Grammar and mechanics
This guide is to help designers, developers, recruiters, UX-ers, product managers, support advisors, or anyone who writes public-facing text for Shopify.
Basics
Active voice
You should (almost) always write in the active voice:
- Subject (person/thing acting) verb (the action) object (receives the action)
Use the active voice if merchants need to do something. It should be clear that the subject is the one doing the action.
Add details to the product
Details were added to the product
Passive voice
To tell if you’re using the passive voice, look out for:
- When the object comes before the subject (“the item was purchased by the customer”)
- Past tense verbs (“was added”, “was created”, and so on)
- Forms of the verb “to be” (“was”, “is”, “were”, and so on)
You should almost always write in the active voice, but here’s when to use the passive voice:
- To avoid referring to yourself or Shopify
- To make it clear that you didn’t personally take an action or make a decision
- If the object (thing being done) is more important than the subject (person doing the thing)
Do
Invoices are created monthly and emailed to marki.yeung@nomail.com
Don’t
Shopify creates and emails your invoices monthly to simran.robichaud@nomail.com
Contractions
Contractions are abbreviated words. We use them to set a light and casual tone in the interface. The goal is to sound human, so avoid contracting verbs that sound awkward when you say them out loud, or have been phased out of modern day speech.
You can’t have products with negative weights
Your products don’t have weights
You’re all set up
This product doesn’t require shipping
The customer name shouldn’t contain numbers
It’s a good time to plan your Black Friday sale
An error occurred and your changes couldn’t be saved
I’m Kit, your digital marketing assistant
This transfer hasn’t been received
You haven’t connected your account
You’ve exceeded 10 password attempts
That’ll make sure you are all set up
It would’ve been possible if you’d installed the latest updates
The set up was not complete, but this’ll do
There’re 10 products in this collection
Your product mustn’t be more than 20kgs
This product needn’t be shipped
There are 3 visitors who’ve viewed this product
You gotta set up Shopify Payments to use Shopify Capital
It’d be a good idea to place an ad this weekend
Plain language
Use words and language that our merchants use. Avoid jargon or technical terminology. Make sure each sentence has a single focus and keep them short. Aim for a Grade 7 reading level.
We’ve made some changes to improve your store’s security
These products aren’t getting a lot of views, but visitors are adding them to their carts
Your SSL certificates were activated
These are your less popular products with the highest add-to-cart conversion
Capitalization
Headings
Use sentence case for all headings:
- Capitalize the first word of a heading
- Capitalize proper or trademarked nouns (names of products, countries, or people)
- Lowercase for everything else
Create purchase order
Create Purchase Order
Product and feature names
In general, if a feature or product isn’t unique to Shopify, don’t capitalize it (such as blogs, navigation, pages). If it’s unique to Shopify and marketable as its own product, capitalize it (such as Shopify Payments, or Frenzy).
For all terms and definitions, check our full vocabulary list.
blogs
navigation
Shopify Payments
Blogs
Navigation
shopify payments
Trademarks
Respect the usage guidelines of any third-party intellectual property. For example, in US communications, Apple Pay requires you to include the trademark symbol (™) the first time Apple Pay appears in body copy.
Review the third party’s brand usage guidelines to make sure you are using the company’s name and logo correctly.
Job titles
Job titles should be capitalized when they come before or after a person’s name. When referring to a job title without referencing a name, don’t capitalize the job title.
Content Strategist Jane Smith
Jane Smith, Content Strategist
Jane Smith is a content strategist.
The content strategist designed the information architecture.
content strategist Jane Smith
Jane Smith, content strategist
Jane Smith is a Content Strategist
The Content Strategist redesigned the information architecture.
Letters following slashes
The first letter following a slash shouldn’t be capitalized.
ZIP/postal code required
ZIP/Postal code required
Headings and subheadings
See the content guidelines for headings and subheadings in the actionable language section.
Lists
Bulleted
Use a bulleted list when items are related but sequence or priority doesn’t matter.
Do
Use Shopify Payments to:
- Avoid the hassle of setting up a third-party payment gateway
- Track your payout schedule from the Shopify admin
- Minimize lost sales from chargebacks
Don’t
Use Shopify payments to
- avoid the hassle of setting up a gateway,
- track pending payout schedule,
- minimize lost sales from chargebacks. And eliminate PCI fees
Numbered
Use a numbered list when item sequence or priority does matter, such as step-by-step instructions.
