How to Show Reviews on Shopify

Introduction

Customer reviews are one of the single most powerful trust signals in e-commerce—products with authentic reviews can see noticeably higher conversion rates and stronger repeat purchase behavior. At the same time, merchants face "solution fatigue": too many point products, too many logins, and fragmented data that makes it hard to turn reviews into long-term growth.

Short answer: Showing reviews on Shopify is straightforward if you choose the right approach. You can surface ratings and review content on product pages, collection pages, and across your site by using a review solution that integrates with your store, adding the review block that your theme supports, and ensuring review schema is output for search engines. For the most reliable results and ongoing growth, use a unified retention platform that handles review collection, moderation, UGC (photo/video), and syndication—so you get more impact with less technical overhead.

In this post we'll walk through the full playbook for how to show reviews on Shopify: why reviews matter, where to place them, precise technical methods for adding and troubleshooting review displays, SEO considerations, ways to amplify reviews across email and loyalty programs, and the measurement framework to prove ROI. We’ll also show how our retention suite helps you collect, manage, and showcase reviews while reducing your tech stack—because at Growave we believe in More Growth, Less Stack. We’re trusted by 15,000+ brands and hold a 4.8-star rating on Shopify, and we build merchant-first solutions designed for long-term growth.

Our main message: make reviews visible, authentic, and actionable—then let them feed loyalty, referrals, and UGC so retention drives acquisition.

Why Reviews Matter (And What They Actually Do)

Reviews are far more than praise or complaints. When displayed correctly, they:

• Increase conversions by reducing purchase hesitation with social proof.
• Improve SEO via fresh, user-generated content and review schema that can add rich snippets to search results.
• Surface product feedback that drives product improvements and reduces returns.
• Create reusable content that powers email, social, and paid campaigns.
• Feed loyalty incentives when you reward reviewers, increasing lifetime value.

This is why showing reviews properly on Shopify is not a cosmetic task—it's a growth lever. The faster you can collect and show verified reviews, the more trust you build, and the sooner you will see measurable lifts in key metrics like conversion rate and average order value.

The Review Types You Can Show

Before we cover the how, it helps to be precise about the types of reviews you might show and why each one matters.

Text-only Ratings

Short, written reviews and a star rating. Fast to submit, easy to moderate, and high in keyword relevance for SEO.

Photo and Video Reviews (UGC)

Visual proof of the product in real life. These boost credibility and can dramatically improve conversion, especially for visual products.

Aggregate Ratings

An average rating and total count that appear on product cards, collection pages, and search results. These are the first trust cues customers see.

Verified Purchase Reviews

Reviews tied to an order or a verified buyer badge. These have higher credibility and are often weighted more by shoppers.

External Platform Reviews (Marketplaces)

Reviews customers leave on external marketplaces or review platforms. Importing these to your store can build quicker momentum.

Where Reviews Should Appear on Your Store

Placement matters. Showing reviews in the right places amplifies their effect.

• Product pages: the primary place. Show both aggregate rating and the review list near the product description or below the fold.
• Product cards and collection pages: display the star rating and review count so customers can scan credibility while browsing.
• Homepage and category banners: use featured reviews to build trust on entry points.
• Checkout and cart pages: show micro-social proof (e.g., “Rated 4.8 by 2,100 customers”) to reduce cart abandonment.
• Marketing channels: include reviews in emails, SMS, and on paid landing pages to increase conversion outside your store.
• Social galleries and shoppable Instagram: display customer photos and bring reviews into social commerce experiences.

How to Show Reviews on Shopify — Practical Methods

There are a few distinct technical methods to display reviews on Shopify. We’ll cover options from easiest to most advanced.

Method: Use a Unified Review Solution (Recommended)

A unified retention solution that includes Reviews & UGC makes collecting, moderating, and showing reviews simple, while avoiding the need to install and maintain multiple point solutions. With a single platform you can:

• Collect reviews (email invites, on-site widgets, QR codes).
• Moderate and reply to reviews from one dashboard.
• Display photo and video reviews across your store.
• Output review schema for SEO automatically.
• Tie reviews into loyalty and rewards so reviewers earn points for contributions.

If you want a choice that reduces stack complexity and grows retention, explore our plans and see how our platform combines reviews with loyalty, referrals, wishlists, and shoppable social for better value and synergy: compare plans and pricing.

