Unique copy pays off where there is real search demand and competition, and rarely pays on the long tail of low-demand SKUs, so the honest answer is to triage rather than write for everything. The absolute version of the advice, “write unique copy for every product, always,” ignores the math of scale. On a catalog of thousands, the effort of original copy is finite, and spreading it evenly means starving the products that could actually return on the work while pouring hours into ones that almost no one searches for. The decision is a prioritization, and treating it as a blanket rule wastes the budget.
Where unique copy clearly earns its keep is on products with genuine demand and competition. These are the items people search for by name, the ones where multiple retailers are fighting for the same query, and the ones where your page is currently buried because it shares manufacturer text with everyone else. On these, original copy does real work: it gives the engine a reason to index and rank your version, and it gives shoppers a reason to buy from you. The lift here is measurable and worth the time.
Where it rarely pays is the long tail of low-demand SKUs. Many catalogs carry a large fraction of products that get a trickle of searches, sell in small numbers, or exist mainly for completeness. Hand-writing original copy for each of these costs far more than it returns, because even a perfect page cannot manufacture demand that is not there. These products are better served by a sensible template that is clean and accurate, reserving the deep work for items that can convert it into traffic and sales.
This is working judgment, not a fixed law, and the line between high and low demand shifts with your niche, your competition, and your margins, so it is worth re-checking against your own analytics rather than assuming. Search demand changes, seasonal products spike, and a SKU that looked marginal can become worth the investment. Let the data, not a slogan, draw the boundary.
To put this to work, sort your catalog by search demand and competition, then write genuinely unique copy for the high-demand, contested products first and template the long tail with clean, accurate baseline content. Prioritize by where the copy can actually pay off, and revisit the split as your demand data changes.