Fake Review Rules Every Shopify Merchant Should Know

A review is fake when it does not come from a real customer's own experience of the product, and misleading when the way reviews are collected or displayed gives a false overall picture. Rules in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union now address both. This guide sets out what falls into each category, what the three sets of rules say, and a self-audit you can run on your own store in an afternoon. It is a summary for merchants, not legal advice.

What counts as a fake review?

Any review that pretends to be something it is not. The obvious cases are easy to name:

• Reviews written by the business. The owner, staff, family or an agency writing as if they were ordinary customers.
• Bought reviews. Reviews paid for from people who never purchased or used the product.
• Invented reviews. Text made up to fill an empty product page, under made-up names.
• Borrowed reviews. Reviews of a different product, or from a different seller, presented as coming from your own customers.

The last one catches merchants who did not mean to deceive anyone. Reviews pulled in from a supplier or marketplace listing describe purchases your store never handled. If you show them, they should not look as though they came from your buyers. The guide on importing AliExpress reviews to Shopify covers what is and is not acceptable there.

What makes real reviews misleading?

The collection or display, not the text. Every review on the page can be genuine and the page can still deceive. Five practices do it:

• Positive gating. Asking customers how they feel first, then sending only the happy ones to the public review form.
• Suppressing negatives. Leaving low-star reviews unapproved, deleting them, or burying them where nobody will look.
• Conditional or hidden incentives. A reward that depends on a good rating, or any reward that shoppers are not told about.
• Undisclosed connections. A review from an employee, investor or relative that reads as if it came from a stranger.
• Badges that overclaim. A 'verified' label on reviews the store cannot tie to an order.

All five end the same way. The shopper sees a profile that is better, or more independent, than what customers really said.

What do the rules say in the US, UK and EU?

The three markets use different instruments and point the same way. These are the rules as summarised in our guide to verified product reviews on Shopify:

• United States. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect in October 2024. It bans fake reviews, bans paying for reviews that must be positive, requires disclosure when insiders review their own products, and bans suppressing negative reviews.
• United Kingdom. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act made fake reviews and undisclosed incentivised reviews a banned practice from April 2025, and expects businesses to take reasonable steps to prevent them.
• European Union. Since May 2022 the Omnibus Directive requires a store that shows reviews to state whether and how it checks that they come from real buyers.

If you sell into any of these markets, read the rules for that market or take advice. The working version is the same in all three: say how you verify, never make a reward depend on a positive rating, disclose incentives beside the review, and do not hide the bad ones.

Are review incentives allowed?

Yes, on two conditions. Under the US rule, incentives are allowed only if they are offered whatever the customer says, and are disclosed, and that is the sensible standard to apply in every market. A discount on the next order for leaving a review is acceptable when the one-star reviewer receives it as surely as the five-star reviewer, and when shoppers reading the review can see it was incentivised.

It goes wrong when the wording slips. 'Leave us a five-star review for 10 dollars off' ties the reward to the rating. 'Tell us what you thought and get 10 dollars off your next order' does not. The article on offering a discount for a review goes through the wording.

Disclosure has to travel with the review, so it is best handled by the tool and not by memory. Marka Reviews runs review incentives on its paid plans with the disclosure included.

Can staff, friends or family review your products?

Only if readers can see the connection. The US rule requires disclosure when insiders review their own products, and the same approach is sensible everywhere.

The simpler policy is not to do it. An insider's review, even disclosed, adds little that a shopper will rely on.

A self-audit for your store

Work through these questions with your reviews app open. Any 'yes' needs fixing.

• Does any review on the store come from someone who works for or with the business, without saying so?
• Has the store ever paid for reviews, or accepted them from a service that supplies them?
• Does the request go only to some customers, chosen for being likely to be positive?
• Is there a step that asks for a rating privately before deciding who sees the public form?
• Are there low-star reviews sitting unapproved for longer than high-star ones?
• Does any reward depend on the rating given?
• Are incentivised reviews shown without a label?
• Does a verified badge appear on imported or hand-entered reviews?
• Are reviews of one product shown on another?
• Is the site silent on how reviews are checked?

On the fourth and fifth questions, a written review moderation policy is the lasting fix.

A short checklist

1. Remove or clearly label any review from an insider.
2. Send review requests to every customer, with no pre-screening.
3. Apply the same approval rules and timing to every star rating.
4. Offer incentives regardless of rating, and disclose them beside the review.
5. Keep the verified badge for reviews matched to an order.
6. Publish a short statement of how reviews are collected and checked.
7. Check the rules for each market you sell into.

Staying inside the rules is mostly a matter of how the reviews tool is set up. Marka Reviews marks a review verified only when it matches a fulfilled order, and shows imported reviews without the badge.