How it works in practice

• Install and connect the solution to your Shopify store from the marketplace.
• Configure review invitation timing and templates.
• Enable review widgets for product pages and rich snippets.
• Customize the visual style to match your theme.

We also make installation simple for merchants using Shopify themes—installing Growave through the Shopify marketplace ensures the embed scripts and sections are placed correctly so reviews render without extra coding: install Growave from the Shopify marketplace.

Method: Add Theme Review Blocks (No-Code)

Most modern Shopify themes support adding app/embed blocks for reviews via the theme editor. This is often the quickest way to show reviews.

• Open your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes, and click Customize.
• Navigate to the product page template.
• Use the Add Section or Add Block option and select the Reviews element under Apps or Embeds.
• Save and preview.

If you see star ratings but the review list says “No reviews yet,” it’s often because the review widget is not fully embedded, or the review collection is set to a different product template (especially in stores with multiple templates). Using a unified platform removes these inconsistencies by providing a single widget that adapts to templates automatically.

Method: Use Theme Code (Advanced)

When you need custom placement or a bespoke design, you can add review widgets via theme code. This is useful for headless setups or when the theme editor does not expose the placement you want.

• Insert the widget snippet into your product template files (e.g., product.liquid or product.json).
• Ensure the snippet is placed where you want the review list to appear.
• Add CSS to style the widget to match the site.

Key caveats:

• Avoid inline scripts that block rendering; use async loading where possible.
• Ensure the widget outputs JSON-LD review schema for SEO.
• Test across variants and mobile/desktop.

Method: Import External Reviews (CSV or API)

If you have reviews on marketplaces or legacy systems, you can import them. A unified solution will let you import via CSV or API and map reviews to product SKUs/variants.

• Prepare a CSV: product handle/SKU, reviewer name, rating, body, date, photo URLs, etc.
• Upload through the review dashboard and map fields.
• Confirm imported reviews are marked as verified or flagged as imported so customers understand context.

Method: Use Shopify’s Shop Reviews (Platform Feature)

Shopify provides a native way for customers to leave reviews through the Shop channel and, in some setups, you can surface those reviews. Shopify’s review collection is useful, but it can be limited in moderation and UGC capabilities. For brands looking to unify retention and marketing, a single retention suite that handles reviews plus loyalty and referrals is often preferable.

We integrate with Shopify seamlessly so merchants don’t lose the benefit of platform-native flows while gaining the advanced features needed to scale.

Step-By-Step: How to Show Reviews on Shopify Using a Unified Solution

Below are actionable steps—written as bulleted actions rather than a numbered checklist—to help you implement reviews across your store with minimal friction.

• Connect the retention platform to your Shopify store via the marketplace install link. This ensures the embeds and theme blocks get added correctly: install Growave from the Shopify marketplace.
• Configure review collection settings:
  • Set review request timing (e.g., send requests 7–14 days after delivery).
  • Choose incentives: reward points for leaving a review through your loyalty program (learn how loyalty can boost review volumes by visiting our explanation of reward programs: customer reward tools to increase reviews).
  • Enable photo and video uploads to collect richer UGC and social proof.
• Add review widgets to templates using the theme editor:
  • Open Online Store > Themes > Customize.
  • Add the Reviews widget to the product template and product cards where supported.
  • Place an aggregate rating star on product lists or collection pages.
• Confirm schema output:
  • Use developer tools or Google’s Rich Results Test to ensure review schema is present on product pages.
  • If schema is missing, enable the option in the platform settings to automatically inject JSON-LD.
• Moderate and reply to reviews:
  • Set moderation rules (auto-publish verified purchases, hold unverified or flagged content).
  • Use the platform dashboard to reply to negative reviews promptly and thank positive reviewers.
• Showcase reviews elsewhere:
  • Add a reviews carousel on the homepage.
  • Include testimonials in email and SMS templates.
  • Create a shoppable UGC gallery to turn visual reviews into product pages visitors can buy from (our Reviews & UGC features make that easy: social proof and review management).
• Measure performance:
  • Track changes in product-level conversion rates, average order value, and review collection rate.
  • Split test review placements and messaging to find the highest-impact setup.

Troubleshooting Common Review Display Problems

A few problems occur repeatedly; here’s how to diagnose and fix them.

