How to get your first reviews as a new store

Why does a new store get no reviews?

You set up the shop, add a review widget, make a few sales, and the widget stays empty. It is easy to think customers don't care. Usually nobody asked them. A buyer who is happy with a mug has no reason to come back to your site and look for a review form.

We see the same thing in our own numbers. On 3 November 2026 we counted the customer sites on Formgong that have reviews switched on:

That is a small and young group, 6 of the 7 created less than a week before we counted, so it says nothing about how fast reviews come in later. It does show where everyone starts: an empty widget and no request sent. Two of the seven got a review anyway, so reviews do trickle in by themselves. Asking is how you stop waiting for them.

What does a product page with no reviews show?

On our demo store, Glyna, 3 of 4 products had no review on 3 November 2026. Their pages show a single “Write a review” link where the reviews will go, and the product lists show no stars under their names at all, while the one product with a review shows “★★★★★ (1)”.

That gap is the reason the first few reviews matter so much. A shopper comparing two similar products sees stars under one and nothing under the other. Even one honest review turns “nobody has bought this” into “someone did and said so”. Judge.me's article on first reviews, updated on 2 July 2026, adds the other side: with few reviews on the page, each one carries more weight, a bad one included.

Who should you ask first?

Everyone who has already bought from you. Go back through your orders, including the ones from before you had a review system, and send each buyer one short, personal request with a direct link to the review form. For a new shop that list may be only twenty names, and that is fine.

Don't fill the gap with reviews from friends, family or staff, and never write them yourself. In the US the FTC's rule on consumer reviews bans writing reviews yourself or buying them from people who never bought, as our article on discounts for reviews explains. A shopper who spots one stops trusting the rest.

When should you send the first request?

After the customer has had time to use the product, not when the order ships. For most parcels that means a week or two after fulfilment, and longer for orders abroad. Our guide on when to send a review request email goes through the timing, and our review request email templates give you wording you can copy.

One reminder a few days later is reasonable. More than that turns a polite request into nagging, and most people who were going to say yes have done it by then.

Can you bring reviews from another platform?

Yes, if they are reviews of your own products that your own customers left, for example on an Etsy shop you ran before, or in a review app you are leaving. Moving them keeps the work your customers already did. Copying reviews of the same product from someone else's store or from Amazon is a different thing, and it misleads your visitors.

Keep the original dates when you import, so a three-year-old review doesn't look like it was written yesterday. Our import docs list the formats Formgong reads.

Is it OK to ask only happy customers?

It is tempting, because a first bad review hurts more when there is nothing to balance it. Judge.me's article on first reviews suggests asking happy customers to leave positive feedback. Google's policy for reviews on Maps, read on 3 November 2026, lists “selectively solicit positive reviews from customers” among the things a business may not do, so on Google that advice breaks the rules.

Asking everyone is also better for you. An early complaint tells you about a problem while you can still fix it cheaply, and a calm reply under it shows the next buyer how you behave. Our article on the benefits of negative reviews goes into why.

What if you sell services, not products?

Then your customers are the people who filled in your contact form, booked a call or paid an invoice. Ask them the same way, once the job is done. A review QR code on an invoice or a card works well for work done in person, and if you want reviews on Google too, our guide on getting your Google review link shows where to find it.

How does Formgong help a store with no reviews?

Each review site gets its own hosted page for leaving a review, so you can send the link or a QR code on day one, before the widget is even on your site. With your store connected, Formgong emails every buyer 7 days after the order is completed by default, with one reminder. It goes to every buyer, with no question first about whether they were happy, which is also the rule Google sets for its own reviews. The one exception is a buyer who has an unanswered message to you: their email waits until you reply and is dropped after 14 days, because asking someone whose problem is still open for a review helps nobody. You can import old reviews from Judge.me, Yotpo, Loox, Shopify Product Reviews, WooCommerce, Etsy or any CSV, and for a file it does not recognise, Workers AI suggests which column is the rating, the text or the date before you confirm.

For a service business, Formgong can also send each contact-form lead one review request 3, 7 or 14 days after they get in touch. It is off until you turn it on, and the same address is not asked again for 90 days. Because it starts from a form submission, it works on a site with no shop at all. All of this is on the free plan, and the review emails docs show the settings.

How did you get your first review?

If you remember how your first few reviews came in, or you are still waiting for one, tell us at support@formgong.com. Five of the seven sites we counted are where you might be now, and we would like to know what finally worked.

What Formgong Reviews includes for free

• Unlimited review sites and reviews. Text, photo, video and voice reviews on Free.
• A widget with no view limit. The review widget, carousel, badge and stars in product lists load as often as your pages do.
• Review emails in your store's name. Sent after each order with your logo and colours, replies to you, no email service to set up; buyers can rate inside Gmail without leaving the email, and get one reminder (how it works).
• Bring your old reviews. Import from Judge.me, Yotpo, Loox, Shopify Product Reviews, WooCommerce, Etsy or a CSV.
• You decide what shows. Approve each review or choose a publishing mode, reply in public or in private, and let shoppers ask the author a question.
• Google. A Merchant Center review feed, and product rating markup through the WordPress plugin.
• Reviews from your form. People who filled in your contact form can get a review request automatically.
• One account for the rest. Contact forms with Telegram and Google Sheets, an AI help chat, and free website templates.