Magento 2 Product Review Management Solution That Reduced Bounce Rate by 18%
18% lower
bounce rate
7% higher
first-purchase conversions
100% control
over displayed external reviews
Industry
Services provided
Client and Project Context
Our client is a fine jewelry brand specializing in made-to-order pieces. The company has 50 years of jewelry manufacturing experience and has been selling online for more than two decades. Today, the brand serves customers across Europe, North America, and other international markets through an online-only store.
With no physical showrooms, the company depends on its website to build trust before a purchase. A high bounce rate among new organic visitors suggested that the store was not fully meeting the expectations of shoppers unfamiliar with the brand. The client asked Whidegroup to review the store through the lens of ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) and identify what was getting in the way of first-time purchases.
The Challenge
The initial website audit found no major usability issues that could explain the sudden surge in bounce rates. We then analyzed heat maps and Google Analytics data and found that many first-time visitors left the site shortly after viewing widgets from a third-party review platform.
Further analysis showed that several suspicious negative reviews on the external platform were influencing how new visitors perceived the brand. Since customer feedback directly affects online purchasing decisions, these reviews created a trust problem for shoppers who were not yet familiar with the company.
The client wanted to prevent misleading reviews from affecting on-site conversions, but they could not moderate content directly on the independent platform. Whidegroup needed to find a way to strengthen customer trust and increase first-time purchase conversions without depending on the platform’s review investigation process.
The Solution
Instead of relying on the third-party platform to remove suspicious reviews, the Whidegroup team changed how the Magento store processed and displayed external review data. We developed custom ecommerce reputation management functionality that gave the client full control over which reviews appeared on the storefront.
We implemented this solution in two steps.
Step 1. Customizing the review platform integration
There is built-in Magento 2 product review functionality that lets merchants moderate reviews before publishing them on the storefront. We extended this moderation logic to reviews imported from the external platform.
The store previously embedded the platform’s default review widget, which gave the client little control over what appeared on the website. We replaced the default widget with a custom API integration, allowing the client to use Magento 2 to disable product reviews imported from the external platform before they appeared on the storefront.
This feature gave the client Magento-like moderation control over an external review source.
Step 2. Automating the review moderation workflow
To make review management easier, we created a dedicated approval workflow in the Magento admin panel.
The updated process works as follows:
- 1 Once new reviews go live on the external platform, Magento 2 imports product reviews into a dedicated admin panel section.
- 2 Store managers check the imported reviews and decide which ones should appear on the storefront.
- 3 Approved reviews are displayed on the client’s Magento store.
This moderation process affects only the client's storefront. All reviews remain publicly visible on the independent review platform, preserving its credibility.
The Result
The custom API integration developed by Whidegroup reduced the client’s dependence on the external platform’s moderation process. Store managers can now review imported feedback faster and control which third-party reviews appear on the storefront.
One month after launch, Google Analytics showed clear improvements in visitor engagement and first-time purchases:
18% lower bounce rate.
First-time visitors were no longer exposed to unmoderated third-party reviews directly on the website. With misleading reviews kept off the storefront, more visitors continued exploring products.
7% higher first-purchase conversions.
Displaying only approved third-party reviews helped create a more trustworthy first impression and encouraged more new visitors to complete their first order.
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Anton Zhuk
Ecommerce Solutions Architect