Problem: Star rating shows but the review list says "No reviews yet"

Possible causes:

• The review list widget isn’t embedded or is targeting a different product template.
• Theme caching or JavaScript conflicts hide the review list.
• Reviews are imported but not published or mapped to the current product handle.

Fixes:

• Verify the widget is added to the active product template.
• Ensure the review embed is published in the theme editor.
• Clear theme and CDN caches and test in an incognito window.
• Check the review dashboard to ensure reviews are “published” and assigned to the correct product handle.

Problem: Reviews show on mobile but not on desktop

Possible causes:

• CSS or JS that hides the element on certain breakpoints.
• Variant or template logic that only renders reviews under certain screen widths.

Fixes:

• Inspect the page in developer tools and look for display:none or visibility hidden rules.
• Check for JS errors in the console and resolve conflicts.
• Use a retention platform that provides responsive widgets out of the box.

Problem: Imported reviews don’t display properly

Possible causes:

• Incorrect mapping of product handles or SKUs.
• Missing required fields in CSV import.

Fixes:

• Confirm product handle/sku mapping during import.
• Re-run the import with full data including reviewer name, rating, content, and date.
• Use the platform's import preview to correct mapping before publishing.

Problem: Rich snippets not appearing in search results

Possible causes:

• Schema not being output or being blocked by JS.
• Google not re-crawled the page since schema was added.

Fixes:

• Ensure your platform outputs JSON-LD schema on product pages.
• Use Google Search Console to request indexing of updated pages.
• Avoid hiding review content behind tabs that prevent indexing.

SEO Best Practices for Reviews on Shopify

Reviews are a huge SEO asset when implemented correctly.

• Ensure review content is visible in the page HTML, not only injected by client-side JavaScript that search engines may not index reliably.
• Output proper review schema (JSON-LD) for each product, including review rating, author, date, and reviewBody.
• Encourage detailed reviews rather than filler: longer reviews often rank for long-tail queries and add more unique content.
• Use photo and video UGC filenames and alt text to add image SEO signals.
• Keep review pages crawlable; avoid blocking review pages with robots.txt.
• Consider creating a searchable review index or testimonials page that aggregates reviews by keyword or product use-case.

If you prefer a simpler path, our platform automates schema output so you don’t need to handle the JSON-LD manually: check how our Reviews & UGC system generates structured data automatically to help rich results appear in search: add social proof and review management to your store.

How Reviews Feed Growth Beyond the Product Page

Reviews are a growth tool, not just content. Here’s how to amplify their effect across retention and acquisition activities.

Link Reviews to Loyalty & Rewards

Reward customers for leaving reviews with points or discounts to increase submission rates and create repeat purchasing loops. Our reward program integrations allow you to automatically grant points when a verified review is submitted: learn about how reward programs can incentivize reviews here: incentivize reviewers with loyalty points.

Use Reviews in Email and SMS

Automated review request emails improve collection rates. Include top reviews in cart abandonment and browse abandonment emails to reintroduce social proof at key moments in the funnel.

Surface UGC in Ads and Social

Turn high-performing photo reviews into creative assets for social ads and organic posts. Shoppable UGC galleries convert viewers into buyers by linking review images directly to product pages.

Automate Staff Notifications and Workflows

Use automation triggers when a new review is published to notify support or marketing teams. This speeds responses to negative feedback and allows marketing to repurpose exceptional UGC quickly.

Moderation, Policy, and Legal Considerations

When showing reviews, merchants must maintain fair and compliant moderation practices.

• Avoid editing customer content in a way that changes sentiment. You can format or redact personal data where necessary.
• Respond to negative reviews politely and with constructive resolutions—this often converts unhappy customers into brand advocates.
• Provide clear guidelines on what constitutes a violation (spam, hate speech, personal data) and how users can report issues.
• Keep records of moderation actions to defend against disputes.

Our review tools include moderation queues, auto-flags, and reply management so teams can act fast while protecting merchant integrity.

Design and UX Best Practices for Review Displays

Well-designed review sections increase engagement and readability.

• Show average rating and review count near the product title.
• Highlight photo reviews and feature one high-impact review above the fold.
• Allow filtering and sorting (most helpful, most recent, highest rated).
• Make it easy to submit reviews with a short form and optional image/video upload.
• Use reviewer badges (verified purchase) to increase trust.
• Keep the visual style consistent—match fonts, colors, and micro-interactions to the site’s brand.

