Ecommerce Copywriting

On Allbirds, a research participant passed over the shoe subcategories and selected "Shoes" to see the whole range. Edward Scott describes the choice in Baymard Institute's navigation research, published in 2024 and updated in 2026. The category header offered the route that participant wanted.

In the same article, Baymard reports that 31% of benchmarked sites don't make drop-down category headers clickable. Test participants expected to use those headers and often tried clicking them. When you choose a navigation label, check what action it appears to offer as well as what it names.

To follow that decision through a store, we'll use Theo and Bramblecup House, both invented. His bedside lamp died Sunday night, and he's shopping by phone light. The replacement must fit a twelve-inch nightstand and work without a nearby outlet.

Bramblecup's menu offers "The Evening Edit." Theo taps it hoping for lamps and gets candles. We can use his two requirements to inspect the rest of the route, from that menu choice to the delivery terms.

What job does each piece of store copy do?

Each spot in the store answers a different question. The menu helps Theo pick a direction. A collection page tells him what's in the group, and a filter narrows it down.

At Bramblecup, the menu needs a recognizable lighting category. The filter needs to distinguish rechargeable lamps from plug-in models. Give each location the information required for the decision there.

Walk one ordinary route, and include the places where it breaks. For Theo that's finding lamps, narrowing by width and power, comparing two of them and checking delivery. Add the search that finds nothing and the colour that's sold out, because those small messages are part of shopping too.

Theo's route through Bramblecup

1. Menu: find Lighting
2. Category: choose Table Lamps
3. Filters: set width and power source
4. Cards: compare two lamps
5. Product page: confirm fit and delivery

Someone arriving from search may land straight on a product page; another shopper may enter through a seasonal collection. Check each entry point against the task. The product-page copywriting guide covers the last stop on this route.

Use recognizable category labels

The main menu should use words people already have in their heads. At Bramblecup, "Lighting" and "Bedding" tell Theo what's there. "The Evening Edit" can live inside Lighting as a campaign collection, where the label above it has already done the naming.

Baymard's category-page guidance separates a hub page, which sends shoppers on to subcategories, from a page that lists products. They need different writing. A hub needs clear choices, and a product list needs the facts for comparing what's on it.

Watch what a label holds as well as what it says. Bramblecup's "Accessories" puts lamp shades next to pillow inserts, and someone hunting for one isn't looking for the other. Check which products belong together before splitting or renaming the category.

Make "Lighting" clickable so Theo can see the full range before choosing a lamp type. Check its destination too: the header should open all lighting, even when the menu also lists subcategories.

Check your labels against what customers type and ask. If they say "bedside lamps" and the inventory system says "portable luminaires," keep the customers' phrase where they can see it. A short vocabulary sheet keeps the menu, breadcrumbs, filters and product titles describing the same objects.

Bramblecup's menu, before and after

Campaign names doing every job

Quiet Hours / Little Extras

Product names, with the collection tucked inside

Lighting / Lamp Shades & Parts. Inside Lighting: The Quiet Hours Collection.

Check that each destination contains the products its label names.

Write collection introductions that help someone choose

Bramblecup's first collection intro says, "Discover beautiful pieces thoughtfully curated for your home." It could sit on any page of the site. A good intro draws a line around the group and gives Theo a rule for choosing inside it.

Here's the rewrite for the bedside collection: "Table lamps for nightstands and small shelves. Start with the base width, then choose a plug-in lamp or a rechargeable model for a spot without an outlet."

That tells Theo where to start checking whether a lamp will fit and work without an outlet. It's also a promise, so the collection has to hold both kinds of lamp, with every base width listed.

Keep the intro short enough that shoppers can reach the product list without searching for it. For a category involving unfamiliar choices, offer a fuller buying guide nearby and check whether shoppers can find it when needed.

A seasonal collection can be about mood. "Warm colours for shorter evenings" describes a look. "Low-energy lighting" is a technical claim, and every lamp in the group would need the facts to back it up.

Make filters and product cards speak the same language

A "Rechargeable" filter needs to include every rechargeable lamp, colour variants included. "Portable" could mean cordless or simply light enough to carry. Use the property your inventory records can establish and shoppers need to select.

