How reviews work

• Anyone can review a product, from the product’s page in the shop that sells it.
• People who run the shop can’t review its products. Reviews have to come from customers.
• Each person can review a product up to twice.
• Only verified buyers can add photos.

A review is from a verified buyer when we can tie it to an order they paid for. That happens in one of two ways:

• they use the private link in the email asking for a review, which a shop can send after an order arrives;
• they’re signed in to the shop, and the order is theirs.

An email address typed into the review form doesn’t count, because anyone can type one. Verified reviews are marked as from a buyer. Every other review shows Not a verified buyer beside it, so you can weigh it up. It might be from someone who was given the product as a present, or who bought it somewhere else.

A review from a verified buyer goes live straight away. Any other review waits for the shop to read it first.

The shop then publishes it, or hides it for one of the reasons below. If the shop does neither, the review publishes itself 14 days after it was written, so a review can’t be held back by simply leaving it unread.

Neither the shop nor Handsold changes what a reviewer wrote, or their stars. A shop can reply underneath a review, and the reply is shown as the shop’s, beside the reviewer’s own words.

A review isn’t taken down for being negative or for having few stars. A product’s star rating counts every published review, good and bad. If a shop disagrees with a review, it can reply to it.

A shop can only take a review down for one of these reasons, and has to choose one each time. The reason stays with the review.

• Spam, adverts or links
• Rude, hateful or threatening
• Shares someone’s personal details
• Not from a real customer
• Not about this product or the shop
• The same review twice
• The reviewer asked for it to come down
• Something else

“Something else” needs the shop to say why in words. None of the reasons is about how many stars a review gave.

Our team can hide a review that breaks the rules, for example after someone reports it. When we do, the shop can’t show it again or delete it. Only our team can change that, and the shop can ask us to look again.

Every review has a Report link beside it. It opens our report form, where you choose what’s wrong and tell us a little more. A person on Handsold’s team reads every report. You can leave your email if you’d like to hear back.

Can’t find the link, or it’s about something else? Contact us and tell us what you saw.