A shopper on your product page has to take your word for almost everything: you wrote the description, chose the photos and set the price. Product reviews are the one part of the page written by people who already bought, which is why shoppers scroll down to them before deciding.
This guide covers the practical side: how to collect product reviews, where to show them, how to handle the critical ones and how to get your ratings into Google. For the broader case for reviews and social proof, read our article on why customer reviews matter in ecommerce.
What product reviews do for your store
Reviews work in three places. In search, every review adds original text written in your customersβ words, the way they describe a fit, a smell or a use you never thought of. When your product page exposes its rating as structured data, Google can also show stars next to your result, which makes it stand out from listings without them.
On the product page, reviews answer the doubts a description canβt settle: whether the size runs small, whether the color matches the photo, whether the product survives daily use. They matter most for expensive items, anything with sizing, and products the buyer canβt inspect in person.
There is research behind this. Northwestern Universityβs Spiegel Research Center found in 2017 that a product with five reviews was 270% more likely to be purchased than one with none. The same study found that purchase likelihood usually peaks at ratings between 4.0 and 4.7 stars and drops as the average approaches a perfect 5.0, because shoppers distrust ratings that look too good.
Reviews also give you free feedback. Customers will tell you, unprompted, that the packaging arrived damaged or that they wanted a color you donβt stock.
How to collect product reviews
Most customers who are happy with a purchase never think to review it. A short request at the right moment fixes that.
Time the request for when the customer has used the product, not when it ships. In Jumpseller, you set this under Settings > General > Emails > Product Review, with a separate delay for each type of order:
- Digital orders: they arrive instantly, but give buyers time to try the product. Our recommendation is one day.
- Delivered paid orders: the clock starts when every shipment in the order is marked as delivered. Our recommendation is one day.
- Paid orders without shipments: the email goes out after the order is marked as paid. Our recommendation is 14 days.
Remember to activate the email once the delays are set. The request includes the name and photo of each product purchased, and the customer gives a rating from 1 to 5 stars with an optional written review. You can also ask for a review order by order: open a paid order, click the three-dot menu at the top and choose Send Review Email.
Two limits are worth knowing before you start. Customers can only leave a review through that email, so every review in your store comes from an order. And you canβt request reviews for purchases made before you enabled the feature, or import reviews from another platform, so the sooner you switch it on, the sooner reviews build up. Product reviews are available from the Pro plan up (see current plans), and the full setup is in our product reviews guide.
Never pay or reward customers for positive reviews specifically. Offering an incentive that depends on the review being favorable is a fake review under the FTC rule described below.
How to display reviews in your store
New reviews arrive as unread and stay hidden until you publish them from Products > Reviews. Only published reviews appear in your store, and your theme version has to support reviews for them to show.
Once published, they appear in three places:
- In product lists such as categories, search results and the home page, each product shows its score, a row of stars and the number of reviews.
- On the product page, the rating sits next to the product name and price, with the published reviews below.
- In the pageβs HTML, as structured data that search engines can read.
You can change the order in which reviews appear from your theme settings. Read every review before publishing it, and decide on content, not on star count. Holding back spam, insults or a customerβs personal data is reasonable. Holding back a fair three-star review because it hurts your average is not, and in some markets it is against the rules.
How to respond to negative reviews
A critical review is a customer telling you what went wrong while there is still time to fix it. Jumpseller doesnβt support public replies under a review, but every review is linked to an order, so you can contact the customer directly by email. Offer a fix that matches the problem: a replacement, a refund, or instructions if the product was used incorrectly.
Then treat the review as a work item:
- Repeated complaints about the same attribute usually mean the product description is wrong, not the product. Fix the sizing chart or the photos (our guide to writing product descriptions that sell can help).
- Questions that keep coming up belong in the description or in an FAQ block on the product page.
- Requests for colors or sizes you donβt sell are free research for your next purchase order.
- Comments about delivery tell you whether your shipping promise matches reality.
You canβt delete reviews, but you can change their status on the reviews page, or disable reviews for a single product from the product page.
How to get product reviews into Google
Product reviews and store ratings are two different things in Google.
Product ratings come from the reviews on your own product pages. Jumpseller adds them to the page as structured data, which Google can read and show as stars in organic and paid results. Google decides whether to display them, so treat the stars as likely, not guaranteed.
Store ratings come from Google Customer Reviews, a free Google program run through Merchant Center. After checkout, customers can opt in to a short survey that Google emails them, and their answers build the seller rating shown in Search and Shopping ads and in an optional badge on your site. To set it up, connect your store to Google Merchant Center, join the program under Reviews, copy your Merchant ID and paste it in Jumpseller under Settings > Checkout, where you also choose how many days after payment the survey is sent. It only works with the Standard version of the checkout.
Fake reviews and the rules
The United States and the European Union both have specific rules on how stores collect and show reviews.
In the United States, the FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in force since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews, incentives that depend on the review expressing a particular sentiment, undisclosed reviews from company insiders, and using threats to stop or remove negative reviews. It also bans claiming that the reviews you display represent all or most of them when negative ones were suppressed.
In the European Union, the rules introduced by the Omnibus Directive and applied since May 2022 require stores that show reviews to tell shoppers whether and how they check that reviews come from people who actually bought or used the product. They also ban fake reviews and misrepresenting reviews, for example by publishing only the positive ones.
Because Jumpseller only accepts reviews through the email sent after an order, you can say so plainly near your reviews or in your legal pages, for example: βReviews can only be submitted by customers who placed an order, through an email we send after purchase.β This is general information, not legal advice, so check the requirements in the countries where you sell.
Next step
Turn on the review email this week and set each delay to match how long your products take to use. Then block fifteen minutes on your calendar every Friday to publish new reviews, contact anyone who left fewer than four stars, and fix whatever they flagged. If you sell through Google Shopping, add Google Customer Reviews next so your store rating starts building alongside your product ratings.
