Is SEO still worth it for ecommerce?

Worth it for the questions around the product, rarely for the product page itself. Competing with marketplaces on ‘buy X’ is a losing position; answering ‘which X should I buy’ is not.

What decides it

The return arrives late and does not stop, which is the opposite shape to advertising. A store that can afford to wait six months should have both; one that cannot should have advertising first.

The part that gets skipped

The cheapest customer is the one you already have, and most budgets are spent as though that were untrue.

A channel that works at small spend often stops working at large spend, because the cheap audience runs out first.

Paid traffic is rented and gets more expensive every year. Every channel you own — email, notifications, your own audience — gets cheaper as it grows.

Where an app fits

Push notifications sit on the owned side of that line, which is the whole commercial argument for an app.