Before Arbyn has answered a single one of your customers, it already understands how an online store generally works. This is background knowledge about the mechanics of ordering, shipping, returns, payments and accounts, the same for every store Arbyn runs on, so a shopper's "how does this usually work" question gets a real answer even on day one, before you have written a single policy of your own.

Out of the box, Arbyn understands the general shape of the questions shoppers ask most often: where an order is and how tracking works, how returns, refunds and exchanges typically happen, how shipping, local pickup and local delivery are usually set up, how payments and discount codes behave, how gift cards work, how inventory, pre-orders and backorders are usually handled, how subscriptions typically work (including the most common subscription apps), and how customer accounts and privacy requests are usually handled.

This is genuinely general knowledge. It is never a substitute for your store's own policies, and it is never used to answer anything specific to a shopper, an order, a stock level, or a gift card balance. For anything specific, Arbyn looks up your real Shopify data. The built-in knowledge only ever fills in the general "how," and your store's own rules always win.

Open Knowledge, then Built-in Shopify knowledge. Every topic Arbyn starts with is listed there, grouped by category, and you can open any one to read exactly what it says. This page is read-only. There is nothing to configure, because this knowledge is the same for every store and isn't written by you.

Arbyn ships with a small library of topics written and reviewed specifically for how Shopify stores work in general, not scraped from the internet and not invented by a language model on the fly. Each topic covers one area (returns, shipping, subscriptions, and so on) and is written in plain language, the same way a knowledgeable support agent would explain it to a customer who has never asked before.

When a shopper asks a question, Arbyn compares it against everything it knows, your own uploaded policies and documents, your live Shopify data, and this built-in library, and pulls in whichever sources are actually relevant. If a shopper asks something general ("how do exchanges usually work?", "can I pick this up in store?"), Arbyn can answer from the built-in library even if you have never written a return policy or turned on local pickup. If the question needs something specific to your store, whether you actually offer exchanges, what your actual return window is, whether local pickup is switched on, Arbyn checks your real settings and policies first, and the built-in knowledge steps aside.

This distinction matters more than it might sound: knowing that exchanges are a normal thing many stores offer is completely different from knowing that your store offers them. Arbyn is built to never confuse the two. A general topic can tell a shopper what's possible on a platform like Shopify. It can never tell them what your store actually does. So if the built-in knowledge and your own policy ever appear together, your policy always wins, and Arbyn will never state or imply you offer something (exchanges, store credit, local pickup, subscriptions, gift cards) purely because the general knowledge mentions it as something stores commonly do. Either your own settings confirm it, Arbyn looks it up live, or it tells the shopper it will check.

There's one narrow exception to "your policy always wins," and it exists for a good reason: legal rights that apply regardless of what a store's policy says, like a customer's statutory right to change their mind on certain purchases in some regions. A shop's own return window can be more generous than the law requires, but it can never be used to take away a right the law already guarantees. Arbyn is built to recognize that distinction rather than simply parrot whichever policy it read most recently.

Do I need to write anything before Arbyn can answer general questions? No. This library is ready from the moment you install Arbyn, so a "how do returns usually work?" question gets a sensible answer even before you've added your own return policy.

Will Arbyn ever tell a customer my store offers something it doesn't, because the general knowledge mentions it? No. General knowledge describes what's typically possible on Shopify, never what your specific store does. Arbyn only confirms an actual feature (exchanges, local pickup, subscriptions, and so on) when your own settings or policies confirm it, or when it looks it up live.

Can I edit or add to this built-in knowledge? No, it's the same read-only library for every store, since it describes how the platform generally works rather than anything specific to your business. Your own policies, FAQs, and uploaded documents are where you add anything specific to your store, and those are what Arbyn prioritizes.

What happens if the general knowledge and my own policy disagree? Your policy wins, every time. The one exception is a legal right that applies no matter what a store's policy says, like a statutory cooling-off period in certain regions, since a shop's policy can never remove a right the law already grants a customer.