Do
To set up Shopify Payments:
- Go to Settings from Shopify admin
- Select Shopify Payments
- Select Setup
Don’t
To set up Shopify Payments:
- Go to Settings from Shopify admin Then select Shopify Payments
- Select Setup
Dropdown menus
Actions in a menu
Menu lists give users a horizontal set of actions when space is limited. The order of actions is often based on logic such as most popular actions.
Actions in a menu follow a {verb}+{noun} pattern. If there’s enough context, only a verb might be required.
Rename
Edit
HTML
Duplicate
HTML
editing options
File name changes
Duplicate this order so that you can make edits, updates, or changes
Nouns in a menu
Menu lists give users a horizontal set of nouns when space is limited. The order of nouns is often based on logic such as most recent orders.
Nouns in a menu should be concise but still give the user enough information so they can easily find and accurately select the item they want.
Do
Select filter
- Today
- Yesterday
- This week
- This month
Don’t
- Filter visibility
- Filter product type
- Filter product vendor
- Filter tagged with
Capitalization
- List items always start with a capital letter.
- Capitalization and punctuation rules apply to both bulleted and numbered lists.
Do
Company name
- Hidden
- Optional
- Required
Don’t
Company name
- hidden
- optional
- required
Punctuation
- Introduce bulleted lists with a colon or a heading.
- Don’t use commas at the end of list items (for bulleted or numbered lists).
- If any list item contains two or more sentences, punctuate all list items.
- If all list items are one sentence or fragments, don’t punctuate.
- Never put a comma or semicolon at the end of a bulleted or numbered list item. Treat each list item as a self-contained piece of information.
Helper text and descriptions
If your list contains helper text, only the description below the list item should contain punctuation.
Do
While the customer is checking out:
- Use the shipping address as the billing address by default
- Reduces the number of fields required to check out. The billing address can still be edited.
- Require a confirmation step Customers must review their order details before purchasing.
Don’t
- Automatically capture payment for orders. Authorize and charge the customer’s credit card.
- Manually capture payment for orders.
- Authorize the customer’s credit card.
Dates, numbers, and measurements
These guidelines are for American English, which is the language we use as a base before translating to other languages. However, dates, numbers, and measurements may be formatted differently in other languages. You can use helpers to ensure they are localized automatically.
Date
When possible, use the month’s full name, for example, October. If there are space constraints, use 3-letter abbreviations, for example, Oct. Don’t write dates numerically, for example, 07-02-14.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
October 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015
Thur, October 15
October 15, ’15
10/15/15
Don’t use ordinal indicators, which are words representing position or rank in a sequential order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on).
January 23–April 1
January 23rd–April 1st
Time:
- Use the 12-hour clock, followed by am or pm.
- Include a space after the last number, for example, “Your package will arrive at 12:35 pm”. Adding the space helps with formatting for English-speaking markets outside of North America, so we use it for North American usage as well.
- Use the browser time of the logged in user.
- To show a time range, use an en dash and include the am/pm after both times, for example, 3:00 pm–4:00 pm.
- If indicating both the date and time, separate them with the word “at”, rather than with a comma.
Time zones
- Include a time zone only if it’s necessary, such as for an event listing.
- Use the time zone’s abbreviation following the am or pm, for example, 4:00 pm NZT.
- If your audience is in a single time zone, then don’t include an S (for Standard) or D (for Daylight). For example, 3:00 pm PT.
- If your audience is in a combination of time zones, then include the S (for Standard) or D (for Daylight) to avoid confusion. For example, 3:00 pm PDT.
For all translations, the time format is automatically localized by the Intl.DateTimeFormat
JavaScript object.
Do
Thursday, October 15, 2015 at 2:00 pm EDT
Don’t
2015-10-15, CDT 2:00P.M.
Use consistent timestamp formats by following these examples:
Less than 1 min:
Just now
1 min to 60 min:
13 minutes ago
Today:
10:30 am
Yesterday:
Yesterday at 10:30 am
In the last 7 days:
Friday at 10:30 am
7 days to 1 year:
Aug 14 at 10:30 am
More than 1 year:
Aug 14, 2016
Less than 1 min:
10:30am
1 min to 60 min:
10:30am
Today:
Today, 10:30am
Yesterday:
Friday, 10:30am
In the last 7 days:
Friday, 10:30am
7 days to 1 year:
10:30am, Oct 15, 2015
More than 1 year:
Last year
Currency
When including currency with a price, the currency comes after the dollar amount. Learn more about formatting localized currency.