For Theo's comparison, put base width and power source beside the price of the pictured option. Add height when it affects use on the nightstand.

A card that says "From $45" needs a clear route to the $45 version, and the photo beside it shouldn't be the $120 one.

Nielsen Norman Group's product-description research recommends giving similar products comparable information, laid out the same way. Here that means sibling cards share the same fields in the same units. The lesson on product titles builds a naming system that carries from these cards to the product page.

If a card says "Best seller," keep a note of the basis and the period. If you can't back it up, take it off. "Staff pick" is the honest label when the real basis is that someone in merchandising loves the lamp.

Let search failures offer a next move

Search copy starts in the box itself. "Search products" beats "Find your next obsession" because Theo knows what to type. When results come back, show him the term he entered, and if you corrected his spelling or widened the search, say so.

To leave more of the small nightstand free, Theo tries searching for a battery wall lamp. Bramblecup sells rechargeable table lamps and no wall lamps.

The empty state could explain: "We don't stock wall lamps. Browse rechargeable table lamps, or clear your search to see all lighting."

That message offers a route without pretending a table lamp mounts on a wall. It still answers his missing outlet, and he gets to decide whether a lamp on the nightstand will do.

"Nothing here yet" on an empty collection sounds friendly and tells him nothing. Say whether the group sold out or hasn't launched yet. Each one points to a different next step, and the message should follow the real stock.

A vocabulary check can expose missing product data.

Check how inventory terms reach the screen

Pick one rechargeable lamp and compare its inventory record with the filter label. Check every color variant. Record any missing power-source value for the catalogue owner to correct before you promise that the filter finds every matching lamp.

Check the record behind the label as well as the label itself.

Keep buying terms consistent across the store

If the banner says "Free shipping," checkout can't quietly turn it into "Free shipping on orders over $80." Put the condition right next to the promise. Write the threshold and the exclusions into the policy once, then use the same short version everywhere it appears.

Two of Baymard's numbers stay with me. In its usability testing, 64% of test subjects looked for shipping costs on the product page. In its product-page benchmark, 43% of sites showed no shipping cost or calculator there at all.

That gap is where Theo, lamp finally chosen, has to fill a cart just to learn what it costs to get the lamp home. Not every store can quote an exact total without an address. When you can't, say what the estimate needs, such as a postcode.

Keep a store copy register with an owner next to every promise that changes. Operations owns delivery facts, and merchandising owns what sits in each collection. Use those confirmed facts in the draft.

The shipping and risk-reversal lesson has the detailed wording.

Review the route with a real shopping task

For your store review, choose a product and record two requirements a shopper brings to it. Theo's task gives you a model: find a lamp that fits a twelve-inch nightstand and works without an outlet.

Give that task to someone who hasn't seen the catalogue. Watch what they select, as Baymard did with the Allbirds participant. Let them use the labels without explaining the categories yourself.

Ask them to show the lamp's base width and explain how it gets power. Before they start payment, have them find the shipping charge for their address, and mark each answer they can't find on the page.

Record the label at each failure, such as a category name that sends the shopper to the wrong department. Put the proposed wording beside it and name who can check the destination or product data. Fix the failures that stop a decision first.

If you test a change later, measure the task it was meant to help. More clicks on a vague label can just mean more people getting lost.

A review record for Theo's task

Category test

Task: open all Lighting without choosing a subcategory.

Record the selected label and whether it opens the full category.

Filter test

Task: find a rechargeable lamp with a base narrower than twelve inches.

Record the filter choice and compare the card with the product specification.

Delivery test

Task: find the shipping cost before starting payment.

Record any postcode required and compare the quoted cost with checkout.

Check the repaired card

You'll find the rest of this sequence in Ecommerce. At Bramblecup, the tester sets the "Rechargeable" filter and one lamp is missing. Its blue variant has no power-source value in the inventory record.

The catalogue owner fills in that value, then checks the blue variant under the filter against its product specification. Theo opens the repaired card and checks the base width against his twelve-inch nightstand. He reads "Rechargeable" beside it before opening the lamp's details.

On the repaired product page, Theo enters his postcode in the delivery calculator and gets a shipping quote before adding the lamp to his cart. The tester carries that quote through to checkout and confirms that the charge matches.