, visually separated from the editorial content around it.

Link Insertions

• Marked with a rel=“sponsored” attribute on the link, per FTC guidance.

Not every brand that approaches us is accepted. We evaluate sponsorship proposals against the following criteria:

• Relevance.The sponsor's product or service must be genuinely relevant to US shoppers making returns. We don't run sponsorships for unrelated categories.
• Reputation. We do not accept sponsorships from companies with active regulatory actions, unresolved safety recalls on the product being promoted, or a documented pattern of deceptive consumer practices.
• Volume. No single sponsor may account for more than 25% of our sponsorship revenue in a given quarter. This prevents financial dependency on any one brand.
• Frequency. We cap sponsored content at no more than 2 paid partnership articles per month to maintain a healthy editorial-to-sponsored content ratio.

Brand-side teams looking to work with us - see our advertise page for the partnership formats we offer, the audience you'd be reaching, and the brief form that routes proposals to the editor-in-chief.

If you see a piece of content on Retail Returns Policy and you're unsure whether it's sponsored, or if you believe a sponsorship hasn't been properly disclosed, let us know through our contact page. The editor-in-chief reviews every disclosure concern personally.