Brick-and-Mortar Retail Editing and Proofreading Services

The sign says 50% OFF in letters a foot high, and underneath, in type nobody can read from the aisle, it says selected lines only, excludes new season, while stocks last, cannot be combined with other offers. A customer carries three items to the till, two of them are full price, and the argument that follows happens in front of a queue.

We edit what physical retailers produce — promotional and price signage, shelf-edge and point-of-sale copy, in-store notices and policy signs, wayfinding and department signage, staff briefing notes for a promotion, window and display copy, and the notices explaining a change to opening hours, a closure or a refit. Our editors work on words read at three metres by somebody walking.

The promotional sign and its conditions is where a retailer either delivers a promotion or manufactures a dispute, and its failure is a headline that promises more than the terms allow. A customer reads the big type and the till applies the small type. We work through these so the qualifying condition appears in the headline itself where it is short enough, since "50% off all winter coats" prevents the dispute that "50% off*" creates; so the exclusions are stated positively where possible, because "on everything in this aisle" is understood instantly and "excludes selected lines" tells a customer nothing they can act on; so the conditions that will actually be applied at the till are the ones on the sign, given that a promotion enforced differently from how it is advertised is the single largest source of complaints in store; so any time limit is a date rather than a duration, as "this week only" is ambiguous by Thursday; so "while stocks last" is used only where stock is genuinely limited, since customers have learned to read it as meaningless; so the sign is legible at the distance it is read from, with the condition in type a person can actually see; so the staff briefing carries the same wording as the sign so that the answer at the till matches the promise in the aisle; and so any was-and-now price is stated with the period the higher price applied. Signs written this way sell without arguments.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including promotional plans, pricing and internal briefings. We are editors rather than retail or trading standards advisers, and we offer no view on pricing practice, promotions or compliance. What we can do is make the sign and the till say the same thing.