How we write product copy, and the things we refuse to say

Product copy is where a shop is most tempted to lie, because it is the only place a customer has to go on and nobody is checking. So we gave ourselves rules, and the rules are narrow enough to be inconvenient. Every sentence has to be something a person could verify when the parcel arrives. Nothing may claim an effect on the buyer. And where we do not know something, the page says we do not know rather than filling the gap with a pleasant adjective. Here is the whole list, with the places it costs us.

The test every sentence has to pass

Could you check it when the box is open. That is the test. A dimension, a material, a weight, a capacity, a care instruction: all checkable. Beautiful, striking, premium, luxurious: not checkable, and therefore not information.

This is why our descriptions read flatter than most. A half hour glass is described as stained wood, four brass posts, blown glass and white sand, and then as running about thirty minutes. Every one of those is falsifiable by the person who bought it.

The practical effect is that the copy has to be written after somebody has looked hard at the object, rather than before. It is slower, and it is the only version that survives contact with a delivery.

No claims about what an object does to you

Nothing here protects, cleanses, heals, calms, balances or attracts anything. Not as a selling point, not as a joke, and not in the softened form where a shop says that some people believe it. The softened form is the same claim with a disclaimer taped to it.

This matters most in the categories where it is standard. Incense and candles are sold almost everywhere on what they are supposed to do to a mood or a room. Our page for backflow cones says the opposite in as many words: we make no claims about what any of it does to you, it smokes, and the smoke runs downhill.

It also rules out whole product categories rather than just adjectives. We turned down a brass money toad, which is a wealth talisman, because there is no way to describe it without either making the claim or being coy about it.

The words we do not use

Curated, elevated, must-have, timeless, iconic, best in class, limited edition. Some of those are empty and some of them are untrue here. We have no reviews yet, so we cannot have a most-bought anything, and we say that plainly on its own page rather than quietly leaving the word in.

Also out: anything that invents a count or a clock. No stock numbers, no timers, no line about how many people are looking. We do not hold inventory, so we do not know the real number, and a made up one is worse than none.

And no testimonials. Not a single quote from a customer appears anywhere on this site, because we have not got any and manufacturing them is both dishonest and, in the United States, unlawful. The absence is the honest state and it will change when real ones exist.

What we write when the supplier will not say

Sometimes the material is simply not disclosed, or a listed weight cannot be right for the stated dimensions. When that happens the rule is that we do not guess, and in practice it often means the product does not go up at all. If we cannot write one true sentence about what a thing is made of, it is not sellable.

Where we do know but only approximately, the word approximate appears, and it is doing real work rather than hedging. A casting is not a machined part, so a size given to the millimetre on a hand finished object would be a false precision.

The same applies to variation. Cast and hand finished pieces are not identical to each other, we say so, and normal variation of that kind is not something we treat as a fault when a parcel arrives.

Saying the unflattering thing in the description

The most useful sentence on a product page is usually the one that costs a sale. Our glasses skull is 3D printed, and the page says that up close you can see the print lines and that the photograph does not hide them. Somebody who wanted a cast object now knows not to buy it.

There are others. A journal lies reasonably flat, and we are not going to claim it lies perfectly flat because almost nothing does. A bag holds a phone, a wallet and keys and not much else, so judge it on how it looks rather than what it carries. A print ships rolled in a tube and the frame in the photograph is not included.

The reason is not virtue. It is that the alternative shows up later as a parcel somebody is disappointed by, and at a shop with no returns for change of mind a disappointed parcel cannot be undone. Accuracy is cheaper than goodwill.

Photographs are copy too

A photograph makes the same kind of claim a sentence does: this object exists, it is this shape, it is this colour. So the rule extends to images. We never generate a picture of a product we sell. The product in every photograph is a real photograph from the supplier.

What we will do is work on the room around it, because a supplier photograph is usually taken on a white sweep under hard light and that tells you nothing about how a matte black object reads in a lamp lit room. The object does not change: not its shape, not its finish, not its colour.

Colour is the hardest part of this and we have written about it separately, because black is the one that goes wrong most often and the failure is not always deliberate.

Where our own copy argued us out of a product

This is the test that the rules are doing something. Twice in the recent past, writing an honest description of a garment produced a sentence that was an argument against selling it, and both items were cut.

One was a cable knit hood whose description called it the least gothic thing we sell. The other was a wool coat at 142 dollars whose description said there was nothing gothic about it. Both sentences were true, both were in our own copy, and once they were written down the products had nothing left to say for themselves.

That is the actual function of writing this way. If a page can only be made to sound appealing by using words we have banned, the honest version of the page is a reason not to list the thing. The rejected items and the reasoning are published in a section of the shop called The Cut.

Questions people actually ask

Why does your product copy not describe things as beautiful or premium?

Because neither word can be checked when the parcel arrives. We restrict descriptions to things a buyer can verify: material, dimensions, capacity, care, and what the object actually does.

Do you ever claim a product has protective or calming properties?

No. Nothing here protects, cleanses, heals or calms anything, including in the softened form where a shop says that some people believe it. That rules out whole categories, not just adjectives.

Why are there no customer quotes on your product pages?

Because we do not have any yet. Writing them would be dishonest and, in the United States, unlawful. The absence is the honest state and it will change when real reviews exist.

Are your product photographs real?

The product in every photograph is a real supplier photograph. We never generate an image of a product we sell. We do sometimes restyle the room around it, and the object's shape, finish and colour are never altered.