$10,000 USD
USD$10,000
$10KUSD
$10,000USD
Numbers
In general, use numerals. If the number is below 10 and not integral to the sentence, spell it out in full.
9
100
1
Here are 2 marketing campaigns you can use.
You have 3 orders to fulfill.
You no longer need to track shipments in two places.
nine
one hundred
one
Here are two marketing campaigns you can use.
You have three orders to fulfill.
Use commas for numbers with four or more digits. Whenever possible, don’t truncate numbers:
12,000
9,344
1,800,887
12 k
9344
1.8 m
Use hyphens when writing phone numbers. Don’t use brackets, spaces, periods, or plus signs:
613-555-1234
1-514-555-1234
33-55-416-123
613.555.1234
1-(514)-555-1234
+33 55 416 123
Use an en dash without a space on either side for number ranges:
5–10 products
October 15–31
2005–2015
25–100 lbs
$0.00–$49.99
2:00 pm–3:00 pm
5 – 10 products
October 15 – 31
2005 – 2015
25 – 100lbs
$0.00 – $49.99
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Use “to” instead of an en dash if a number range is preceded by “from” in a phrase. Use “and” if a range is preceded by “between”.
You have a delivery scheduled from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm on Monday, July 18.
Active from August 15 to August 30
Free shipping for products between $10.00 and $40.00
You have a delivery scheduled from 10:00 am–2:00 pm on Monday, July 18.
Active from August 15–August 30
Free shipping for products between $10.00–$40.00
For undefined upward ranges, use “and up” or “or more”.
$50.00 and up
100 or more
$50.00+
>100
For downward ranges, be specific.
$0.00–$49.99
$50.00 or less
Units of measurement
In all cases, include a space between the number and the unit.
3.4 lb
2 kg
1 cm
11.875 × 3.375 × 13.625 cm
3.4lb
2kg
1.875 × 3.375 × 13.625cm
Never pluralize unit of measurement abbreviations.
4 lb
11 ml
4 lbs
11 mls
When listing out multiple measurements in a row, put the unit of measurement at the end instead of after each number (and include a space).
11.875 × 3.375 × 13.625 cm
1.875 cm × 3.375 cm × 13.625 cm
For pricing by measurement, don’t add a space before or after a slash.
$100/m
$5/100 g
$100/ m
$5/100g
For units of measurement, use decimals instead of fractions:
2.375 lb
11.875 × 3.375 × 13.625 cm
2-3/8 lb
11-7/8 × 3-3/8 × 13-5/8 cm
Unit of measurement abbreviations
This table shows the standard abbreviations for commonly-used units of measurement.
Use the imperial system for the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar, and use the metric system for all other countries.
Measurement | System | Unit | Abbreviation |
---|---|---|---|
Area | Metric | square meters | m² |
Imperial | square feet | sq ft | |
Distance | Metric | kilometers | km |
Imperial | miles | mi | |
Image resolution | Universal | pixels | px |
megapixels | MP | ||
pixels per inch | ppi | ||
dots per inch | dpi | ||
Length | Metric | centimeters | cm |
meters | m | ||
Imperial | inches | in | |
feet | ft | ||
yards | yd | ||
Storage size | Universal | kilobytes | KB |
gigabytes | GB | ||
terabytes | TB | ||
Volume | Metric | centimeters | ml |
litres | L | ||
Imperial | fluid ounces | fl oz | |
gallons | gal | ||
Weight | Metric | grams | g |
kilograms | kg | ||
Imperial | ounces | oz | |
pounds | lb |
Addresses and places
Address
Lay out address forms in the following format:
First name Last name
Address
Apartment, suite, etc. (optional)
City
Country Province Postal code
Please note, “optional” in Apartment, suite, etc. (optional)
means that the
field is optional for customers to complete, but we should always include it in
the form.
Use locale-specific alternatives for province and postal code, for example, the US uses State and ZIP code
Add extra fields
Change the placeholder text
Country, province, and state names
Use a nation’s proper name when referring to it as a noun.
Your store must be located in the United States.
Your store must be located in the US.
When using a country as an adjective (such as when referring to currency), use the abbreviated form without punctuation.
