Multiple listings for the same product - how to avoid duplication?

[A_Q]

Hi everyone,

We are working on an e-commerce site that has three different physical stores that each hold different products in stock. A listing is created on the website for each product in each location but if the same product is in all three stores the images and description are duplicate content

We can't have one product page and tag locations to it as this would then require keeping two different stock systems updated, but is there a way to avoid the three pages being duplicates of each other?

Many thanks for the advice!

[Ray-pp]

Hmm, well in my experience the larger ecommerce/brick stores usually have a single product page. They then allow you to set your store location and the stock is updated based on that user preference. E.g. If I go to walmart there is 1 product page and if I select My Store the product inventory will adjust to show if it is in stock near me.

If you cannot invest in a system like this AND the product pages are duplicate content, you'll want to set 1 product page as the canonical page to prevent duplicate content issues. I suggest adding the locations to the main product page, so users can easily view their location and inventory status - since a single product page location should rank highest in the SERPs.

[MonicaOConnor]

I would add user generated reviews and comments. Even a product q&a option is helpful. If you can get enough unique content on those pages to outweigh the duplicate content then you shouldn't have any troubles. I would recommend the user generated reviews in this instance over canonical tags because it will prevent the pages from ranking. You are basically telling Google that one of those pages is the authoritative one, which will prevent he others from ranking. The duplicate content is the same way however, unless there is something uniquely valuable on those pages. In this case, customer reviews would solve both problems. There is nothing more valuable to a searcher than hearing what other people have to say about a product.

[A_Q]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the responses - we will look into this further and see what unique content we can gather for the listings.

Thanks again for the advice!