If you’ve searched for how to migrate reviews to Shopify, you’ve probably already discovered the uncomfortable truth: there’s no button for it. You can move your products, your customer list and your order history into Shopify with reasonable confidence, and then discover your hundreds of hard-won star ratings and reviews from Etsy, WooCommerce or wherever you started simply aren’t there anymore. This is one of the most common threads on the Shopify Community forums, merchants asking “what reviews app did you migrate to” and “how do I keep my star ratings” after a platform switch.
This guide explains why reviews don’t come across automatically, what the actual migration process looks like, the specific ways it goes wrong, and how to preserve both your ratings and their SEO value in the move.
Why reviews don’t migrate automatically
When you move a store to Shopify, whether that’s via Shopify’s own store importer, a migration app, or a manual rebuild, what actually gets pulled across is product data: titles, descriptions, images, variants, prices, sometimes inventory levels. Reviews are not product data. They live in a completely separate system: your old platform’s own review feature (if it has one), or a third-party reviews app’s own database, tied to that app’s install and that platform’s product IDs.
Etsy reviews, for example, are Etsy’s own asset, tied to Etsy listings, visible only on Etsy, and not exportable through any standard product export. If you’re leaving Etsy for your own Shopify store, those specific reviews generally cannot follow you at all, because Etsy doesn’t provide a review export mechanism, and the reviews are contractually tied to the Etsy transaction and platform. This is different from migrating between two review apps (say, a WooCommerce reviews plugin to Yotpo on Shopify), where the data usually can be exported and reimported because both ends are willing to let you extract it.
The core mechanic to understand: reviews migrate only when the source system offers an export and the destination system offers a matching import. Shopify’s product importer has no concept of reviews at all, it’s built around Shopify’s product schema, and reviews simply aren’t a field in that schema. Getting reviews across is a separate project from getting products across, and it needs its own plan.
The general migration approach
If your reviews live in an exportable system, a dedicated reviews app on your old platform (Yotpo, Judge.me, Loox, a WooCommerce plugin, etc.), the process typically looks like this:
- Export from the source. Most reviews apps offer a CSV export from their dashboard, containing fields like product ID/SKU, reviewer name, email, rating, review title, review body, date, and sometimes photo URLs and verified-purchase flags.
- Install your new Shopify reviews app. Common choices on Shopify include Yotpo and Okendo, both purpose-built for the platform with native import tools, plus a range of lighter-weight apps for smaller catalogues.
- Map fields to the new app’s import template. Every reviews app expects its own CSV structure, the column headers, date formats and rating scale (usually 1-5, but confirm) rarely match your export exactly. You’ll need to reformat the export to fit, most commonly in a spreadsheet before uploading.
- Match reviews to the correct product. This is the step that causes the most damage if rushed, see below.
- Import and spot-check. Upload the mapped CSV, then manually check a sample of products against your old store to confirm ratings, counts and content match what you expect.
- Verify the star rating display and schema markup are live on product pages before you consider the job done.
A practical migration checklist
- Export reviews from the old platform/app as CSV (not just a screenshot or PDF summary)
- Confirm whether photo reviews export separately or are included as URLs, download images locally as a backup
- Note which reviews are marked “verified purchase” so you can flag them correctly on import if the new app supports it
- Build a SKU/product-title mapping sheet between old and new product identifiers before you touch the import tool
- Reformat the export to match your chosen Shopify reviews app’s import template exactly
- Do a small test batch (10-20 reviews) before importing the full set
- Spot-check star ratings and review counts against the old store post-import
- Set up 301 redirects for any old review-specific URLs that were indexed by Google
- Confirm review schema/rich snippet markup is rendering correctly on product pages after import
Common gotchas that catch merchants out
Losing photo reviews. Photo reviews are often stored as separate assets from the text review, sometimes hosted on the old platform’s CDN rather than included cleanly in a CSV export. If you only export the text fields, photos get silently dropped. Check your old app’s export options specifically for an image URL column, and if there isn’t one, download the images manually before you migrate anything else, once the old app is uninstalled or the subscription lapses, those images may become inaccessible.
Losing verified-purchase status. Most shoppers give more weight to reviews flagged “verified buyer.” If your export doesn’t carry that flag through, or your new app doesn’t support importing it, every migrated review can land as unverified, which quietly undermines the trust signal you migrated the reviews to preserve in the first place. Check this specifically before you commit to an app.
Star rating recalculation surprises. Some apps recalculate the aggregate rating from imported review-level data rather than importing a pre-computed average; others let you set the aggregate directly. If your old store showed 4.8 stars from 340 reviews but only 200 of those reviews export cleanly with individual ratings, your new store may display a different aggregate, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, purely because the underlying sample changed. Reconcile this before launch rather than after a customer points it out.
