How to See Reviews on Shopify

Introduction

Customer reviews are one of the most powerful trust signals a merchant can show. They influence purchase decisions, boost conversion rates, and feed search engines with fresh, indexable content. Yet many merchants struggle with a simple question: how to see reviews on Shopify — both inside the admin and as they appear on the storefront.

Short answer: You can see reviews in two main places — your Shopify admin and on the storefront. In the admin, reviews live in the review management area of the review solution you use; on the storefront, they appear where you place review blocks or embeds in your theme. If reviews aren’t visible on a product page, it’s usually a theme block that wasn’t added, a display conflict, or a review visibility setting that needs changing.

In this article we’ll show where to find reviews, step-by-step instructions for viewing and troubleshooting them, and advanced ways to display reviews that improve conversion and SEO. We’ll also explain how Growave’s Social Reviews feature can simplify review collection, display, and moderation to reduce the number of tools you manage—our “More Growth, Less Stack” philosophy in action. Along the way we’ll link you to practical resources so you can act right away, including how to compare plans if you want to evaluate Growave’s retention platform (compare Growave plans).

Our main message: seeing and managing reviews on Shopify is straightforward when you know where to look and how to diagnose common issues. Getting this right turns reviews into a retention and growth engine.

Why Reviews Matter For Shopify Merchants

The practical value of visible reviews

Reviews do more than display stars. When shown properly they:

• Increase buyers’ confidence and reduce hesitation at checkout.
• Improve conversion rates on product pages.
• Provide fresh, unique content that supports SEO.
• Drive longer-term customer retention when tied into loyalty and re-engagement strategies.

Review signals and search visibility

Search engines use review-related signals — star ratings, review quantity, and review recency — when displaying rich results and local snippets. Ensuring reviews are indexable on your product pages is a simple way to capture organic traffic and improve click-through rates for product listings.

Reviews as part of a retention stack

We recommend treating reviews not as a standalone feature but part of a broader retention ecosystem that includes loyalty and rewards, referrals, wishlists, and shoppable social content. Combining these elements amplifies lifetime value and reduces churn, which is central to our merchant-first approach.

Where Reviews Live in Shopify

Understanding where reviews are stored and displayed helps you find them quickly.

Admin-side: Where merchants see reviews

Most review solutions create a review management area accessible from your Shopify admin or a connected dashboard within the retention platform. In those interfaces you can:

• Read and moderate submitted reviews.
• See review status (published, pending, or rejected).
• Respond to reviews and flag inappropriate content.
• Export or import review data for backups or migrations.

If you use Growave’s reviews solution, you’ll manage reviews in the Social Reviews dashboard, where moderation, publishing, and analytics are centralized. For merchants who prefer to evaluate options, you can see how to get started with Growave on Shopify and install the solution on your store (install Growave on Shopify).

Storefront-side: Where customers see reviews

On the storefront, reviews appear in places you choose:

• Product pages — the most critical location for conversion.
• Collection pages — to surface ratings alongside product thumbnails.
• Home page or landing pages — to highlight social proof and increase trust.
• Site-wide review badges — to show aggregated rating and counts.

How reviews are shown depends on your theme structure and how the review solution integrates with theme blocks or embeds.

How To See Reviews on Shopify: Step-By-Step

Below are clear steps for both the merchant admin view and storefront validation.

Checking reviews in the merchant dashboard

• Access the review solution dashboard connected to your Shopify store. Look for a Reviews, Social Reviews, or Feedback section.
• Filter by product, status (published/pending), or rating to locate specific feedback quickly.
• Use the moderation controls to approve or hide reviews.
• Export review data if you need a CSV backup or want to migrate reviews to another solution.

If you want quick access from your store, install and enable the solution through the Shopify listing so it’s connected and visible in your admin menu. For merchants exploring Growave, you can install via the Shopify listing and then view the Social Reviews dashboard to manage feedback (install Growave on Shopify).

Verifying reviews on the storefront

• Open your storefront and navigate to the product that should show reviews.
• Confirm the star rating and review count in the product header or review block.
• Scroll to the review widget or review tab on the product page to see individual comments and media attachments (photos or videos).
• Check on both mobile and desktop — sometimes reviews are visible on one and not the other due to responsive theme issues.

If you don’t see reviews on the storefront, the next sections explain why and how to fix it.

Common Reasons Reviews Don’t Show (And How To Fix Them)

Many merchants see stars in one place but “no reviews yet” in the review box. Here’s how to diagnose and resolve the most frequent causes.

Theme block or embed not added

Symptoms:

• Stars appear in the product header but the review list is blank.
• The theme shows an empty review section or a placeholder text.