Pinterest requires your store to use US currency.
U.S. currency
Things to watch out for:
- Don’t use colloquial forms of a nation or state name, for example, America instead of the United States
- Search online to see whether nations commonly use “the” before their name, for example, the Philippines or the Falkland Islands
Punctuation
Ampersands
Don’t use ampersands (&). They attract attention to the least important part of the sentence. Spell out the word “and”.
Zones and rates
Zones & rates
Apostrophes
Use apostrophes to represent omitted letters or numbers:
- Omitted numbers (’40s)
- Omitted letters (don’t, can’t, won’t)
- Verb contractions (it’s, you’re, we’re)
Use apostrophes to form possessives:
- Singular nouns: add ’s, even if they end in s (merchant’s, bus’s)
- Plural nouns that don’t end in s: add ’s (women’s, men’s)
- Plural nouns that end in s: add an apostrophe (boxes’, customers’)
Don’t use apostrophes to form possessive pronouns such as hers or his.
Merchant’s store
Women’s clothing
Customers’ credit cards
Merchants store
Womens clothing
Customers credit cards
Always use apostrophes, not vertical (straight) quotes.
’ option + shift + ]
'
Colons
Avoid using colons in sentences. If you need to use one, don’t capitalize the first word after the colon unless it’s a proper noun.
Do
Your store accepts payments with GoCoin and Shopify Payments.
Don’t
Your store accepts payments with: GoCoin and Shopify Payments. Merchants store, womens clothing, customers credit cards
Don’t use colons to introduce radio buttons or checkboxes.
Do
If the customer abandons their checkout, send them an email reminder to complete their order
Don’t
If the customer abandons their checkout, send them an email reminder to complete their order:
Introduce bulleted lists with a colon.
Do
Correct the following payment information to continue:
- The credit card verification value (CVV) doesn’t match the credit card
- The billing address street doesn’t match the street for the credit card
- The billing address ZIP or postal code doesn’t match the credit card address
Don’t
Correct the following payment information to continue.
- The credit card verification value (CVV) doesn’t match the credit card
- The billing address street doesn’t match the street for the credit card
- The billing address ZIP or postal code doesn’t match the credit card address
Commas
Use the oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) in sentences. There should be a comma after every list of 3 or more items (unless you’re using a bulleted or numbered list).
Do
Kit is an app that handles your online advertising, email marketing, and social media.
Don’t
Kit is an app that handles your online advertising, email marketing and social media.
Don’t use commas to separate bulleted or numbered list items.
Do
- The credit card verification value (CVV) doesn’t match the credit card
- The billing address street doesn’t match the street for the credit card
- The billing address ZIP or postal code doesn’t match the credit card address
Don’t
- The credit card verification value (CVV) doesn’t match the credit card,
- The billing address street doesn’t match the street for the credit card,
- The billing address ZIP or postal code doesn’t match the credit card address.
Ellipses
The ellipses (…) can be used in place of a missing piece of text (most commonly to show the deletion of words from a direct quotation). Avoid using ellipses in text.
Use ellipses for:
- Truncation in the center of a title bar
Don’t use ellipses for:
- Placeholder copy
- Trailing off a sentence
Search files
Start typing to search for files…
Always use the ellipsis character, not three periods.
…
option + ;
...
Truncation
Consider constraints of the space in the interface when deciding to use truncation. Think about what part of the string merchants needs most. It’s usually the beginning or end, which means you might have to truncate the middle of the string.
Ellipses button component
A button with an ellipsis icon (not the same as text) is used to expand more actions. It’s typically used in cards, or for horizontal sets of actions when space is limited. Android uses a vertical version (vertically stacked dots).
En-dashes and em-dashes
Use an en dash with no spaces in between (–) for a fixed range of numbers
2006–2013
2006 – 2013
Use an em dash only if you can’t make your message clearer by splitting it into two sentences. Use an em dash without a space on either side (—).
Do
Choose your theme’s colors, typography, and pictures—all in one place.
Don’t
Choose your theme’s design—colors, typography, and pictures—all in one place.
Depending on the font or appearance, you may want to include a hair space on
either side of the en or em dash. HTML entity code for hair space is  
or  
.
Tip: On Mac the keyboard shortcuts are option - for en dash and shift option - for em dash.
Exclamation marks
Avoid exclamation marks—only use them for really really exciting things. If you absolutely have to, limit yourself to one exclamation mark per page.