Example layout elements to consider (use bullets, not numbered steps):

• Prominent star rating + count near product name.
• “Featured review” with buyer photo and short quote.
• Full review feed with user avatars and timestamps.
• Call-to-action to leave a review with reward information (e.g., “Earn 50 points for your first photo review”).

Measuring the Impact of Reviews

To prove the value of showing reviews, track these metrics:

• Review collection rate: percentage of orders that result in a review.
• Conversion lift: percent change in conversion for products with reviews vs. without.
• Average rating and distribution: monitor to spot product issues.
• UGC engagement: clicks on review images, gallery interactions.
• Repurchase and LTV: track whether reviewers have higher repeat purchase rates.
• SEO metrics: impressions and clicks for product pages in search results after adding schema.

Run controlled experiments by enabling reviews on a subset of products or by varying placement and measuring outcomes.

How Growave Helps You Show Reviews on Shopify (And Why It’s Better Value)

At Growave we purposefully build a merchant-first retention suite that replaces multiple single-purpose solutions. Our Reviews & UGC functionality connects seamlessly with loyalty, referrals, and shoppable social to turn reviews into retention drivers.

Key benefits we deliver:

• Unified dashboard: collect, moderate, reply, and reuse reviews across channels without juggling multiple dashboards.
• Built-in review schema: we take care of structured data so search engines can show rich snippets.
• Photo and video UGC: let customers upload visual reviews and turn them into shoppable galleries.
• Loyalty integration: reward reviewers automatically to boost submission rates and repeat purchases. See how rewards can drive more review submissions in our loyalty tools overview: customer reward tools.
• Minimal tech overhead: fewer platforms to integrate means less maintenance and faster time to value—More Growth, Less Stack.

If you want to compare plan tiers and feature sets to decide what’s right for your store, view our plan options here: see pricing and plan features.

We make installation straightforward via the Shopify marketplace so you can have review collection and display running quickly and reliably: install Growave from the Shopify marketplace.

Advanced Strategies to Maximize Review Value

For merchants ready to push reviews into every growth channel, try these advanced tactics.

• Variant-level reviews: enable customers to review specific product variants so new visitors can see feedback on the exact configuration they’re considering.
• Time-based review requests: customize when review invitations go out depending on product type (e.g., allow longer trial windows for consumables).
• Video-first appeals: run campaigns that invite customers to submit short videos in exchange for loyalty points. Video reviews often produce the biggest lift.
• Multi-channel syndication: reuse top reviews in paid ads, landing pages, and influencer briefs.
• Automated escalation: set triggers for low-rated reviews to create a customer support ticket automatically.
• Review-driven merchandising: surface top-rated products in homepage modules and email campaigns.

Implementing these tactics is easier when reviews are centralized in a retention suite rather than spread across multiple tool dashboards.

Checklist: Quick Items to Verify When Reviews Aren’t Showing

If reviews are missing or inconsistent, run through these checks in your dashboard and theme:

• Is the review widget enabled on the active product template?
• Are reviews published and mapped to the correct product handle?
• Is JSON-LD schema being generated on the product page?
• Is the store using a custom or alternate product template that needs manual embedding?
• Are there JavaScript errors in the console that might block the widget?
• Is the CDN or theme cache masking recent changes? Try incognito and clear caches.

If these checks don’t resolve the issue, reach out to your retention platform’s support team for a code-level review.

Common Mistakes Merchants Make (And How to Avoid Them)

• Relying only on aggregate rating: always provide the full review feed with context and photos.
• Over-incentivizing reviews: rewards are effective, but over-incentivizing can skew authenticity. Use modest, transparent incentives through your loyalty program.
• Hiding reviews from search engines: avoid placing reviews inside tabs that are blocked from indexing.
• Using multiple review solutions without centralization: leads to split data and UX inconsistencies. Consolidate to reduce stack complexity.
• Ignoring negative reviews: responding promptly to issues builds trust and can convert unhappy customers.

By centralizing reviews within a retention suite and integrating loyalty rewards, you can avoid these pitfalls and create a reproducible review growth engine.