Matching reviews to the wrong product or variant. If your SKUs changed during the platform move (very common, new platforms often force new SKU formats, or products get restructured, split, or merged), a straight product-ID match can silently attach the wrong reviews to the wrong product, or fail to match at all and leave reviews orphaned. Build your SKU/title mapping sheet before you import, not after, and treat any product that was renamed, split into variants, or discontinued as a case needing manual review.
CSV formatting mismatches. Date formats, rating scales (a 1-10 scale exported and dropped into a 1-5 import field, for instance), encoding issues with special characters in review text, and character limits on review body fields are all common causes of a failed or partial import. Always run a small test batch first.
Review platforms commonly used on Shopify
Two of the more established, purpose-built review platforms in the Shopify ecosystem are Yotpo and Okendo, both offer native import tooling, structured data/rich snippet support, and integrations with email and loyalty tools, though the specific import formats and feature sets differ and you should check current documentation for exact field requirements before mapping your export. There are also lighter, budget-friendly apps better suited to smaller catalogues that don’t need the full marketing-suite feature set. The right choice depends on your catalogue size, whether you need review syndication across multiple sales channels, and whether reviews need to plug into a broader loyalty or UGC strategy. If you’re weighing options or want the import handled properly rather than DIY, our team covers this as part of /integrations/shopify-yotpo-okendo-reviews/.
The SEO angle: don’t lose your rich snippets
Reviews aren’t just social proof, done properly, they also feed structured data that can produce star ratings directly in Google search results (rich snippets), which materially affects click-through rate. This is a genuine reason to take the migration seriously rather than treating it as a nice-to-have.
A few things to check specifically:
- Confirm your new reviews app outputs proper review/aggregateRating schema markup on product pages after migration, not all apps do this automatically, and some require a setting to be switched on. If you were relying on Google’s own generic guidance for review rich results, note that Google has tightened requirements over time around self-serving reviews and requires the reviewed entity to be clearly identifiable, check current Google Search Central documentation for the specifics that apply to your setup.
- If old reviews had their own indexed URLs (some review apps or platforms generate dedicated pages per review or a reviews tab with its own URL), set up 301 redirects from those old URLs to the equivalent new Shopify product page, so any link equity and direct traffic isn’t lost to a 404.
- Re-submit affected product pages through Google Search Console after the migration so Google recrawls and picks up the new schema and content sooner rather than waiting for a natural recrawl cycle.
- Watch for duplicate or thin review content if you’re displaying the same review text across a syndicated product listing and your own store, this rarely causes a penalty but is worth being aware of if review content is a meaningful chunk of your on-page text.
When to bring in a specialist
A small store with 40-50 reviews across a dozen products can often handle this migration manually with a spreadsheet and a free afternoon. Where it gets genuinely risky is larger catalogues (hundreds of SKUs, thousands of reviews), stores where SKUs changed materially during the platform move, or migrations where photo reviews and verified-purchase status matter to the brand’s credibility. Those situations benefit from a proper mapping and QA process rather than a rushed CSV upload the week before launch, a botched import that mismatches reviews to products is often harder to clean up after the fact than to get right the first time.
FAQ
Can I migrate my Etsy reviews to my new Shopify store?
Generally, no, Etsy doesn’t provide an export mechanism for reviews, and they’re treated as an asset of the Etsy transaction and platform rather than portable seller data. Most merchants leaving Etsy start fresh on reviews for their Shopify store, using post-purchase review request emails to rebuild volume over the following months.
Will my star rating look the same after migrating to a new reviews app?
Not necessarily. If some reviews fail to migrate (missing ratings, formatting issues, unmapped products), your aggregate rating can shift because it’s recalculated from a different underlying sample. Always spot-check the new aggregate against your old store before considering the migration finished.
Do I need to keep the old reviews app installed during migration?
Usually yes, at least until you’ve exported everything you need, ratings, review text, images, verified-purchase flags and dates. Some apps restrict or remove export access once you downgrade or cancel a subscription, so complete your export before making any changes to your old app’s plan or install status.
What happens to reviews if I change SKUs during the migration?
They need to be manually remapped. Automated imports typically match on SKU or product ID, so if your SKU format changed, products were merged or split, or titles were significantly altered, a straight import will either misattribute reviews or fail to match them at all. Build a mapping sheet first.
Does importing old reviews help or hurt my new store’s SEO?
Done properly, with correct schema markup, no duplicate content issues and redirects for any old indexed review URLs, imported reviews are a genuine SEO asset, contributing fresh, unique on-page content and potential rich snippets. Done poorly (missing schema, broken redirects, thin duplicated content), you lose most of that benefit even though the reviews are technically live on the page.
Ready to migrate your reviews properly?
If you’re planning a platform move and don’t want to lose years of accumulated star ratings and social proof in the process, we handle Yotpo and Okendo setup and review migration as part of our Shopify integration work. Book a call and we’ll map out what’s realistically preservable from your current setup before you migrate anything.
