Running a profitable eCommerce business has never been more complex. Rising ad costs, shifting search behaviors, and consumer impatience are creating pressure points at every stage of the buyer journey. Some of these obstacles are beyond the reach of eCommerce marketers, but four of the most pressing challenges can be addressed directly by better content.
This article examines the issues of AI overviews in search, escalating customer acquisition costs, checkout friction, and thin product pages. Each is a formidable barrier, but each can also be countered with thoughtful, evidence-driven content strategies.
AI Overviews Are Stealing Clicks—But They Can Be an Opportunity
In early 2024, Google introduced AI Overviews to millions of search queries. By 2025, analysts estimated that over a third of product-related searches surface these summaries at the top of results. For publishers and online retailers, the impact has been dramatic. Studies tracked click-through rates declining by as much as a third when an AI Overview appeared.
At first glance, this trend seems like a death knell for organic traffic. But the reality is more nuanced. When retailers adapt their content to be “answer-engine ready”—clear, factual, well-structured, and rich in schema markup—their odds of being cited in these overviews increase.
Take the example of health products retailer iHerb. By restructuring their product descriptions with bulleted nutrition facts, concise ingredient definitions, and expanded FAQ sections, they gained higher visibility in AI Overviews on supplement-related queries. While total impressions remained flat, click-through rates stabilized because users recognized their brand as the cited source.
For eCommerce sites, the lesson is clear: treat AI Overviews not as competition but as another distribution channel. The content that wins placement is the same content that improves user trust—short, precise, and written with the reader in mind.
Rising Customer Acquisition Costs Demand Smarter Content
Paid acquisition costs have been rising for years, but 2024–2025 brought an inflection point. Benchmarks from multiple agencies place the average eCommerce customer acquisition cost (CAC) between $68 and $78—up double digits from just two years ago. For categories like apparel, where margins are thin, that number is unsustainable.
The answer isn’t simply to spend more. It’s to ensure that every dollar spent on traffic is met with conversion-ready content.
Outdoor gear brand REI provides a case in point. While their paid ads bring in large volumes of traffic, their product and landing page content does the heavy lifting to justify that spend. Detailed “expert advice” guides, rich product comparison tables, and lifestyle photography reduce return rates and increase the average order value. Analysts estimate that content improvements of this kind have allowed retailers to reduce blended CAC by as much as 15 percent, because more paid clicks convert into actual customers.
For smaller retailers without REI’s budget, the principle still applies. Invest in evergreen content such as product comparison articles, buying guides, and FAQs that match high-intent searches. Not only does this support paid campaigns, it creates an asset library that continues to attract and convert customers without recurring ad spend.
Checkout Friction Remains a Silent Conversion Killer
Cart abandonment continues to plague eCommerce. Global rates hover around 70 percent, and studies by Baymard Institute consistently show that confusing content and poor copy at checkout are major culprits. Shoppers often abandon not because the price is too high, but because they don’t understand shipping costs, return policies, or form instructions.
A vivid example comes from fashion retailer ASOS. Several years ago, ASOS reduced their cart abandonment by nearly 50 percent after rewriting their checkout microcopy to emphasize “free returns” and “fast shipping.” The change was subtle—more about messaging than new features—but it clarified customer concerns at the precise moment of purchase.
Similarly, Baymard reports that improving checkout UX and copy can lift conversions by 35 percent on average. That’s not a small gain; for a retailer doing $10 million in online sales, it represents millions of dollars in recovered revenue.
Thin Product Pages Are Penalized by Both Shoppers and Search Engines
Finally, there is the persistent problem of thin and duplicative product content. In the past, retailers could get away with short, boilerplate descriptions. That era is over. Google’s recent updates have targeted “scaled content” and “thin content,” rewarding retailers who publish deeper, more unique information.
But the penalty isn’t just in rankings. Shoppers themselves have higher expectations. A survey by Salsify found that 87 percent of consumers say product content is extremely or very important to their decision. When they don’t find answers—on dimensions, compatibility, care instructions, or real-world images—they click away.
Home improvement giant Home Depot illustrates the power of content depth. Their product detail pages don’t stop at a few sentences of description. They include in-depth specifications, comparison charts, video demonstrations, and Q&A sections where verified buyers answer questions. As a result, Home Depot consistently ranks at the top of search results for long-tail product queries, capturing high-intent customers that thinner competitors miss.
For smaller eCommerce businesses, the takeaway is to build out product pages with the same journalistic rigor as a feature article. What are the most common questions customers ask? What are the potential drawbacks, and how can you address them honestly? Adding this depth not only pleases search engines but also builds buyer trust.
The Common Thread: Content as an Investment, Not an Expense
Across all four challenges—AI overviews, rising CAC, checkout friction, and thin product pages—the common denominator is content. Not content as fluff, but content as an operational asset: structured, researched, tested, and continuously improved.
Too often, content is treated as an afterthought, bolted on after design and technology decisions are made. But in 2025, the most resilient eCommerce companies are those that recognize content as the glue holding every stage of the customer journey together.
Whether it’s being cited in an AI summary, converting a costly paid click, reassuring a hesitant buyer at checkout, or satisfying a search engine’s hunger for detail, better content consistently turns friction into flow. And in a year when every point of margin counts, that’s not optional. It’s survival.