The Problem With Generic Ecommerce Marketing

A lot of e-commerce marketing looks the same. The same campaign structures. The same ad formats. The same discount-led messages. The same product shots. The same reports. The same advice handed to very different businesses.

For small brands, this is a problem.

A British-made clothing brand does not need the same marketing approach as a coffee roastery. A premium outdoor brand does not need the same customer journey as a low-cost accessories business. A founder-led countrywear brand does not need to sound like a national retailer.

Good ecommerce marketing should be built around the brand, the product, the customer and the stage of growth the business is actually in.

Generic marketing rarely does that.

Ecommerce Is Competitive, But Customers Still Need Clarity

Online shopping is now part of everyday life. The Office for National Statistics tracks internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales in Great Britain, and its March 2026 retail data shows online retail remains a major part of how people buy. DataReportal’s Digital 2026 report also says there were 68.1 million internet users in the UK at the end of 2025, with internet penetration at 97.8%. It also reported 55.5 million social media user identities in the UK, equal to 79.7% of the population.

That means e-commerce brands are not short of places to reach people. The challenge is being understood.

Customers are seeing more products, more adverts, more emails and more social content than ever. If a brand’s message is vague, copied or too similar to everyone else’s, it becomes easy to ignore.

This is where generic e-commerce marketing starts to fall apart. It may create activity, but not necessarily clarity. It may get a brand posting more, advertising more and reporting more, but without answering the most important question: why should the customer choose this brand?

Different Brands Need Different Customer Journeys

Every e-commerce brand has a customer journey, but not every customer journey works the same way.

Some products are bought quickly. Others need more consideration. Some customers need to understand sizing, quality, materials or origin before they buy. Others need reviews, returns information, delivery clarity or proof that the product will work in real life.

Baymard Institute’s research estimates that the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, based on 50 different studies. That does not mean every abandoned cart can be fixed with one tactic, but it does show how easily customers can leave before completing a purchase.

For some brands, the issue might be unclear product information. For others, it might be delivery costs, checkout friction, weak creative, poor mobile experience, lack of trust, or customers simply not being ready yet.

That is why a generic approach is risky. If every brand is given the same ads, same funnel and same reporting, the real problem can be missed.

Brand Story Still Matters

There is a tendency in e-commerce to separate performance marketing from brand story. One is treated as commercial and measurable. The other is treated as softer, nicer and less urgent.

That is a mistake.

Customers often need a reason to care before they buy. That reason might be quality, humour, practicality, sustainability, founder story, British manufacturing, community, technical performance or a very specific problem the product solves.

McKinsey has reported that consumers increasingly expect relevant, personalised interactions from brands. Its work on personalisation says previous research found that 71% of consumers expected companies to deliver personalised interactions, while 76% became frustrated when that did not happen.

For small ecommerce brands, personalisation does not have to mean complicated technology. It starts with understanding the customer properly. What do they care about? What problem are they trying to solve? What would make them trust the product? What would stop them buying?

A generic campaign cannot answer those questions properly because it has not done the work to understand the customer.

Paid Ads Cannot Fix an Unclear Brand

Paid social advertising can be very effective, but it cannot fix everything.

If the offer is unclear, ads will make that unclear offer more visible. If the website is confusing, paid traffic will send more people into a confusing journey. If the product page does not explain value, more clicks may simply create more drop-off.

This is why the foundations matter.

Before scaling spend, e-commerce brands need to understand the basics. Who is the customer? What is the product’s real value? What objections need to be answered? What creative is most believable? Where does the customer land after clicking? What happens if they do not buy straight away?

Generic e-commerce marketing often jumps too quickly to tactics. It focuses on campaign names, budgets and platforms before the message is clear enough to carry the spend.

That can lead to wasted money.

Discounts Are Not a Strategy

One of the most common signs of generic ecommerce marketing is over-reliance on discounts.

Discounts can be useful. They can help with stock movement, seasonal campaigns, product launches and customer acquisition. But if every campaign is built around a discount, the brand trains customers to wait for the next offer.

For premium brands, British-made brands, handmade brands and specialist ecommerce businesses, this can be especially damaging. These brands often need to explain why the product costs what it costs. If the marketing only talks about money off, the customer may never understand the real value.

A better approach is to communicate the reasons behind the product. Materials, fit, durability, function, origin, story, service and customer experience all matter. When those things are explained clearly, price becomes only one part of the decision, not the whole decision.

Creative Should Reflect the Brand

Ecommerce creative should not all look the same.

Some brands need polished product photography. Some need founder-led video. Some need customer reviews. Some need lifestyle content. Some need practical demonstrations. Some need humour. Some need educational content that explains the product properly.

The creative should come from the brand and the customer, not from a template.

This is especially true for smaller businesses. They often have personality, founder stories and product knowledge that larger brands cannot easily recreate. Generic marketing can flatten those strengths by making the brand look and sound like everyone else.

Strong creative helps customers understand the product in context. It shows how it is used, who it is for, why it matters and what makes it different.

That is much more useful than simply filling a content calendar.

Reporting Should Explain What Is Actually Happening

Generic e-commerce marketing often comes with generic reporting.

A business may receive a dashboard full of numbers but still not understand what is working, what is not, or what needs to change. That is not good enough.

Reporting should help a business make better decisions. It should show how campaigns are performing, which creatives are working, where customers are dropping off, what products are driving interest and whether the wider customer journey is improving.

For small businesses, this is especially important. They do not have an endless budget to waste. They need to know where their money is going and why certain decisions are being made.

Better E-commerce Marketing Starts With Better Questions

The problem with generic e-commerce marketing is not that the tactics are always wrong. Paid ads, email marketing, SEO, content, reporting and creative testing can all be valuable.

The problem is when those tactics are applied without enough thought.

Better e-commerce marketing starts with better questions. What makes this brand different? What does the customer need to believe before buying? What is stopping people from converting? Which products are strongest? What content already feels authentic? What should the customer see first? What should happen after they leave the site?

Those questions create a stronger strategy than any one-size-fits-all approach.

At Forty and Co, we work with e-commerce brands by looking at the brand, the customer and the journey around the product. The aim is not to make every business look the same. It is to help each brand communicate more clearly, advertise more effectively and build a customer journey that actually makes sense.

Because e-commerce marketing should not be generic.

It should be built around the brand people are buying from.