An often issue I find with ecommerce websites is exactly what Matt says. The customers copy the descriptions exactly as how they are on their supplier or manufacturer brochure or website. Then they end up with many duplicates of the same information. Usually the manufacturer or supplier was the first to insert that information on the web. For that and many other reasons this new shop will never rank high for those items because it doesn't have any value for search engines. This can be fixed rewriting the content. Yes, it takes a lot of time to do dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of descriptions; but I didn't say it was easy, neither that would not take much time; and in case you don't have the time, maybe the money to get it done.

You can have the help of a thesaurus tool right there while you are rewriting. You can even add your own personal touch to make the description even better and unique. Those bots will start coming to your items faster than you think.