Why should you add reviews on Shopify?
In today’s online environment, positive product reviews on Shopify can make or break a business. A study conducted by Nielsen discovered that 73% of online respondents use reviews to make purchase decisions.
The research from Nielsen says it all – reviews are super important to your business. But why?
How do reviews create trust? It’s hard to buy something when you don’t know what you are getting into. Reviews help reduce the perceived risk. A customer looking at a product on your Shopify store will estimate their risk in terms of the probability that they may have a bad experience.
All things being equal, products with many customer reviews are seen as low-risk purchases, while products with few or no reviews are considered high-risk products. Reviews also help craft an image of your brand and educate potential customers about who you are as a business and what you want them to know about your products. This can only be good for business!
Now that you know how critical reviews are, let’s look at how to add reviews on Shopify.
How to add a product reviews app on Shopify
Installing a product reviews app is the best and fastest way to add reviews to your Shopify store. Here’s a detailed guide on how to add a review app to your Shopify store:
- Go to the Shopify App Store and search for “review” and click on the app you want to install.
This is the screen you will see right after you search for the term “review”. For the purpose of this demonstration, I will install the Judge.me Product Reviews app.
2. Click on the green “Add app” button
Right after you click on that button, you will be taken to your online store’s dashboard, and a new page will appear. Make sure you read and understand all the permissions you are about to give to the app.
3. Click on the green “Install app” button
4. Let the app add extra code to your website automatically
Most review apps require additional code to function. In this case, the Judge.me app can add the code by itself, but be careful as some other apps will require you to manually add the code.
5. Install the review widgets you like
You can select all of them or skip this step altogether. I would recommend you install all widgets and pick the one you like the most after the setup process.
6. Select your theme
Make sure you install the Shopify product reviews app on your live theme, otherwise you will not be able to integrate the review widgets.
7. Make sure everything works as expected
Take a look at your store and make sure everything works and looks as expected. Once you are done simply click the “Yes, Looks Great” button, and you are done.
Best Shopify Product Review apps
There are tens or even hundreds of apps that can help you add reviews, so we picked the best ones out there to help you make an informed decision before you install a review app:
Judge.me – Collect Product Reviews On Autopilot
Judge.me is a Shopify product reviews app that lets you add reviews and display them with almost infinite customization options.
Judge.me comes with a free forever plan and a $15 per month one, so if you want to give it a try, you don’t have to spend a single dime.
The free version lets you request unlimited Shopify product reviews, display both photo and text-based reviews, and even curate them.
In addition, the free plan marks your reviews with Schema, so they will display on Google as snippets. This is a great way to boost your organic traffic and increase your SEO click-through rate.
On the other hand, the paid plan lets you reward your customers with coupons if they leave a review, add a Q&A section for even more engagement, and remove the Judge.me branding.
Judge.me has a staggering 5-stars rating from over 7682 reviews.
Loox – Product Reviews & Photos
Loox is a fully-featured product review app that enables brands of all sizes to automatically add reviews with photos and videos and beautifully display happy customer content.
Compared to Judge.me, Loox doesn’t feature a free forever plan. Instead, they offer a 14-day free trial. This might be a problem for small stores just starting out as they have to pay at least $9.99 per month for this review app.
Loox makes it extremely easy to capture and display reviews anywhere on your website. You can choose to display them on your homepage, product page, or event the cart page.
What makes this Shopify app better than most of the other ones on this list is the plethora of built-in review request capabilities. You can schedule request emails by delivery time or order status, send review request reminders and offer discounts in exchange for reviews.
Loox has a 4.9-star rating out of over 8200 reviews on the app store, making it one of the most installed review apps across the whole Shopify ecosystem.
Yotpo – A full suite of Shopify solutions
Yotpo lets you collect Shopify product reviews as well as site reviews and display them clearly and beautifully anywhere on your store.
Yotpo is one of the oldest review generation apps on the market, with integrations ranging from WordPress to Shopify.
You can install and use the Shopify app for free if your store gets no more than 50 orders per month. You’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan for a higher number. Their pricing plan might be a bit confusing as they have different charges depending on what functionalities you need. To learn more, you can visit Yotpo’s website, where they break down all expenses.
One of the best features of Yotpo is that it allows you to request reviews via SMS and email, increasing your chances of getting your customers engaged.
Yotpo has a 4.9 stars rating out of over 4200 reviews.
Fera – Beautiful, simple reviews for Shopify
Set up beautiful-looking text, image, and video reviews in minutes.
Fera is a relatively new app compared to the ones we’ve covered so far, but that doesn’t mean it’s any worse.
This app lets you set up review widgets anywhere on your website, display Real Shopper verification badges, and even allows you to respond to any customer review.
Fera comes with a free plan for small businesses (up to 10 review requests per month). At the same time, the free plan lets you display a single widget on your website. This makes Fera great for single-product stores.
If your business is bigger, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan, with prices starting at 9$ per month and going all the way to $99 per month.
Fera has a 5-stars rating out of over 4000 reviews.
Stamped – Control your brand experience
Stamped uses AI to understand and analyze your Shopify reviews and make it easier to understand your user experience.
Stamped is one of the most complex reviews app out there as it uses AI to help you understand your business better.
It lets you capture and display reviews, making it extremely easy to create social posts using them (the same as Canva).
The free plan is best for small stores with up to 50 orders per month, and it allows you to send review request emails, display unlimited widgets, and even mark your reviews with Schema for SEO purposes.
