B2B commerce / Product copy
2025 / Anonymized case study
Content design for a B2B group cart
A B2B purchasing platform needed a shared cart for complex construction orders. I clarified roles, review states, and checkout handoffs so collaboration felt intentional, not improvised.
Visual mockups
The cart needed a collaboration language.
Recreated product surfaces showing the shared cart model, contributor roles, item review states, and the handoff from team building to purchasing approval.
Group cart workspace
Group cart
Seismic retrofit order
Three teammates are adding items. Review unresolved issues before sending the cart to purchasing.
Post base package
12
ReadyAnchor bolt kit
24
Review qtyConnector set
8
Confirm specPrimary action
Send to purchasing for approval
Item warning
2 items need review before this cart can go to purchasing.
Role language map
Permissions had to sound human.
Contributor
Adds products and notes
Cannot place order
Cart owner
Reviews items and teammates
Can send for approval
Purchaser
Confirms account and shipping
Can place order
Checkout handoff
Every state named the next owner.
01
Build
02
Review
03
Approve
04
Order
Your cart is ready for purchasing. Jordan can review account details and place the order.
Overview
What changed
This project turned a complicated group purchasing feature into a legible product experience. The content work defined the mental model for a shared cart, named user roles, clarified permissions, and made every state answer the buyer's real questions: who can act now, what needs review, and what happens next.
Role
My part
- Led content design for the group cart experience across naming, entry points, cart states, collaboration moments, and checkout handoffs.
- Mapped the language system for contributors, cart owners, reviewers, and purchasers so permissions were visible without making the flow feel bureaucratic.
- Partnered with product design, product management, and engineering to align copy with account rules, checkout logic, and edge cases.
Problem
The product moment was unclear
The platform supported complex B2B buying behavior, but the cart experience assumed one person owned the whole order. In reality, teams needed to collect products, review quantities, confirm compatibility, and pass the order to someone with purchasing authority. Without clear language, the feature risked feeling like a pile of shared items instead of a coordinated buying workflow.
Constraints
Rules of the work
- The flow had to support different account permissions without making every user read policy language.
- Product, pricing, availability, and approval states could change while multiple people were editing the same cart.
- The copy needed to work for technical buyers who knew the products and purchasing users who were accountable for the order.
Users
Who needed clarity
- Contractors, estimators, and technical users adding products to a shared order.
- Purchasing users reviewing the cart, resolving issues, and placing the order.
- Sales and support partners helping customers understand where an order stood.
Before / after
Examples in context, with the reason for each change
Group cart CTA
Entry point shown after a user adds products for a team purchase.
Before
Share cart
After
Invite teammates to add items
Checkout CTA
Checkout handoff when a contributor cannot place the order.
Before
Checkout
After
Send to purchasing for approval
Content decisions
The writing system underneath
Name the cart as a shared workspace
The feature needed a mental model that was more specific than sharing and less formal than procurement. Group cart gave teams a simple name for building an order together.
Create a group cart for this project
Make roles visible at the moment of action
Instead of hiding permission logic behind disabled buttons, the copy explained who could add, review, approve, or place the order when that distinction mattered.
You can add products. A purchaser needs to place the order.
Write states around what blocks checkout
The cart had to surface issues without making a complex order feel broken. State copy grouped problems by the next action: review quantities, confirm availability, or request approval.
2 items need review before this cart can be sent for approval.
Process
How I got there
- Mapped the end-to-end group cart flow from product selection through invite, contribution, review, approval, and checkout.
- Defined the vocabulary for cart roles, ownership, permissions, item states, and purchasing handoffs.
- Wrote UI copy for entry points, empty states, item-level warnings, collaboration activity, approval CTAs, and confirmation messages.
- Worked through edge cases with product and engineering, including permission conflicts, removed items, availability changes, and carts with unresolved issues.
Outcome
Impact signals
- Created the content model for a new collaborative purchasing workflow on a B2B platform.
- Clarified who could contribute, review, approve, and place an order at each step of the flow.
- Established reusable patterns for shared carts, contributor permissions, item review states, and checkout handoffs.
Learnings
What I would carry forward
- B2B checkout copy has to carry product logic, account rules, and human accountability at the same time.
- The clearest button is not always the shortest one.
- A collaborative cart needs to tell users who owns the next move before it asks them to act.
Next project