UltraCart Reviews

Introduction to UltraCart Reviews

UltraCart’s Review Engine empowers you to gather valuable customer reviews directly on your product pages. Not only do reviews enhance your credibility, but they also boost your content for search engine optimization (SEO). Our built-in review system is designed with a range of features to help customers navigate reviews effortlessly, improving their shopping experience. Plus, it’s optimized for easy setup and works seamlessly within your StoreFront.

Configuring Reviews

To configure the Review Engine, go to Home > Configuration > Items and then select Reviews

The first screen covers the basic configuration of the overall review system.

There are three tabs to the left of the screen: Settings, Item Templates and Unapproved Reviews.

Settings

Setting Up Product Review Options

Choose a Rating Scale
First, select the scale on which customers will rate your products. The most common choices are a 1-5 or 1-10 scale, with 1-5 being the standard across many eCommerce sites.
Define Terms and Conditions
Next, set the terms and conditions customers must agree to before submitting their review. Ensure these terms are clear, especially regarding your rights to use submitted reviews for promotional purposes. Consider looking at examples like Best Buy’s terms here for guidance.
Ask for Store Recommendations
This setting allows customers to rate your store overall—separate from their rating of the specific product they bought. A customer might dislike a product but still love your customer service and recommend your store to others.
Enable Customer-Submitted Images and Videos
If you have a Storefront Visual Builder-enabled theme, you can allow customers to attach images and videos to their reviews. This feature includes automatic content screening to filter out inappropriate material.

Setting Up Reviewer Profile Questions

You can ask profile questions when reviewers create their accounts, giving you insights into your customers. This helps you understand your audience—for example, are they new to the hobby, experienced enthusiasts, or even professionals? Reviews often carry more weight when readers see that the reviewer has expertise in the product area.

When configuring profile questions, you have three format options:

Single line of text
Multiple lines of text
Drop down selection

We recommend using dropdown selections whenever possible. This format is easier to categorize, allowing you to group reviewers by type later on.

Enter your question, choose an answer format, and if you select "Dropdown," enter the possible choices. When you're done, click Save. Repeat this process for each question you want to add.

To edit a question, click Configure. To delete it, click Remove.

Item Templates

Next we need to configure the item templates from the Item Templates tab.

An item template determines the types of criteria that you are asking the customer to review the product on. For example you might ask them to rate the product on the scale of 1 to 5 on durability, price, performance, and appearance. This template has already been created.

Click on the "edit" button to reveal and/or edit the established characteristics.

Note about templates

One of your templates can be defined as the default template. This template will be used if the customer starts to review an item but a specific template has not been assigned to the item. If your store sells one type of item then a single default template will probably do just fine. However, If you sell two completely different products like food and clothing, you might want two different templates and will want to assign the template to each item in your store (batch item import spreadsheet is the best way to handle this).

Unapproved Reviews

The next tab is the Unapproved Reviews tab. All users on the UltraCart account that have the Notifications "Unapproved Reviews" will receive a once-a-day email if there are any reviews that need approving. The fourth tab of the review module will display a list of the unapproved reviews:

Deploying Reviews in StoreFronts

Adding reviews to your StoreFront is straightforward with the UltraCart Visual Builder. Follow these steps to set up item reviews from scratch, or use our pre-configured review template by uploading a provided .cjson file for quicker setup.

While you're logged into your UltraCart account, navigate to your StoreFront and then to an item page (Keep in mind that any edits made to this template will impact any other items using this page).

Getting Started

Navigate to the Item Page
While logged into your UltraCart account, go to your StoreFront and access an item page.
Note: Any changes to this item page template will affect all items using this page.
Open the Visual Builder
Once on the item page, click Edit in the top left of the StoreFront admin bar to open the Visual Builder, and then open the Hierarchy view.

Setting Up the Review Elements

In the Hierarchy, you’ll need to add two specific elements for reviews: ItemReviewSummary and ItemReviewListForm. Both of these elements must be nested under the ItemForm element to properly connect with the item’s data, allowing reviews to display correctly.

If you’re starting from an UltraCart StoreFront Theme, this structure may already be set up for you.
If not, you can manually create this structure and add these elements as shown below.

Quick Setup with a Pre-Configured Template

For a faster setup, download the provided .cjson file, which includes a pre-configured Review Container Panel. This panel aligns with the recommended structure shown above and can be uploaded to your StoreFront. Simply modify it as needed to suit your brand's style and requirements.

Integration Note

Be sure to nest the Review Container Panel under an ItemForm element in the hierarchy. It doesn’t need to be an immediate child, but it must be located somewhere within the ItemForm element’s structure for the reviews to display correctly.

Approving Reviews

Once a review is submitted it must be approved before becoming visible on the website.

All users on the UltraCart account that have the Notifications "Unapproved Reviews" will receive a once-a-day email if there are any reviews that need approving. The last tab of the review module will display a list of the unapproved reviews:

Note

You can also see all reviews (approved and pending) for a specific item by navigating to that specific item in the UltraCart backend and selecting the Reviews tab in the sidebar for that item.

Editing or Deleting Reviews

When you click on the edit button to the right of the review, you will be able to see the entire review and make edits. At the bottom you can approve, Delete or Save your edits. You can also Approve, Unapprove or Reject the review at the first field labeled Status.

It's important to allow fair reviewing of products (pro and con) on your website. However, sometimes customers are being cruel by stating things about a product that are not factual. For instance, a customer giving a product "1 star" because the shipper was late by two days is not a fair rating for the customer to apply.

Shared Reviews Tip

You can quickly and easily share reviews between similar items. If you have multiple variants of the same product on your StoreFront, simply navigate to that item in your UltraCart backend, select the reviews tab to assign items to share customer reviews. Learn More

Reviews Tied to Customer Profiles

Reviews are tied to customer profiles. Before a customer can submit a review they have to establish a customer profile. Due to this relationship you can also see some details about the reviews a customer has submitted in the customer profile editor.

Navigate:

HOME → CUSTOMER PROFILES → MANAGE

Locate the Customer using the search feature. From the search results, click on the edit button for the appropriate Customer. Scroll to the bottom of the search results screen.

Once you've located the customer profile you want to update, click the Reviews tab to adjust the review settings for this customer. In the customer profile editor, you’ll find two key options:

Expert – Mark the customer as an expert if they have specialized knowledge of the product area. Expert reviews can be filtered and highlighted, giving them greater visibility. This is particularly useful if you want to feature reviews from trusted experts to influence customer opinions and drive purchases.
Auto Approve – Enable this option to automatically approve reviews from customers who consistently submit high-quality feedback. This is helpful if you have regular reviewers whose input you trust.

Both options allow you to elevate trusted or expert voices on your site, enhancing credibility and helping to guide customers toward confident purchasing decisions.