Fix:

• Open Online Store > Themes > Customize.
• Navigate to the product template and add the review block or embed from the “Apps” or “Sections” area.
• Save and test.

Why it happens:

• Some themes show rating snippets via product metafields or structured data, but the review widget (the list of comments) still needs its own block added.

Published reviews are not visible due to status or moderation settings

Symptoms:

• Reviews show as published in the dashboard but do not display on the storefront.

Fix:

• Confirm the review’s published status in the review dashboard.
• Check if the platform has a site-level toggle to display reviews. Ensure site-wide review visibility is enabled.
• Re-publish a test review to force a refresh.

Why it happens:

• Some solutions require both the review and the review widget to be published separately. Another common issue is an administrative “display” toggle being off.

JavaScript or theme conflicts

Symptoms:

• Reviews load briefly on page load, then disappear.
• Errors in browser console related to JavaScript.

Fix:

• Open the browser console (F12 or right-click > Inspect) and look for errors.
• Temporarily switch to a default theme to see if the issue persists. If the problem disappears, your theme may conflict with the review solution’s scripts.
• Reach out to your theme developer or the retention solution’s support with console errors for a fix.

Why it happens:

• Conflicts occur when theme scripts or third-party solutions override or block the review solution’s scripts. Deferred or asynchronous script loading can also interrupt review rendering.

CSS hiding review content

Symptoms:

• Page shows the review container but the content appears invisible or hidden.

Fix:

• Inspect the element in your browser’s developer tools to check for CSS rules like display: none, visibility: hidden, or color matching the background.
• Edit the theme CSS to remove or override the hiding rule.
• Add minimal CSS to ensure the review widget is visible across breakpoints.

Why it happens:

• Theme styles sometimes inadvertently target generic selectors used by the review widget.

Product ID or handle mismatch

Symptoms:

• Reviews assigned to a product in the dashboard don’t show on the corresponding product page.

Fix:

• Ensure the review solution is mapping reviews by the correct product identifier (usually the product handle or ID). Check import settings if reviews were migrated.
• If reviews were imported, confirm the import mapping matched the product SKU, handle, or ID used in your store.

Why it happens:

• Migrated reviews sometimes get mapped incorrectly, especially when stores have changed product handles or when development staging environments differ from the live store.

Cache and CDN delays

Symptoms:

• Reviews appear after a delay or only after clearing cache.
• Stale content served via CDN.

Fix:

• Purge site cache or CDN content for the affected page.
• Use a cache-busting technique like a query string on the page URL temporarily for verification.
• If your solution uses server-side caching for review lists, check cache TTL settings.

Why it happens:

• Caching layers may serve outdated content that doesn’t include newly published reviews.

Cross-origin or Content Security Policy blocks

Symptoms:

• Browser console shows blocked network requests for review resources.
• Reviews fail to load due to blocked external scripts.

Fix:

• Review the Content Security Policy (CSP) settings of your site and allowlist the domains used by the review solution.
• Ensure third-party scripts are loaded over HTTPS.
• Contact your hosting or security provider if the CSP is managed outside your Shopify admin.

Why it happens:

• Tight CSP or strict security headers block third-party domains that host review assets.

How To Add Review Blocks In Popular Shopify Theme Structures

Themes differ, but the general steps are similar. The guidance below is generic and applicable across modern themes.

For Shopify Online Store 2.0 themes

• Go to Online Store > Themes and click Customize on the active theme.
• Choose the product template from the template selection menu.
• Click Add Section or locate the dedicated area for product content.
• Select the review widget from the available sections or from the “Apps” section in the left-hand menu.
• Move the block to the preferred spot on the page and customize styling options if available.
• Save and preview.

For older theme structures (pre-2.0)

• The review widget might need to be added via a theme snippet or by editing the product template code.
• From Online Store > Themes, click Actions > Edit code.
• Locate product templates (product.liquid or sections/product-template.liquid) and insert the review snippet per the platform’s installation guide.
• Save and preview. If unsure, consult the retention solution’s documentation or support for snippet placement.

Note: If you prefer not to edit code, many retention platforms provide a theme embed toggle in the theme editor that injects the necessary blocks without manual code edits.

Ensuring Reviews Are SEO-Friendly and Indexable

Reviews boost SEO only if search engines can crawl and index them.

Make reviews part of the page HTML

• Avoid rendering reviews solely via client-side JavaScript that search engines might not fully index.
• Use solutions that provide server-side rendered review HTML or progressive enhancement so reviewers are visible in the original page markup whenever possible.

