Why 80% of your catalog is invisible to Search

If your products aren’t showing up, they aren’t selling.

It’s an obvious truth. And in physical retail, there are clear limits—shelf space, customer attention, store hours. But in e-commerce, the digital shelf is supposed to be infinite, always open, always full. So why do most retailers still see only a fraction of their inventory actually perform?

Here’s the reality:

👉 In large online stores, 70–80% of products generate no meaningful organic traffic.

👉 That means they’re practically invisible in search.

👉 And invisible products don’t convert.

Retailers with deep catalogs—hundreds of thousands or even millions of SKUs—feel this most acutely.

Despite the promise of digital scale, most of their inventory lives in the dark.

This Isn’t Just an SEO Problem—It’s a Structural Issue

Earlier this year, Retail Economics reported that UK retailers lose £6.7 billion annually due to unfindable online products. That’s not just leakage—it’s systemic failure in how inventory is presented and discovered online.

Let’s unpack what’s really going on.  Read more