How to Import Reviews to Shopify Without Losing Them

How do I export my reviews from my current app?

Most review apps support a CSV export, usually from settings or a reviews dashboard, and most support a CSV import on the other side. That pair is what makes a move possible without retyping anything. Before you start, request the export and open it, because the columns you get decide how much mapping work follows.

If an app makes export hard or hides it behind support tickets, that friction is worth noting now. The reviews are yours; an app that will not hand them back cleanly is telling you something about the switch you are about to make.

• Find the export in the old app and download the full reviews CSV, not a filtered view.
• Keep the original file untouched as a backup before you edit anything.
• Note the column headers exactly, since the next app will ask you to match them.
• Check whether photos and replies export too, or only the review text.

What does the CSV import format need to contain?

A clean import file has one review per row and, at minimum, a column that identifies the product, the star rating, the review body, the reviewer name, and the date. The product column is the one that matters most: a handle or product ID ties the review to a specific page, and a plain product title often does not, because titles drift and repeat.

Match your columns to whatever the new app names them, even when the wording differs. A header called "product_handle" in one app and "Handle" in another mean the same thing, and the import will only succeed if you align them.

• Product handle or product ID (the join key, treat it as required).
• Rating as a number from 1 to 5.
• Review body, plus title if you have one.
• Author name and the original review date, so history stays accurate.

How do I map imported reviews to the right products?

Mapping is the step where imports quietly go wrong. If reviews attach by product title and two products share a near-identical name, or a title changed since the review was written, the review lands on the wrong page or nowhere. Map by handle or ID wherever the option exists, because those identifiers are stable in a way titles are not.

After the import, spot-check. Open five or six of your busiest product pages and confirm the review count and the most recent reviews look right. A ten-minute check here saves you from discovering months later that a third of your social proof is sitting on the wrong product.

Can I import reviews from Amazon or AliExpress?

You can, and many dropshippers do, but read this part carefully. Importing marketplace reviews is allowed only when the reviews are genuine and you do not present another product's reviews as if they were left for yours. Under FTC rules, reviews must be authentic and material connections or origins must not be misrepresented, so passing off a generic AliExpress listing's reviews as reviews of your store is the kind of thing that draws enforcement.

The honest version: import only reviews that genuinely describe the exact product you sell, and be ready to stand behind every one. Borrowed reviews inflate a number on day one and become a liability the moment a buyer, a competitor, or a regulator looks closely. Reviews you actually earned are the ones that keep working.

How do I keep my star snippets and schema live through the move?

Your star ratings show in Google because review structured data is rendered on your product pages. When you swap apps, that markup is produced by whichever app is active, so the risk is a gap where the old app is gone and the new one has not finished importing and rendering yet. A gap means your rich-result stars can drop out of search results until the new markup is indexed.

Keep the schema continuous by not deleting the old app until the new one is live, populated, and rendering review markup on the page. Check a product page in a structured-data testing tool before and after, and confirm the aggregate rating still appears. Search does not recrawl instantly, so a clean handover protects the snippets you have already earned.

Why run a brief overlap instead of switching all at once?

A brief overlap, where both apps are installed for a short window, is the cheapest insurance in a migration. It keeps product pages from going blank during the cutover, gives you time to verify the import mapped correctly, and lets you compare the old and new displays side by side before you commit. Plan for the apps to coexist for a few days, then remove the old one once you have confirmed the import is complete and the schema is rendering.

Most review apps were built for the on-page shopper and stop there, so an import that merely repaints stars on the page can still leave that review text unreadable to search and AI. Getting your existing reviews readable, corroborated, and actually cited (in Google results and in answer engines) is the gap BetterReviews is built to close, which is worth considering while you have the reviews in hand and are choosing where they live next.