Anand Srinivasan June 2, 2021 Shopify is by far the most popular eCommerce platform today, used by more than 1.7 million merchants worldwide.
A big reason for its popularity is the sheer number of third-party apps that are available for Shopify. Today, there are nearly 6000 apps on the Shopify App Store that let you customize your store with unique features and offerings.
Product reviews are one of the most popular app categories since these apps help generate a steady stream of customer reviews for products in your store – this has a direct impact on conversion rate since multiple studies show that online shoppers are highly influenced by reviews and testimonials posted by other buyers.
If you are in the market for a product review app for your Shopify store, here is a list of apps that we have tried and love.
Loox
With over 7000 reviews, Loox is by far the most popular product review app for Shopify and has a solid 4.9/5 rating on the App Store. It also has one of the most aesthetically pleasing UI among the various product review apps on Shopify.
The app is exclusive to Shopify and as such is seamlessly optimized for this platform. It lets you demonstrate your social proof and boost credibility by collecting highly effective visuals and feedback from happy customers. All of this on autopilot.
This is how the app works:
- Install the app on your Shopify store and get it running in under a minute.
- The app now sends notifications to customers via email, push notifications or Facebook messenger nudging them for reviews.
- You may also choose to offer discounts or other kinds of rewards in return for their reviews.
- Showcase these high-impact photo reviews either on the product page, or on your homepage or even as a standalone ‘Reviews’ or ‘Customers’ page.
Loox also offers store owners additional customizations like the ability to showcase these reviews as popup notifications on the product page, or on the sidebar, on the cart checkout page.
If you already use a different app to gather reviews, Loox makes it easy for you to seamlessly import them to your Loox application.
The Loox app is priced at $ 9.99 per month – you have a 14-day free trial period to evaluate the app at no risk.
Growave
Growave is a little similar to Loox in that it lets Shopify store owners send automated email reminders to their customers requesting reviews for the products that they purchased. Also, like Loox, you can change the design, display reviews in a carousel, or have a dedicated reviews page on your Shopify store.
Some features of Growave include the ability to integrate with Google Shopping, display ratings and reviews on product listing ads, the option for viewers to share reviews on social media, and display your reviews on Facebook Page.
However, a lot of these features are available only for higher-tier customers – those who subscribe to the Growth or Enterprise plan at $ 69.99/month or $ 299.99/month respectively.
The Starter plan for Growave is priced at $ 29.99/month and offers the automated reviews feature without any of the other features.
Ali Reviews
Ali Reviews is a fantastic app to capture product reviews for store owners who primarily dropship their products from AliExpress.
The app lets you seamlessly import the hundreds of customer reviews for your product on AliExpress and showcase it on your own Shopify store.
This is particularly useful if you are a newly launched store without a lot of genuine reviews on your store.
In addition to this, users also have the option to send automated emails to new customers seeking reviews for their products.
Similar to the other apps discussed in this article, the Ali Reviews app also lets you showcase these reviews either as a review box under the product, on a dedicated page, or as a carousel on your homepage or elsewhere.
AliExpress costs $ 9.90 per month and comes with a 7-day free trial.
Fera
Fera is one of the relatively newer apps in the product reviews space. Similar to the other apps reviewed so far, Fera too lets users create customized email templates to send automated review requests to customers.
There are also a few other features that make this app useful. You shall be able to display ‘Verified Shopper’ badges against customers who have made a purchase before reviewing. Like Loox, Fera too lets users offer incentives like discounts, loyalty points, or cashback in exchange for reviews.
From a pricing perspective, Fera may be a good app for absolutely new sites that do not see a lot of purchases. Their free plan lets users send up to 10 review requests per month. But the app may turn out fairly expensive quickly.
If you need to send more than 1000 review requests a month, you will have to sign up for their ‘Medium’ plan that costs $ 99 per month.
Yotpo
Yotpo is a relatively older, and popular brand in the Shopify product reviews app space. However, we are ranking it lower than the other apps here because it enjoys a marginally lower rating of 4.8 stars over 5 from customers.
One reason for the lower rating is the high cost of upgrades. For example, a store owner who does around 800 orders a month, may need to pay $ 19/month for their rating app. However, if you start doing more, then you will have to upgrade to the Prime plan that is $ 299/month.