The cheapest paid plan starts at $23 per month or $19 per month if you decide to pay for an entire year.
Stamped has a 4.9-stars rating out of over 5600 reviews.
Automizely Product Reviews – Best Free App
Automizely is an all-in-one review app that lets you capture, display, and even import reviews from other platforms.
Automizely is a completely free review generation and display app for Shopify. This makes it a great choice if you are just starting out.
With Automizely you can import reviews from CSV files or 3rd party websites (Aliexpress), customize the look and feel of the review widget and display them on product and category pages.
Automizely has a 4.9 stars rating from over 1800 reviews.
Rivyo – Product Reviews & QA
This is an all around review generation app with the most comprehensive review widget.
Rivyo features a comprehensive review widget that covers the most important information your clients need to make a decision.
It comes with a free plan that lets you send up to 50 monthly review generation emails and import up to 100 reviews from Aliexpress.
Their cheapest paid plan starts at $5.99 and comes with up to 500 monthly review generation emails and import up to 1k reviews from a CSV file.
Rivyo has a 4.9-stars rating from more than 1700 reviews.
Product Reviews by Shopify
Product Reviews is a free review generation app created by Shopify.
It’s an extremely basic app that aims to do a single thing – help you display reviews on your store.
This app might work for someone who knows how to code, as installing it is way harder compared to the others on this list. It also doesn’t include the option to add photo or video reviews, which can be a deal-breaker for some store owners.
You can go with Product Reviews by Shopify if you want a free review display app. Otherwise, you might want to go with something a bit more advanced.
Product Reviews by Shopify has a 3.6-rating out of more than 1500 reviews, by far the lowest on this list.
Ali Reviews ‑ Product Reviews
This is one of the best review app for Shopify dropshipping stores.
Ali Reviews is a great Shopify app for any dropshipping store. It lets you import reviews directly from Aliexpress, DSers, or even CSV.
The app also packs stunning styles to showcase reviews on widgets: Grid, List, Carousel slider.
In terms of price, you can install Ali Reviews for free, but it only lets you capture 5 reviews for each product. The paid plans start at $9.90 for stores with up to 200 orders per month. This plan also comes with Aliexpress import functionalities and some customization options.
Ali Reviews has a 4.9-stars rating out of more than 7600 reviews.
Okendo – Automate reviews, UGC, and Q&A collection
Okendo features a beautiful review widget that you can display on product and collection pages.
Okendo’s review widget follows a mobile-first approach to make your website look gorgeous even on small screens.
The main selling point of this app revolves around its email performance analytics, sentiment analysis, natural language processing, and review performance dashboards.
With Okendo you can send emails automatically and reward customers that take the time to leave a review.
The app has a 14-day free trial and the cheapest plan starts at $29 per month, placing it among the higher-priced apps on this list. For this price, your store should have no more than 500 orders per month.
Okendo has a 5 stars rating from 450 reviews.
Junip – Product Reviews & UGC
Junip is a reviews app for Shopify that makes it easy to get customer feedback on your products and services—so easy that you can set it up in minutes.
The app also includes features that let you customize the look and feel of your reviews and how or where they’re displayed on your site.
Here are some of the things Junip can help you with:
- Integrate it with your favorite platforms. Junip has several integrations with popular email marketing and automation platforms such as Klavio or Drip. These integrations tie together with Junip’s workflow engine and let you manage every step of the request process.
- Integrate Google Shopping. Junip can help you syndicate reviews into Google Shopping. They can manage your listings without any additional steps. Once you’ve got everything set up, they ensure reviews are properly added to Google Shopping so they can be used in organic search results and paid listings.
- Photo and video reviews. Junip supports both photo and video reviews. You don’t have to worry about screen resolution when switching from desktop to mobile, as Junip makes sure that the reviews are correctly displayed on mobile devices too.
Junip has a 5 stars rating from 258 reviews.
How to get more reviews for your Shopify store
Now that you have a clear idea of what app might work best for your specific store, it’s time to look at how you can generate reviews.
Email your customers
Perhaps one of the best review generation methods is emailing your customers after they placed an order. You should be careful to not send this email too soon. After all, they can’t review a product they have not yet received.
Most apps from this list let you send automatic emails after a specific time has passed since your customers have placed the order. You should make sure that this delay is no less than a week.
Send SMS messages to your customers
A more intrusive method of asking your customers for reviews is via SMS. You should already have your customer’s phone numbers, so sending an SMS shouldn’t be more difficult than sending an email.
This method might seem like a bit too much for some people, but it can generate way more reviews than simply sending an email.
Use social media for social proof
This method revolves around business reviews rather than specific product ones. People don’t just need to know if your products are good, but if your online store is trustworthy or not.
Getting reviews on Facebook about your customer service, shipping times, and warranties is a great way to boost traffic, increase conversions and improve your social proof. You can simply post on social media asking your followers to leave a review. You can even offer a 10% discount if they do so.
Add a Thank You note in the package
Last but not least, this method is all about directly communicating with a customer right when they first open their package.
You can add a simple thank you note printed as a flyer right inside the box you used to ship out your orders. This is a great way of thanking your customers for their order and incentivizing them to leave a positive review of your business.
Conclusion
Reviews are a sure way to increase users’ trust and boost conversions. They are the backbone of any Shopify store as they let people get to know what others think of your products and business as a whole.
Regardless of the app you choose, make sure to spend enough time getting to understand how it works. Once you get the hang of things, generating reviews and increasing sales will feel like a breeze.
