Product Reviews lets your customers rate and review the products in your store, and lets you decide which reviews appear on your storefront. Shoppers leave a star rating and a written review on a product page. By default, each new review waits in the Reviews area of your dashboard until you approve it. Approved reviews are shown on the product page alongside an average rating and a breakdown of how many reviews fall under each star level.
The plugin runs alongside your existing store with no changes to your products.
Features
- Star ratings: customers rate a product from 1 to 5 stars, and each product page shows its average rating to one decimal place.
- Written reviews: an optional review title and body let shoppers explain their rating in their own words.
- Moderation: by default, every new review waits for your approval. You can approve, reject or delete any review from the dashboard.
- Storefront display widget: an embeddable reviews block shows the rating summary, a sortable list of reviews and a "Write a Review" form on your product pages.
- Rating summary: a summary panel shows the average score, the total number of reviews and a bar chart breaking down how many reviews each star level received.
- No account needed: shoppers leave a review with their name and email address.
- Dashboard summary widget: a compact panel on your dashboard home shows total reviews, average rating, and how many are approved versus pending.
- Sorting: shoppers can sort the review list by newest, oldest, highest rated or lowest rated.
Before you start
- You need an Orbit Commerce store with at least one published product.
- When you install the plugin, the install screen lists the permissions it asks for before you confirm.
- To show reviews on your storefront you must add the Product Review element to your product page using the page builder. Installing the plugin alone does not change your storefront.
- By default, reviews left while you are setting up are held as pending until you approve them, so nothing goes live unexpectedly.
Getting started
- Open Plugins in your dashboard, find Product Reviews and select Install.
- Review the requested permissions and confirm. The plugin connects to your store automatically.
- Once installed, a Reviews entry appears in your dashboard menu. Open it to see every review in a table, where you approve, reject or delete them.
- Add the reviews block to your storefront. In the page builder, edit your product page template and place the Product Review element where you want reviews to appear (typically below the product description or add-to-cart section).
- Save and publish the page. The reviews block will now appear on every product that uses that template.
- Visit a product page on your live storefront to check that the reviews block and its Write a Review button are showing.
How it works
Leaving a review. On a product page, a customer selects Write a Review, chooses a star rating from 1 to 5, enters their name and email, and optionally adds a title and a written review. When they submit, they see a message telling them the review will be visible after moderation.
Moderation and approval. By default, new reviews arrive with a status of Pending and are not shown on the storefront. Open Reviews in your dashboard to see every review in a table, with the product, reviewer name, rating, content and current status. For each review you can:
- Approve: the review becomes visible on the product page.
- Reject: the review is kept on record but hidden from customers.
- Delete: the review is permanently removed. This cannot be undone.
Each action asks for confirmation before it is applied. Only Approved reviews are ever shown to shoppers.
Where ratings show. Once a review is approved it appears in the reviews block on that product's page. The summary panel recalculates the average rating, the total review count and the per-star breakdown automatically. Each review shows the reviewer's name, their rating and the date.
Dashboard summary. A Reviews Summary widget on your dashboard home gives an at-a-glance view of total reviews, average rating, and the number approved versus awaiting moderation, with a link through to the full management table.
Settings
Open Plugins in your dashboard, then choose Settings from the menu beside Product Reviews to see the plugin's settings. By default, every new review waits for your approval, and the storefront lists ten reviews per page, newest first.
Troubleshooting
Reviews are not showing on my product page. Check three things: the review has been Approved in your dashboard (pending and rejected reviews are never shown); the Product Review element has been added to the product page template in the page builder and the page is published; and you are viewing the correct product. Only approved reviews for that specific product appear.
A customer left a review but I cannot see it in the dashboard. New reviews appear in the reviews table with a Pending status. If the table is empty or seems out of date, reload the page, and check that the plugin is still installed.
New reviews are appearing on the storefront without my approval. Check the Auto-Approve Reviews setting on the plugin's settings page, and turn it off if you want to approve every review first.
Support
For help with this plugin, visit the Orbit Commerce Help Centre (opens in a new tab), or use the Support link below.