In terms of features, Yotpo is a good app to use if you are a relatively small shop with less than 50 orders a month. They have a free plan that lets you send an email and SMS-based review requests to customers.
But if you are a growing business with more orders, then you may consider opting for a different app like Loox or Judge.me.
Having said that, their $ 299/month Prime plan comes with unique features like integration with Google Shopping Ads, Google Seller Ratings, Walmart.com syndication, and others.
Product Reviews by Shopify
This is a very basic app that lets Shopify store owners collect reviews for their products. Built by Shopify, the Product Reviews app lets you add a customer review feature to any product. You have the ability to customize layout, text, colors with a simple online interface.
The Product Reviews app is integrated with rich snippets that make it possible for you to showcase ratings on Google search results.
Having said that, this app does not come with any additional features like automating review requests, or the ability to collect photo/video reviews.
The Product Reviews app by Shopify scores a 3.7 rating on 5 on the app store and is free to download. If you are a frugally bootstrapped business that may not be able to invest in a product reviews app for your store, this is something you may consider installing.
Judge.me
With Judge.me, store owners can aggregate photo, video, and text reviews from customers with automated email reminders sent to customers.
You may choose to showcase your reviews either as a widget, a carousel, or on a dedicated reviews page.
The reviews your customers add to your product page are automatically tagged with rich snippets and are hence useful to enhance your website’s SEO.
The Judge.me app also lets store owners set up a Q&A section on your product page (similar to the ‘Customer Questions & Answers’ section on Amazon), or use custom forms to start conversations on product-related topics.
While they do have a basic free plan, most of the powerful features that come with Judge.me – like automated reminders, coupon incentives to reviewers, and photo/video reviews are only available to paying customers. This will cost store owners $ 15/month.
Areviews
This app is highly useful to store owners who sell their products on a variety of different marketplaces including AliExpress, Amazon, and Shein.
Areviews is primarily a reviews-importer app and gives store owners the ability to import thousands of product reviews from these other marketplaces with one click. You can do this either manually or automate the process.
Areviews is also integrated with a number of other third-party apps like Oberlo, Dropified, and Etsy and this makes it possible for you to showcase your reviews on these other platforms as well. You also have the ability to display your reviews on Google Shopping.
There are a few other features that make the app interesting. For instance, you have the option to look up prices listed in the review and replace them with the price in your store. This may however not be a good idea since editing reviews before showcasing them can be misleading to a new visitor – not to mention that your reviews may lose context if prices mentioned in the content are changed.
Reputon
Review-gating is the practice of capturing reviews from customers and showcasing the happy ones alone while hiding negative reviews. This is a practice that is discouraged by Google on its local business platform.
However, if you are looking for a way to practice this on your Shopify store, then Reputon is an app that you can check out.
Here is how it works – Reputon sends a survey email to your customers seeking feedback. Users who are happy with the product are prompted to leave feedback on a platform of their choice like Google Reviews, Yelp, TrustPilot, or BBB.
Unhappy users are however asked to reach out to you personally via a contact form so that their issues can be resolved amicably before they go public with their review.
This is a controversial process in terms of capturing product reviews and we would not recommend it. However, if you are interested to go ahead, then Reputon has a free plan that sends up to 50 emails a month.
Editorify
If you run a dropshipping business and deal with a number of different wholesalers, then Editorify is a must-have app that helps store owners import reviews from these different wholesalers and display them on your app.
Editorify also lets you filter reviews based on keywords or ratings while importing. For instance, you could choose to only import 4 or 5 stars rated reviews. Or, you could choose to not import reviews that contain specific keywords like “unhappy” or “waste of money”. In a way then, Editorify is similar to Reputon in that it encourages review gating.
In addition to the above features, Editorify also lets you import photos and videos from third-party sources and link to them from any product.
Editorify has a free plan that allows you to import up to 25 reviews a month from AliExpress. Premium plans starting at $ 9.95/month let you import from Etsy, Dhgate, Oberlo, and more.
Conclusion
Product reviews are among the most essential components of a successful eCommerce store. Picking the right product reviews app for your Shopify store can help you establish legitimacy and social proof among your website visitors which is quintessential to higher conversions.
Which of the apps above do you have installed on your store? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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