Realistic Expectations: Timelines and Volume

Collecting meaningful review volume takes time and a plan.

• Short term (0–30 days): implement widgets, enable schema, and send initial review requests to recent customers.
• Medium term (30–90 days): ramp up review collection via loyalty incentives and optimized invitation cadence; start featuring UGC on product pages and email.
• Long term (90+ days): leverage reviews into paid media creative, product development, and SEO gains. Expect compounding benefits as more reviews lead to higher conversion and repeat purchase rates.

If you want to accelerate timelines, combining automated review requests with loyalty incentives tends to produce the best early returns. Learn more about how our loyalty features can help increase review submissions here: reward customers for reviews.

Accessibility and Performance Considerations

Reviews should be accessible to all users and should not degrade site performance.

• Ensure review forms have proper labels, keyboard navigation, and screen-reader support.
• Lazy-load review sections below the fold to avoid blocking initial page render.
• Use responsive design for review images, and compress images to balance quality and load time.
• Provide text alternatives for videos and images.

Performance-focused embed strategies and built-in optimizations in a retention suite can keep pages fast while still delivering rich review experiences.

How to Combine Reviews With Other Retention Tactics

Reviews work best when they are part of a broader retention strategy.

• Loyalty: reward reviewers to increase submissions and repeat orders.
• Referrals: turn happy reviewers into advocates who refer friends in exchange for rewards.
• Wishlists: allow shoppers to save products and receive reminders that include recent reviews or UGC.
• Shoppable social: display review photos in a shoppable gallery to shorten the path to purchase.

This is exactly the integration-level value we deliver: a single platform that links reviews, loyalty, referrals, and social merchandising so each function makes the others more effective. For merchants on Shopify Plus or larger merchants who need enterprise-level workflows, we offer tailored workflows and support: Shopify Plus and enterprise solutions.

Final Checklist: Launching Reviews the Right Way

Before you go live, confirm these items are in place:

• Review widgets are visible on product pages and have consistent styling.
• Aggregate rating is shown on product lists.
• Review schema (JSON-LD) is being output and validated.
• Review request cadence is configured and integrated with loyalty incentives.
• Moderation rules and reply workflows are set up.
• UGC upload capabilities (photo/video) are enabled and tested.
• Analytics tracking is configured to measure impact.

If you want help implementing these items quickly, check our plan options to find the right fit and get started with a 14-day free trial: see pricing and plan features. You can also install our solution directly from the Shopify marketplace for a fast integration: install Growave from the Shopify marketplace.

Conclusion

Showing reviews on Shopify is one of the highest-ROI investments a merchant can make. The technical work—adding widgets, ensuring schema, and embedding UGC—is straightforward when you use a unified retention platform that connects reviews to loyalty, referrals, and shoppable social. That consolidation reduces maintenance, improves data flow, and turns reviews from a static trust cue into a repeatable growth engine. As a merchant-first company, we build for durable growth and for merchants who want More Growth, Less Stack.

Start your 14-day free trial and explore our plans to see how Growave can centralize reviews, loyalty, and UGC to boost conversions and LTV. See pricing and features to get started.

FAQ

How do I get review stars to appear in Google search results?

Ensure each product page outputs valid review schema (JSON-LD) that includes the aggregate rating and review count. Use Google Search Console to validate and request indexing after updates. If your review solution provides automatic schema, enable that option and test rich results with Google’s Rich Results Test.

What if reviews show on mobile but not desktop?

This often indicates a CSS or JavaScript conflict that affects certain breakpoints. Inspect the page with developer tools to find display rules or script errors. Also confirm the review widget is present on the desktop product template and not conditionally hidden.

Can I import reviews from other marketplaces?

Yes. Use CSV or API import to map and import reviews to your product SKUs. Mark imported reviews clearly if desired, and ensure mapping is correct so reviews attach to the right product pages.

Will rewarding customers for reviews make them biased?

Modest, transparent rewards for submitting reviews (points or small discounts) increase volume without necessarily biasing sentiment when the reward is for the act of reviewing rather than for positive content. Use verified purchase flags and moderation to maintain authenticity.

If you’d like help implementing review displays or aligning review collection with loyalty incentives, we’re here to help. Explore our plans and begin a 14-day free trial to see how unified review and loyalty tools can power retention and sustainable growth: see pricing and plan features.