Collect Reviews vs Merchant Center Reviews for WooCommerce

Collect Reviews is a powerful WordPress plugin designed to streamline the process of collecting reviews on various platforms like Google or Facebook to grow your business. Whether you’re running an online store, a service-based business, or a content-driven website, the Collect Reviews plugin allows you automatically collect reviews from your customers. E.g. after purchase in your store or some form submission. Collect reviews automatically Currently, the plugin supports integrations with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and WPForms plugins to collect reviews automatically. How it works Review Request Email: After the purchase or form submission the plugin sends a review request email to the customer. Rating Selection: The review request email contains a stars widget, allowing the customer to select a rating from 1 to 5, indicating their level of satisfaction or experience. Redirect for Positive Ratings: If the customer chooses a positive rating (e.g., 4 or 5 stars), they are redirected to your website, where you suggest leaving a review on a specific platform, such as Google. This intermediate step ensures transparency by informing the customer about the redirection to an external platform instead of directly redirecting them from the email. Private Feedback for Negative Ratings: If the customer chooses a negative rating, they are not informed about the option to leave a review on Google or any other platform. Instead, they are redirected to a review form on the website, enabling them to provide feedback privately to the website owner. This helps the website owner address any concerns or issues raised by the customer directly, preventing negative reviews from appearing on public review platforms. In summary, the plugin sends review request emails, customers rate their experience, positive ratings are directed to leave reviews on external platforms, negative ratings provide private feedback. Collect reviews manually You can always send review requests manually to any email addresses from the plugin interface. Development Plugin source code is available on GitHub. Admin area is built with React. The source code is available on GitHub. Create React App is used as a build tool. To start development run npm run start in the react-app directory. The Webpack development server works in writeToDisk mode. All files in the assets/app directory are generated by Create React App. To build the app run npm run build in the react-app directory. Check Create React App documentation for more details: https://create-react-app.dev/docs/getting-started/

Merchant Center Reviews for WooCommerce connects WooCommerce with Google Customer Reviews / Google Merchant Center review features. The plugin adds the Google Customer Reviews opt-in prompt to the WooCommerce order confirmation page, helping eligible stores request post-purchase feedback from customers. It also lets you choose a clear review-display mode: Google’s current floating store widget for bottom-left or bottom-right placement, or the legacy Google Customer Reviews badge for inline shortcode placement or old floating badge behavior. The checkout opt-in data is only output on a valid WooCommerce order-received URL after the order key has been checked. The optional Google Tag Manager/dataLayer event is privacy-minimized and excludes direct customer contact and address fields. Key features WooCommerce checkout opt-in – automatically displays the Google Customer Reviews opt-in prompt on the order confirmation page. Google Merchant Center ID setting – enter your numeric Merchant Center ID in a dedicated WooCommerce admin page. Opt-in placement controls – choose supported Google opt-in styles such as center dialog, bottom tray, bottom-left, bottom-right, top-left, or top-right dialog. Estimated delivery date – set the number of delivery days used for Google’s review invitation timing. Product GTIN support – sends valid GTIN values when available using WooCommerce’s global unique ID field and common GTIN/EAN/UPC metadata fallbacks. Clear display mode selector – choose New Google store widget, Legacy Google Customer Reviews badge, or no display. New store widget controls – choose bottom-right or bottom-left placement and optional desktop/mobile margins using Google’s current merchantwidget.js integration. Legacy badge controls – keep the old Google Customer Reviews badge for [gmc_review_badge] inline placement or old bottom-left/bottom-right floating placement. Optional GTM/dataLayer event – pushes a privacy-minimized event to an existing dataLayer or gtag setup when enabled. WooCommerce and HPOS-friendly – reads order data through WooCommerce CRUD methods and declares custom order table compatibility. Defensive loading – checks WooCommerce availability, validates settings, and avoids exposing order data when the order key is invalid. Where to configure it After activation, go to WooCommerce -> Google Merchant Center Reviews to enter your Merchant Center ID and configure checkout opt-in, review display mode, new store widget settings, legacy badge settings, script placement, debug mode, and optional GTM tracking settings. External Services This plugin connects to Google services to facilitate Google Customer Reviews / Merchant Center review features. It loads Google’s store widget script from https://www.gstatic.com/shopping/merchant/merchantwidget.js when New Google store widget mode is enabled. It loads Google’s platform script from https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js on the WooCommerce Thank You page to allow customers to opt in for review requests, and when Legacy Google Customer Reviews badge mode is enabled. Service Used: Google Merchant Center Reviews / Google Customer Reviews Data Sent for Review Opt-In: Merchant Center ID, order ID, customer email, delivery country, estimated delivery date, and product GTIN data when available. The plugin validates the WooCommerce order key before outputting this data on the Thank You page. Purpose: Enables Google to send review invitations after a completed order and displays Google’s current store widget or the legacy Google Customer Reviews badge when enabled. Terms of Service: Google Terms Privacy Policy: Google Privacy Google may collect aggregated engagement data for the store widget. The current store widget mode passes widget placement and margin settings to Google; it does not pass customer order data. If the optional GTM/dataLayer event is enabled, the plugin sends a local browser event to the site’s existing analytics/tagging setup. The plugin does not load Google Tag Manager itself. The event payload is limited to event name, order total, currency, order number, item count, shipping country, and product ID/SKU/quantity/line total data; it does not include customer name, email, phone number, street address, postcode, city, or customer ID.