Implement structured data (schema)

• Use review schema to signal star ratings, review counts, and review content to search engines.
• Structured data increases the chance of rich snippets (star ratings) in search results.
• Ensure schema is implemented correctly for each product page and includes correct aggregateRating properties.

Allow search engines to crawl review assets

• Do not block review-related directories in robots.txt.
• Avoid noindex on product pages that contain reviews.

Keep review content unique

• Encourage customers to add personalized detail and photos rather than generic one-liners.
• Rich, unique content helps search engines treat each review as valuable content rather than duplicate text.

Growave’s Social Reviews supports indexable review content and schema markup so reviews contribute positively to SEO. You can display verified customer feedback across the site while ensuring search engines crawl review content properly (display verified customer feedback).

Advanced Display Options and Strategies

Once reviews are showing, consider smarter ways to surface them.

Show review snippets on collection and search pages

• Display star ratings next to product tiles on collection and search results to improve scan-and-compare behavior.
• This helps shoppers quickly identify top-rated items without needing to open each product page.

Use review badges and trust signals sitewide

• Add a small badge in the header, footer, or checkout pages showing your store’s average rating and total review count.
• This reinforces credibility across the shopping journey.

Highlight photo and video reviews

• Visual reviews often convert better than text-only reviews.
• Feature user photos on product pages, landing pages, and social feeds.

Curate top reviews for landing pages

• Select detailed, high-impact reviews for category or promotional pages to drive conversion for featured collections.

Combine reviews with loyalty and referral flows

• Offer loyalty points for leaving a review to increase participation.
• Incentivize reviewers to share their review on social platforms in exchange for referral bonuses.

Growave integrates reviews with loyalty and rewards so you can automate incentives and amplify user-generated content without adding multiple separate tools, which is central to our “More Growth, Less Stack” approach. See examples of how other merchants use multi-feature retention strategies for better results (see how other merchants use retention strategies).

Migrating and Importing Reviews

If you’re moving from another platform or consolidating reviews, follow these principles.

Preparing for migration

• Export reviews from the old solution as CSV including product identifiers (handle or ID), reviewer name, date, rating, review text, and photo URLs.
• Clean data to ensure product handles match exactly with your Shopify store.

Importing reviews

• Use the review solution’s import tool and map CSV columns correctly.
• Verify a small batch first before a full import.
• After import, check a sample of product pages to ensure reviews appear correctly.

Common pitfalls during migration

• Mismatched product handles lead to orphaned reviews.
• Image URL permissions prevent imported photos from displaying.
• Imported reviews may default to pending moderation, so remember to publish them.

Growave supports review importing and provides guidance to ensure smooth migrations, helping merchants keep all review management within a single retention ecosystem.

Measuring the Impact of Reviews

To show ROI from review display and collection, track these metrics.

• Conversion rate on product pages with reviews versus those without.
• Average order value (AOV) changes for products with visible reviews.
• Click-through rate from search listings with review rich snippets.
• Review collection rate over time and the percentage that include photos.
• Customer retention and repeat purchase rates when reviews are tied to loyalty incentives.

Use analytics in the review dashboard combined with your store analytics to measure the full impact. If you use Growave, the Social Reviews dashboard includes analytics that link review performance to revenue signals, helping you make data-driven decisions.

Best Practices For Review Collection and Moderation

Ask at the right time

• Send review invitation emails after the customer has had sufficient time to use the product, typically 7–14 days for most categories.
• Use segmented timing for high-use consumables vs. durable goods.

Make it easy to submit reviews

• Keep the review form concise but allow optional fields like photos, pros/cons, or product-use tips.
• Offer single-click star ratings and quick follow-up prompts for longer feedback.

Encourage rich media

• Request photos and videos in the review form; visual proof significantly increases trust.
• Consider offering small incentives like loyalty points for photo reviews to increase participation.

Moderate with integrity

• Moderate to remove abusive or clearly fake reviews, but avoid over-moderation that filters legitimate negative feedback.
• Respond promptly to negative reviews to show buyers you care and to resolve issues publicly.

Incentivize responsibly

• Offer loyalty points, discounts, or early access for honest reviews, not for positive reviews only.
• Follow platform rules and local regulations about incentivized reviews.

Growave’s integrated loyalty system can reward customers for leaving reviews while keeping moderation and transparency under control, providing better-value-for-money than managing multiple separate systems.

Common Mistakes Merchants Make and How To Avoid Them

• Relying solely on star snippets: Stars are helpful, but customers want to read real feedback. Make sure the full review list is visible.
• Letting reviews default to pending indefinitely: Automate reminders to customers and set clear moderation SLAs.
• Copying review content across products: This dilutes SEO value and can be treated as duplicate content.
• Not monitoring for photo and video uploads: Visual reviews require storage and moderation workflows; plan for them.
• Using too many separate solutions: Multiple point solutions increase management overhead and can create display conflicts. A unified retention platform reduces stack complexity and improves data cohesion.