You’ve launched your first online store!
You’ve updated your product title!
Hyphens
Use hyphens to:
- Form compound modifiers: two words that combine to modify or describe the noun that follows
Start your free, no-risk, 14-day trial.
This is a high-risk order.
This order is high risk.
Add weight-based shipping rates.
Add rates based on the weight of an order.
Start your free, no risk, 14 day trial.
This is a high risk order.
This order is high-risk.
Add weight based shipping rates.
- Join prefixes and suffixes only if there are two vowels beside each other. Never use hyphens in the words ecommerce and email.
Re-order
Resend
Reorder
Reenable
Re-send
Periods
Periods often end up in places they shouldn’t, and are omitted at strange times. In general, don’t use periods in interface copy unless it’s a full sentence description.
When to use periods:
Complete sentences
Body text, descriptions, and subtitles
Help text under text boxes (form fields)
Timeline events
Sentence fragments
Top-level headings and titles
Buttons
Notifications
Toast messages
Placeholder copy
Navigation menu items
Hover/tooltip text
Footer help box text
Radio button and checkbox text
Description example: Add this product to a collection so it’s easy to find in your store.
Placeholder example: Search products
Timeline example: $50.41 USD was authorized.
Footer help box example: Learn more about products
Button example: Add product.
Placeholder example: Search…
Heading example: I’m Kit, your virtual employee.
Notification example: 6 orders have payments that need to be captured.
Periods for bulleted, numbered, and lists of links
Use when a list item has two or more full sentences, then also add periods to the whole list
Use for the description or helper text below a bulleted or numbered list item
Don’t use periods when a list has only single sentences or fragments
Don’t use periods for lists of links
Question marks
Avoid question marks wherever possible. Reword into affirmative statements wherever you can, but there are exceptions:
It’s okay to use question marks if you don’t know the result of the question:
- “Did you forget your password?”
- “Do you need to add a shipping rate?”
Don’t use question marks if:
- It’s the only option available: “Reset password”
- It’s an on/off option: “Show quantity box”
Forgot?
Reset password?
Quotation marks
Use quotation marks to:
- Define words (“growth-hacking”)
- Quote text
Place commas and periods inside quotation marks.
“I see this all the time,” said Mark Hayes.
“It drives me absolutely crazy”, said Mark Hayes.
Always use smart (curly) quotes, not vertical (straight) quotes.
‘ option + ]
’ option + shift + ]
“ option + [
” option + shift + [
" or '
Semicolons
Avoid semicolons if possible. If you really need them, use semicolons to:
- Connect two closely related ideas, as long as they are both independent clauses (full sentences that could stand on their own).
- Replace a comma or the word “and” between two closely related ideas.
Do
My friends made me banana pancakes on my birthday; I’ve never been happier.
Don’t
The unicorn was hungry; the grass was brown.
Spelling and formatting
American spelling
Use American spelling for all external-facing Shopify content. When in doubt, check the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the preferred spelling of specific terms.
Color
Center
Canceled
Colour
Centre
Cancelled
Tip: it’s easy to miss Canadian spelling. Switch your laptop language settings to American English and turn spell check on. It will highlight any Canadianisms you might have missed.
Bold
When in doubt, don’t bold.
Use bold sparingly and only where strong emphasis is required. In the interface, bold should be reserved to emphasize input merchants have provided (such as a product title or contact information).
Do
After your first sale, PayPal will email you at merchant@email.com with instructions.
Don’t
Are you sure you want to delete cat shirt?
Don’t use bold to emphasize proper nouns, create a heading, or emphasize a checkbox title.
Do
Your store accepts payments with PayPal Express Checkout and Authorize.net
Don’t
Your store accepts payments with PayPal Express Checkout and Authorize.net
You, we, and other personal pronouns
Addressing merchants
Always refer to merchants as “you”. Don’t put words in merchants’ mouths with phrases that use “I” or “my”.
Change your email address in your Profile.
Change your email address in My Profile.
In some cases (such as getting merchant consent or granting permissions) you should refer to merchants as “I”.
Referring to Shopify
Always refer to Shopify as “we,” but avoid inserting Shopify into the content as much as possible (except when a human is taking action, such as reviewing a request).
Pinterest Buyable Pins will be available in the coming weeks.
We’re making Pinterest Buyable Pins available in the coming weeks.