The shop says where reviews come from and how they are checked
Legal references (EU)
- Dir 2005/29/EC Art. 7(6)
- Dir 2005/29/EC Annex I No. 23b, 23c
Some guidelines reference legal provisions. These references identify the rules a guideline relates to. They are not legal advice, they are not a statement that any particular shop complies or does not comply, and they may not reflect the current state of national transposition. Consult qualified counsel for questions about your own compliance.
What is being checked
Whether a page displaying customer reviews states where those reviews come from and what, if anything, was done to establish that the reviewers actually bought or used the product.
Why it matters
An existing guideline covers whether reviews are informative enough to support a decision. This one covers whether the reader can tell what the reviews are. Those are different questions, and the second one now determines the value of the first: as syndicated, incentivised and generated reviews have spread, an unqualified five-star average carries almost no information.
A shop that verifies purchase and says so is giving away a real advantage by staying silent about it. A shop that does not verify and implies otherwise is in a materially worse position than one that discloses plainly.
In EU consumer law, presenting reviews as coming from actual purchasers without taking reasonable steps to check is a listed unfair practice, and information about whether and how reviews are checked is required where reviews are made accessible.
Failure signals
- Reviews are displayed with no statement of their source.
- A "verified" badge appears with no explanation anywhere of what was verified.
- Reviews are syndicated from a manufacturer, a marketplace or a sibling product without that being stated.
- The aggregate score includes reviews of other variants or other products in a family, with no indication of this.
- Incentivised reviews are included with no disclosure of the incentive.
How to verify
- Open a product detail page with reviews.
- Look for a statement of source near the review block or behind a clearly labelled link from it.
- Confirm the statement describes the collection method and what verification, if any, is performed.
- If any review carries a verification badge, confirm the badge's meaning is defined.
- Determine whether the aggregate covers this product only or a family, and confirm that scope is stated.
- Check whether structured review data expresses the same scope as the visible aggregate.
Recommended fix
Place a short, plain statement adjacent to the review block describing the source, the verification performed and the scope of the aggregate, and link it to a fuller description. Where reviews are syndicated or aggregated across variants, say so at the point where the score appears rather than in a policy page.
Shopware specific
Native product reviews require a signed-in customer, allow one review per customer per product, and are saved inactive until approved in the administration. Submission does not check for a purchase, and the standard code never sets the storefront's "verified buyer" marker. A shop claiming verified reviews therefore relies on an extension or a manual process; establish which before accepting the claim.
Shopify specific
Reviews come from third-party apps, whose collection, syndication and aggregation settings differ. Check what the installed app actually does before accepting or writing a disclosure.