Should all similar products have different content?

[doornum3]

My ecommerce site offers many versions of basically the same product with different engraved designs. Each design is a separate product with it's own page. It will be easy to include some unique content regarding the design for each product, but should I also make the basic product description unique as well? Will my ranking possibly be negatively affected by using the same basic product description (with unique design descriptions)?

[rogerd]

Certainly unique product descriptions would be a plus, but if you keep them the same maybe you could lead with the design description. Overall, you want to have as little overlap (from a percentage of content) standpoint as possible. This isn't difficult for article sites, but for ecommerce sites with similar SKUs it can be a challenge.

[doornum3]

Thanks, Roger... I had a hunch that might be the case but it's nice to know for sure.