Shopify testimonials section
Last updated
Pick the spot closest to where your reviews will go. The layout that fits, and the real widget it becomes, appear below.
Choose one of the three spots above. You get the layout that suits your reviews, what to put in it, a line on how they were checked, and anything that would make the section misleading.
What decides the layout
A Shopify testimonials section is a block of real customer reviews placed on a product page, the homepage or a slim strip, and this tool picks the layout that suits how many genuine reviews you hold and where they will sit, then flags anything that would make the section misleading.
The rules on this page come from the FTC (16 CFR Part 465 and the Endorsement Guides), the EU Omnibus Directive and the UK DMCC Act 2024 with CMA guidance. No figure is quoted for what reviews do to sales. Every layout is on the store widgets gallery, and the testimonials help article covers setting one up.
Three facts about your reviews choose the shape. A fourth, where they came from, decides what you tell shoppers about them.
- Genuine reviews
- Words a real customer wrote about something they bought from you. Not a quote you drafted, not a review from a supplier, not one an AI tool produced. The layout advice counts only these.
- Placement
- A product column is narrow and sits next to the buy button, so it wants something compact that does not push the price off screen. A homepage section has full width. A slim strip has almost no height at all.
- Customer photos
- A photo from a buyer shows the product in an ordinary room or on an ordinary person. Layouts that lead with images only pay off when most reviews carry one.
- Verification line
- One sentence near the reviews saying whether and how you check that they come from people who bought. Shops selling into the EU are expected to state this.
- Sample reviews
- The preview on this page runs the app widget with placeholder reviews. In the app, sample reviews carry a Sample tag on your store if you publish before real ones exist, so nobody mistakes them for customers.
Nudgesmart adds widgets like this one to your store from the theme editor, in your theme’s fonts and colours by default, and is available on the Shopify App Store. See every widget layout or see what it costs.
Five stores, and the section each one gets
Invented shops. The layout, the runner-up and every flag come from the same planner the tool above runs.
| Store | Layout | Runner-up | What the tool flags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candle shop, three reviews sent by email, product page | List | Spotlight | Keep the original message behind each review, with its date, so you can show where it came from if a shopper or a regulator asks. |
| Skincare brand, nine invited reviews, a few with photos, product page | Carousel | List | Nothing to flag |
| Apparel store, forty reviews moved from an old app, most with photos, homepage | Photo wall | Masonry | Nothing to flag |
| Coffee roaster, twenty text-only reviews, five-star ones only, slim strip | Scrolling strip | Carousel | Showing only top-rated reviews is a curated section, not your review record. Do not call it all reviews or put an average beside it, and do not suggest the curated set is the whole record: the FTC rule treats presenting reviews as all or most of them, while negative ones are held back, as review suppression, and UK guidance from the CMA treats concealing negative reviews as misleading. Moving text is hard to read and easy to ignore. Keep each review in a scrolling strip to a sentence or two. |
| New store, no reviews yet, wants a homepage section | Nothing yet | — | No genuine reviews yet, so there is nothing to put live. Collect a few from real customers first. The preview below runs on sample reviews, which the app tags Sample on your store if you ever publish without real ones. |
Rules that apply to every review you show
Only real customers, in their own words
The FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, bans reviews from people who do not exist or who never used the product, and that includes text generated by AI. The UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists fake reviews among banned practices. Tidying a typo is fine; rewriting a sentence to sound better is not.
Do not bury the bad ones
Choosing your favourite reviews for a homepage wall is normal curation. Threatening customers over critical reviews, or presenting a filtered set as if it were all of them, is review suppression under the FTC rule, and CMA guidance treats concealing negative reviews as misleading shoppers. Keep the full record somewhere a shopper can find it.
Say what anything given in return was
A discount, a gift of the product or entry into a draw in exchange for a review is a material connection. The FTC Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255, expect it to be disclosed where the review appears, and Part 465 forbids tying the reward to a positive verdict.
Tell EU shoppers how reviews are checked
The EU Omnibus Directive requires traders who show consumer reviews to say whether and how they make sure those reviews come from people who used or bought the product. A plain line such as the verification line the tool writes covers it, as long as it is true.
A star average is a claim too
An average shown next to a hand-picked set implies it was worked out from all your reviews. If the section is curated, leave the average off it, or make sure the figure comes from the full record.
The layout cannot fix thin evidence
Two reviews in a grand homepage wall draw attention to how few there are. Baymard Institute usability testing found shoppers go looking for critical reviews to judge a product, so a short, honest section with some mixed opinions earns more belief than a padded one.
Testimonials section questions
How do I add a testimonials section to Shopify?
Preview the layout here, then create a testimonials widget in the Nudgesmart app, choose which reviews it shows and publish it. Add to store opens your theme editor with the block already added to the page you pick, and you save it there.
Can I bring reviews over from the review app I use now?
If your current app can export reviews as a CSV file, Nudgesmart can import that file, so you do not retype a single review.
What are the sample reviews in the preview?
Placeholders, so the layout is visible before you have content. If a sample review ever reaches a live store, the app labels it with a Sample tag. Replace them with real reviews before you publish.
Can I only show my five-star reviews?
On a curated section, yes, as long as you do not present it as every review you have, do not put an overall average beside it, and do not hide or delete the critical ones elsewhere.
Can I write testimonials for customers who praised us on the phone?
Only if you ask them to put it in writing and send it, then publish their words. A testimonial you compose from memory is your writing, not theirs, and regulators treat it as fake.
Which layout works best on a phone?
Under the buy button, a carousel or a short list keeps the price and button close. On the homepage, a grid or masonry wall stacks into a single column. Switch the preview to Mobile to check the one you picked.
A review is read hardest just before the order.
The Nudgesmart testimonials widget comes in eight layouts and can import reviews from a CSV exported from another review app.
