What is Review Gating?
Review gating is the practice of screening customers based on their satisfaction level before asking them to leave a public review. Typically, happy customers are directed to leave a review while unhappy customers are redirected to a private support channel instead.
Understanding Review Gating
Review gating works by inserting a satisfaction check before the review request. A post-purchase email might ask "How was your experience?" with positive and negative options. Customers who respond positively receive a link to leave a public review on Google, Shopify, or a third-party platform. Those who respond negatively are routed to customer support or a private feedback form. The result is a public review profile that skews artificially positive.
This practice has come under increasing scrutiny and outright prohibition. Google explicitly banned review gating in 2018, and the FTC has issued guidance that selectively soliciting reviews based on expected sentiment is deceptive. Amazon prohibits it. Shopify's own review guidelines discourage it. Beyond regulatory risk, platforms are increasingly sophisticated at detecting gating patterns—a sudden shift to exclusively 5-star reviews raises algorithmic red flags.
The irony of review gating is that it undermines the very trust it attempts to manufacture. Modern consumers are skeptical of perfect ratings. A product with exclusively 5-star reviews often triggers suspicion rather than confidence. Research consistently shows that products with average ratings between 4.2 and 4.5 stars convert at higher rates than those with perfect 5.0 ratings. A mix of genuine positive and negative reviews reads as authentic and helps customers make informed decisions.
The ethical alternative to review gating is comprehensive review collection paired with responsive review management. Solicit reviews from all customers equally. When negative reviews appear, respond publicly with empathy and resolution. This approach builds more trust than gating ever could, because it demonstrates accountability and customer care in a visible, verifiable way.
Why Review Gating Matters for E-Commerce
Review gating creates legal liability and platform risk for e-commerce stores. FTC enforcement actions against deceptive review practices have increased significantly, and platforms like Google can penalize or delist businesses caught gating reviews. Beyond compliance, gated reviews fail to provide the authentic social proof that drives modern purchasing decisions.
For Shopify merchants, the business case against review gating is straightforward: honest review profiles convert better, build more durable trust, and carry zero regulatory risk. Investing in genuine customer experience improvements and transparent review management delivers better long-term results than artificially inflating ratings.
Related Terms
Social Proof
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people look to the actions and opinions of others to guide their own behavior, especially in situations of uncertainty. In e-commerce, it manifests as reviews, ratings, testimonials, purchase counts, and user-generated content that signal product quality and trustworthiness.
Star Rating
A star rating is a numerical score, typically on a 1 to 5 scale, represented visually as filled or partially filled stars. It provides a quick, universally understood summary of customer satisfaction with a product or service.
Review Velocity
Review velocity is the rate at which a product or store accumulates new customer reviews over a given period. It measures not just the total number of reviews, but how quickly new ones are added.
Review Management
Review management is the end-to-end process of soliciting, collecting, moderating, responding to, analyzing, and strategically displaying customer reviews across all channels where a business has a presence.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis is the use of natural language processing (NLP) to identify and categorize the emotional tone expressed in text, classifying it as positive, negative, or neutral. In e-commerce, it is most commonly applied to customer reviews, support tickets, and social media mentions.
Social Proof Fatigue
Social proof fatigue occurs when shoppers become desensitized or skeptical of social proof elements due to overexposure, repetitive presentation, or perceived inauthenticity. It is the diminishing return on social proof that has been overused or poorly implemented.
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