Shipping and Return Policy Schema: 12 Stores That Fixed Missing Data and Saw AI Citations Rise 2.1x in 45 Days
Twelve ecommerce stores that implemented OfferShippingDetails and MerchantReturnPolicy structured data saw their AI shopping agent citation rates increase by an average of 2.1x within 45 days, compared to a control group of 12 matched stores that made no changes. The citation gains were concentrated in Google AI Mode and Perplexity, with ChatGPT Shopping showing smaller but still measurable improvements. This case study tracks 24 stores across Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and custom platforms over a 45-day observation window in June and July 2026. The treatment group added shipping and return policy schema that was entirely missing from their product pages before the intervention. The control group maintained existing markup. The results quantify a concrete, often overlooked lever in AI agent discoverability: transactional confidence signals that tell agents not just what a product costs, but what the total cost of ownership and risk looks like. ...