Customer reviews wait for you before they appear on your storefront. This article shows you how to approve the genuine ones, take a review off your storefront later, and delete spam, and explains everything you see on the Reviews page.
How reviews reach your storefront
Only customers who bought the product can review it. To write a review, a customer must be signed in to their account, and their order for that product must have been delivered (a completed, returned or refunded order counts too). Guests cannot write reviews, and each customer can review a product once.
On the product page, the customer fills in a short form. The fields are named as the storefront shows them:
| Field on the storefront | Required | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Your rating | Yes | 1 to 5 stars. |
| Headline (optional) | No | Up to 120 characters. |
| Your review | Yes | Up to 2,000 characters. |
| Shown as (optional) | No | Up to 80 characters. Left empty, the review shows as Anonymous. |
The stars start at five; the customer selects fewer to give a lower rating. A customer who leaves the stars alone posts a 5-star review.
When they post it, the storefront thanks them and tells them the review will appear once the shop has approved it. Nothing appears on your storefront until you approve it.
We tell you each time a review arrives: a notification in the console's bell, such as New 4-star review awaiting approval, and an email to your store's contact email address if your store has one. Without a contact email, only the bell tells you. See Keep up with notifications and Update your store’s details.
Once you approve a review:
- it appears on the product's page, newest first, with the name, the stars and a tick for a verified buyer;
- it counts towards the product's star rating and number of reviews on your storefront (pending reviews never do);
- if it has written text, it can also appear in the reviews section of your homepage, if your homepage shows one. See Arrange your homepage sections.
Reviews are on every plan. To moderate them, your role needs the View reviews and questions and Moderate reviews and questions permissions. The Store owner and Store manager roles have both. The Sales staff role has View reviews and questions only: they can read your reviews, but cannot approve, unpublish or delete them. The buttons still show for them. If they try, they see You do not have permission to do this., and the review stays as it was. See Staff roles: what each one can see and do.
Until your first review arrives, the page says No reviews yet and explains that reviews appear here for you to approve.
Pending, Approved and All
- In the sidebar, open Reviews.
The page opens on the reviews waiting for you.
At the top, three tiles count your reviews: Total reviews, Pending and Approved. Below them, three tabs choose which reviews you see:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| Pending | Reviews not on your storefront: new ones, and any you unpublished. The page opens on this tab, and its badge counts them. |
| Approved | Reviews shown on your storefront. |
| All | Both together, each with its status. |
In every tab, the newest reviews come first, 20 to a page.
There is no rejected state. A review is either on your storefront (Approved) or not (Pending), until you delete it.
What a review shows: the rating and Verified purchase
Each review is a card:
| Part | What it means |
|---|---|
| Initials and name | The name the customer chose to show, or Anonymous if they left it empty. |
| Verified purchase | The review is tied to a delivered order for this product. |
| Stars | The rating, from 1 to 5 filled stars. |
| Pending or Approved | Whether the review is on your storefront. |
| Title | The headline the customer wrote, in bold, if they wrote one. |
| Text | The review itself. |
| Product | The product it is about, after the box icon. If it shows only Product, the console could not put a name to it. This happens on reviews of a deleted product and, on a store with more than 100 products, on reviews of the older ones. The review is still on the right product page in your storefront. |
| Date | When the customer posted it. |
| Approve or Unpublish | Puts the review on your storefront, or takes it off. |
| Bin icon | Deletes the review, after asking you. |
Note
Reviews written on your storefront always carry Verified purchase, because only customers whose order was delivered can write one. A review without it was not tied to a delivered order, so read it with more care.
You cannot edit what a customer wrote, and you cannot reply under a review. You decide only whether it shows.
Approve a review
- In Reviews, stay on the Pending tab.
- Read the review.
- Select Approve.
There is no confirmation. The console shows Review approved., the review leaves the Pending list, and the tiles update: Pending goes down by one and Approved up by one. The review now appears on the product's page.
If the change cannot be saved, the console shows Could not save changes. and the review goes back to how it was. Try again.
Approve fair criticism as well as praise. A product page where every review has five stars is harder to believe, and a low rating that describes a real problem tells you what to fix.
Unpublish an approved review
Unpublish a review to take it off your storefront without deleting it, for example while you check a complaint it makes.
- In Reviews, select the Approved tab.
- Find the review.
- Select Unpublish.
The console shows Review unpublished. It is back in Pending. The review comes off your storefront, stops counting towards the product's rating, and the tiles update. You can approve it again from the Pending tab whenever you like.
Delete spam
Delete a review that is spam, abusive or about the wrong thing, such as a review that only advertises another page.
- Find the review on any tab.
- Select the bin icon on the review (Delete).
The console asks Delete review? and warns that the review is removed from your store and that this cannot be undone.
- Select Delete.
The console shows Review deleted. and the tiles update. To keep the review, select Cancel instead. If the delete fails, the console shows Could not delete. and the review comes back.
Warning
A deleted review cannot be brought back. If you only want it off your storefront, unpublish it instead. Deleting also lets that customer write a new review of the product.
All caught up
When you have dealt with every pending review, the Pending tab says All caught up and No reviews waiting for approval.
On the Approved tab, an empty list says No matching reviews and suggests another status filter. That happens before you have approved anything, or after you unpublish your only approved review.
Moving between pages
Each tab shows 20 reviews at a time. When a tab has more, the bottom of the list has Previous and Next, with the page you are on between them, such as Page 1 / 2.
- Select Next to see older reviews.
- Select Previous to go back.
Changing tab always takes you back to the first page.
If the reviews do not load
If the reviews cannot be loaded, the page says Could not load reviews with a Try again button.
- Select Try again.
- If it still does not load, check your internet connection and reload the page.
If the page never loads for you but does for the store owner, your role probably does not include reviews. Ask the store owner to check your role.
What to do next
- Keep up with notifications so you hear about new reviews quickly.
- Write your storefront text, including the title of your homepage's reviews section.
- Open your pending reviews (opens in a new tab).