How Growave Makes Seeing Reviews Easier

We design our retention platform to reduce complexity and make it simple to collect, display, and act on reviews.

Centralized review management

• Growth-focused stores get moderation, publishing, and analytics in one dashboard. This reduces the time spent switching between multiple interfaces.

Seamless storefront embeds

• Growave provides theme-friendly review widgets that work with modern Shopify theme structures and support indexable HTML and structured data, improving both visibility and SEO. If you want to install and start managing these features, you can get Growave on the Shopify listing (install Growave on Shopify).

Integrated incentives and UGC

• Reward customers for leaving photo reviews through our Loyalty & Rewards module to boost the number of rich media reviews.
• Present UGC across product pages and shoppable social galleries to increase conversion.

Fewer tools, better value

• Instead of tying together five to seven separate platforms, Growave combines Reviews, Loyalty & Rewards, Referrals, Wishlists, and Social UGC into one retention suite—reducing integration headaches and ensuring consistent data.

If you’d like to see how retention features work in real stores, check out merchant examples and ideas to inspire your implementation (see how other merchants use retention strategies).

Implementation Checklist (Quick Action Items)

Use these items as a merchant checklist to ensure your reviews are visible and effective.

• Confirm reviews are published in the review dashboard.
• Add the review block or embed to your product template in the theme editor.
• Check both desktop and mobile for visibility.
• Inspect browser console for script errors and address conflicts.
• Ensure schema markup is present for each product page.
• Purge caches and confirm CDN serves updated pages.
• Validate photo uploads and permissions for review media.
• Link reviews to loyalty incentives to increase collection rates.
• Monitor review analytics and adjust timing and incentives based on performance.

Troubleshooting Quick Reference (Symptoms and Immediate Actions)

• Stars visible but review list empty: Add review block to product template and re-publish.
• Review appears briefly then disappears: Check browser console for JS errors; test on default theme.
• Reviews not indexable: Ensure reviews are server-rendered or use progressive enhancement; add structured data.
• Images not showing in reviews: Verify image URLs and cross-origin permissions.

Measuring Success And Iterating

Collecting reviews is not a one-time task. Track, learn, and optimize:

• Run A/B tests on review placement (above the fold vs. below product description).
• Test different review invitation timings.
• Try incentivizing photo reviews to see the impact on conversion.
• Monitor long-term shifts in retention and repeat purchase rate when reviews are integrated with loyalty flows.

Conclusion

Seeing reviews on Shopify is both a technical task and a strategic opportunity. The steps are clear: confirm reviews are published, ensure the review widget is integrated into your product template, diagnose common issues like theme conflicts or CSS hiding, and make sure review content is indexable for SEO. Beyond the basics, using reviews as part of a unified retention strategy—paired with loyalty, referrals, and shoppable social content—drives sustainable growth and increases customer lifetime value.

If you want to manage reviews, loyalty, referrals, and UGC from a single retention platform that reduces tool sprawl, explore how our plans fit different merchant needs and start risk-free (compare Growave plans). Install our solution on your store to surface reviews sitewide and begin capturing valuable customer feedback today (install Growave on Shopify).

Start your 14-day free trial and replace multiple tools with one retention platform—explore our plans now: compare Growave plans.

FAQ

How do I view reviews for a specific product in Shopify?

View reviews in the review solution’s dashboard and filter by product. On the storefront, open the product page and inspect the review widget or review tab. If reviews are published but not visible, confirm the review block is added to the product template in the theme customizer.

Why do the star rating and the review list show different numbers?

Stars are often generated from aggregated rating data, while the review list shows individual published comments. Mismatches usually mean some reviews are unpublished or there’s a rendering issue with the widget. Check the dashboard for unpublished reviews and ensure the widget is correctly embedded.

Can reviews be indexed by search engines?

Yes. Ensure your review content is part of the HTML or is server-side rendered and include structured data (schema) for aggregateRating and review entries. Avoid relying solely on client-side rendering that might not be fully indexed.

How can I speed up getting more reviews?

Automate request emails after a sensible post-purchase interval, incentivize photo reviews with loyalty points, and make the review form as easy as possible. Connect reviews to other retention programs to increase participation and long-term engagement. For integrated solutions that combine reviews with loyalty and UGC, consider centralizing these features within a single retention platform to simplify management and improve outcomes (display verified customer feedback; see how other merchants use retention strategies).