Insights · Health & Wellness
We read supplement, vitamin and sports nutrition listings with one question in mind: could an AI shopping assistant confidently tell a buyer what they'd actually be taking?
This category covers supplements, vitamins and minerals, sports nutrition, protein and performance products, natural health and general wellness products. They differ enormously in what they are — and they share one deciding question, which is unusual for a category this broad: how much of the active ingredient do I get in a serve, and in what form?
A dose is three facts: a number, a form, and a serve size. Naming the ingredient supplies none of them.
The gap between the three is bigger than it looks. A listing can say “magnesium” without saying which magnesium — citrate, glycinate and oxide behave differently. It can print a milligram figure that refers to the compound rather than the elemental amount, which is a much smaller number. And it can quote a figure per capsule while the serve is two capsules. Each of those on its own is enough to make a comparison between two products meaningless, and an assistant asked which is better value cannot answer without all three.
There is a second question this category carries that most do not: who should not take this? Pregnancy, existing medication, an age minimum, an allergen in the capsule shell. Those are the facts that turn a general recommendation into a specific one, and an assistant that cannot find them will decline rather than risk being wrong about a health product.
The scope limit matters more here than anywhere else on this site. Squiggle does not assess whether a supplement works, whether a claim is substantiated, or whether a product is appropriate for anyone. We assess whether the published listing gives an AI assistant enough evidence to answer a buyer's question about what the product contains.
Why this happens
The dose is never actually absent from the product — it's on the label, because it has to be. What reaches the product page is often a photograph of that label, alongside description copy written to convey a benefit. Where that happens, the listing carries the promise in readable text and the specification in an image, which is precisely the wrong way round for an assistant that reads text and cannot read pictures.
Careful language is also part of it. Merchants in this category are rightly cautious about what they claim, and caution often produces vaguer copy. But a dose is not a claim — it is a fact about the contents. Publishing the number, the form and the serve size is the most conservative thing a listing in this category can do, and it is also the thing that makes the product recommendable.
What to do about it
State the amount per serve in the description text — and say what a serve is. “210mg per serve (two capsules)” answers in one line what a strength adjective never can.
Name the form of the active ingredient. Glycinate, citrate, isolate, concentrate — the form is part of what a buyer is choosing between.
Give both figures where they differ. The compound weight and the elemental or active amount are different numbers, and only one of them answers “how much am I taking?”
Say how many serves are in the pack. It's how a buyer compares price between two products, and it can't be inferred from a capsule count alone.
State who the product isn't for, and any allergens. Pregnancy, age minimums, medication cautions, dairy or gluten in the formulation — the cautions are what let an assistant answer confidently rather than decline.
Transcribe the supplement panel into text. The photograph stays for the human; the words are what an assistant reads.
Squiggle reads your entire Shopify catalogue and shows you which products describe a benefit where a buyer needed a dose — and what to add first.
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Squiggle's category guidance is informed by ongoing analysis of publicly available ecommerce product information. Illustrative examples explain common product-understanding principles and do not represent findings from any one merchant or the entire category. No individual store is named. This is guidance on product information, and it is not health, medical or nutritional advice — Squiggle does not assess whether any product is effective, substantiated or suitable for anyone. Always follow the product's own labelling and seek advice from a qualified health professional. Public catalogue data only — no account access, sales data, or private information was used.