Footwear Editing and Proofreading Services

A customer orders their usual size 9, wears the boots twice, decides they are too narrow, and requests a return. The retailer's policy says shoes must be unworn and in original condition to qualify for a refund. The customer is stuck with boots that do not fit, having done nothing wrong except trust a size that, for this particular last, needed a half size up and a wide width that was never mentioned anywhere on the product page. The single sentence that would have prevented this — this style runs narrow, size up if you have a wider foot — did not exist.

We edit what footwear brands and retailers produce to help customers get the right fit — width and half-size fitting guidance, break-in period disclosures, size conversion charts across regions, return policy wording for worn footwear, product-specific fit notes, and the customer service scripts used to answer fit questions before and after a purchase. Our editors work on the page that has to substitute for trying a shoe on.

The style-specific fit note is what prevents the return that happens because a shoe simply does not fit the way a size number implied, and its failure is a generic size chart that treats every last as identical. A size 9 on one last is not a size 9 on another, and a chart converting US to UK to EU sizes says nothing about the width or shape of the actual shoe. We work through these so each style states specifically whether it runs true to size, narrow, or wide, given that a customer's regular size is only useful information if they also know how this particular shoe compares to their regular size; so width options and their availability are stated clearly rather than assumed standard, since a customer with a wide foot needs to know before ordering whether a wide option exists at all; so a genuine break-in period is disclosed honestly, as a boot that will loosen with wear and a boot that is simply the wrong size produce an identical first impression, and only the disclosure lets a customer tell the difference; so return policy for worn footwear accounts for the reality that shoes must be tried indoors to be assessed at all, given that a policy demanding pristine soles makes it impossible to actually test the fit before the return window closes; so region-specific size conversions are given with the actual measurement in centimetres alongside them, because US, UK and EU sizing do not convert as cleanly as a simple chart implies and a length measurement resolves the ambiguity a size number cannot; and so customer reviews mentioning fit are surfaced specifically, rather than buried among reviews about colour or style, since fit feedback from other customers is often more current and specific than the brand's own chart. Guides written this way stop a customer from finding out they bought the wrong shoe after it is too late to return it.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including product specifications, fit data and customer information. We are editors rather than podiatrists, last makers or fit specialists, and we offer no view on sizing standards or construction. What we can do is make sure the fit guidance describes the actual shoe.