How to get more reviews for your online shop

The best way to get more reviews for your online shop is simply to ask every customer, at the right moment, and make it very easy. Send an automatic request a few days after the order arrives, link straight to the review form, keep it short, and follow up once. Ask everyone, not just happy customers, and never fake, buy or hide reviews: as of October 2026 that’s clearly against UK law.

Why reviews matter

Reviews do a lot of quiet work for a shop:

• They reassure new shoppers that you’re real and that the product does what you say.
• They answer questions about size, quality and delivery in customers’ own words.
• Star ratings can show in Google search results and shopping ads, making your listing stand out.
• They tell you what to fix, in products, packaging and delivery.

Know the rules first

Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act has banned fake reviews and related practices in the UK, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) able to fine businesses directly. As of October 2026, the banned practices include:

• Writing, buying or commissioning reviews that don’t reflect a genuine experience, including from staff, friends or family posing as customers.
• Offering a reward for a review (a discount, free product or prize draw) without clearly showing that the review was incentivised.
• Publishing reviews in a misleading way, such as hiding or holding back negative reviews, only showing the good ones, or mixing reviews from different products.

If you publish reviews on your shop, you’re also expected to take reasonable steps to prevent and remove fake ones.

1. Ask at the right time

Timing is the biggest factor. Ask too early and the product hasn’t arrived. Ask too late and the customer has moved on.

• For products used straight away (clothing, accessories, gadgets): a few days after delivery.
• For products that take time to judge (skincare, supplements, mattresses): a few weeks after delivery.
• Base it on delivery, not order date, if your shop knows when the parcel arrived.

2. Make it automatic

If you rely on remembering to ask, you won’t. Set up an automatic review request email for every order. On Merchella, for example, review requests go out automatically after purchase, and you can import your existing reviews from a spreadsheet so you don’t start from zero.

3. Make it very easy

1. 1Put the product name and photo in the email so they know exactly what it’s about.
2. 2Show the stars in the email itself, so one tap starts the review.
3. 3Link straight to the review form, already filled with the right product. No logging in.
4. 4Keep the form short: stars, a short comment, optional photo.
5. 5Make sure it works well on a phone, since that’s where most people will open it.

4. Write a request people want to answer

A short, personal email does better than a corporate one. A simple example:

Subject

“How are you getting on with your new [product]?”

Body

“Hi Sarah, your [product] should have arrived a few days ago. Could you spare 30 seconds to tell other shoppers what you think? Good or bad, it helps us and them. Thanks, Tom”

Note the “good or bad”. You must ask in a way that welcomes all honest feedback, not just praise.

5. Follow up once

Many people mean to leave a review and forget. One polite reminder about a week later is reasonable. Stop there; more than that starts to annoy.

6. Ask for photos

Customer photos are some of the most persuasive content on a product page, because they show the real thing in real homes. Invite photos in your request, and make uploading simple.

7. Use other moments to ask

• In the parcel. A small card with a QR code that goes straight to the review page.
• After a good support conversation. If you’ve just solved someone’s problem, it’s natural to ask how you did.
• On the thank-you page after a repeat order, for loyal customers.

8. Incentives: be careful

You can offer an incentive for a review, such as entry into a prize draw, but only if it’s for any honest review (not a positive one) and the review is clearly labelled as incentivised wherever it appears. Check the CMA guidance before you do this. Many shops find they don’t need incentives if the request is well-timed and easy.

Handling negative reviews

Bad reviews will come. They’re not all bad news: a mix of ratings looks more believable than a wall of five stars, and they show you what to fix.

1. 1Don’t delete or hide genuine negative reviews. Only remove reviews that are fake, abusive, or break your published rules, and apply the same rules to good and bad.
2. 2Reply publicly, politely and quickly. Thank them, acknowledge the problem and say what you’ll do.
3. 3Take the detail into a private conversation by email to fix it.
4. 4If you fix it, it’s fine to ask whether they’d like to update their review, but don’t pressure them.
5. 5Look for patterns. If several reviews mention the same issue, fix the cause.

Get reviews seen

• Show the star rating near the product name and price, not just at the bottom of the page.
• Let shoppers filter or sort reviews, for example by rating or by those with photos.
• Use review markup so Google can show stars in search results where it chooses to.
• Pick out a short, genuine quote for your product page or ads, with permission and without changing its meaning.

In short

More reviews come from asking every customer, at the right time, in a way that takes seconds. Automate the request, follow up once, welcome honest feedback, and reply to the bad as well as the good. Stay well inside the rules on fake and incentivised reviews, and your reviews will be something shoppers trust.