Product reviews are a significant factor in purchase conversion. Losing your accumulated WooCommerce reviews during migration — particularly on your best-selling products — means losing social proof that took years to build. Migrating reviews is a distinct task from migrating products, and requires careful handling to preserve verified purchase status and review dates.

WooCommerce's review system

WooCommerce product reviews are built on WordPress comments. By default:

Reviews are tied to WordPress post IDs (product IDs) rather than SKUs
Verified purchase badge requires "Enable reviews" + "Only allow verified owners" settings
Plugins extend functionality: WooCommerce Product Reviews Pro adds photos and Q&A; Yotpo for WooCommerce, Judge.me, and Trustpilot have WooCommerce integrations

Shopify review platform options

Platform	Key features	Price
Shopify Product Reviews	Free, basic, minimal; natively maintained by Shopify	Free
Judge.me	Best value paid option. Review photos/videos, verified badge, structured data, Q&A	Free (15 reviews/mo) / $15/mo
Yotpo Reviews	Comprehensive: UGC, loyalty, SMS in one. Enterprise reputation	Free (50 orders/mo) / $79/mo+
Okendo	DTC-focused, custom attributes in reviews (e.g. "Fits true to size"), media reviews	$19/mo+
Stamped.io	Net Promoter Score + reviews + loyalty suite	Free / $23/mo+

For most stores, Judge.me offers the best balance of features and cost. The paid plan at $15/month is excellent value and supports all common review features including photo reviews and structured data.

Migrating WooCommerce reviews to Shopify

The migration process for product reviews:

Export WooCommerce reviews — via a plugin or direct database export. Export format typically includes: product ID, reviewer name, reviewer email, review title, review body, rating (1–5), review date, verified purchase flag.
Map product IDs: WooCommerce uses product IDs; Shopify uses product handles or IDs. You'll need a mapping of WooCommerce product ID → Shopify product ID.
Import to Shopify review platform: Judge.me, Yotpo, and Okendo all support CSV imports. The format varies — refer to your chosen app's import guide.
Verified purchase: if your export includes a verified purchase flag, most review platforms honour it on import — reviews show "Verified purchase" badge.

Review request emails after migration

Review request workflows need to be reconnected after migration:

WooCommerce review request emails (sent X days after delivery) stop working on migration day
Set up review request in your chosen Shopify review app (triggered on order fulfillment, configurable delay)
Consider a one-time re-request campaign to customers who purchased in the last 3–6 months before migration — they've received their orders but never received a review request from Shopify

Star ratings in Google search results

Product star ratings appearing in Google search results (review rich snippets) come from structured data (JSON-LD on product pages). Requirements:

Your review app must output valid Product schema with aggregateRating
Judge.me, Yotpo, and Okendo all produce valid structured data — this is one reason to use a paid review app rather than basic free options
After migration, expect 4–8 weeks for Google to reindex product pages with the new structured data and re-show star ratings in search results

Handling post-migration review gaps

Stores that cannot migrate reviews (e.g. reviews stored in a plugin that doesn't export well) face a temporary social proof gap:

Display a banner on product pages: "We've recently moved to a new platform — your reviews have been migrated" to reassure returning customers
Offer a review incentive (loyalty points, small discount) to encourage customers to leave new reviews quickly
Prioritise review requests on your highest-traffic products first