Magento’s Product Rating system allows you to customize rating categories by which your customers can rate products when they create product reviews.

Great For:

• Adding social shopping elements to your store
• Increasing customer trust in your product
• Increasing Conversions

By default, Magento comes with three pre-existing ratings: Price, Quality, and Value. These can be edited by navigating to Catalog > Reviews and Ratings > Manage Ratings, and clicking one of these Ratings. To create a new Rating, click Add New Rating in the top right of the page.

• Default Value - Enter the name of the Rating as it will appear in the admin.
• Store Views - For each Store View, you can enter a unique name for this Rating as it will appear on the front-end. If you leave the field blank for any Store View, the Default Value will display in the front-end of that Store View.

• Visible In - Select the Store Views in which this Rating will be available for your customers to rate products when they create product reviews.

When you are finished, click Save Rating. Now when your customers add a Review, they will see a table with Rating options, and the ability to give 1-5 stars for each Rating option.

When the review is submitted, and approved by you, the Rating is displayed above the review comments.

Additionally, all Ratings will be averaged, and display on all product listing pages (category pages, search results, etc.) and the product info page, with the number of total approved reviews to the right (in some places this number displays in parentheses).

Magento’s Reviews system allows you to monitor, edit, and delete any product reviews and ratings that have been added to a product. Reviews can be left by any user whether or not they’re logged in, however, reviews will not display in the front-end for other customers to see until you approve them in the admin. If you wish to, you can also add reviews to products from the admin.

Great For:

• Getting Customer Input
• Adding Social Shopping Elements
• Increasing Conversions

To add a new review from the admin, navigate to Catalog > Reviews and Ratings > Customer Reviews > All Reviews and click Add New Review in the top right of the page. You will be redirected to a list of all existing products in your site. Select the product for which you wish to add the review.

• Product - You can see the name of the product to which you just selected to add a review. Clicking on this product name will direct you to that product’s page in the admin.
• Product Rating - This will state “Rating isn’t Available” until you select at least one Store View in which this rating will be visible, from the Visible In drop-down below. Once this is done, the same Rating table that is available to your customers in the selected Store View will appear, in which you can select 1-5 stars for each Rating option.
• Status - Select whether the Review will be Approved, Pending, or Not Approved. For it to display in the front-end, it must be Approved.
• Visible In - Select the Store Views in which this rating will display for the designated product.
• Nickname - Enter the name of the reviewer as it will appear in the front-end.
• Summary of Review - Enter the title of the review as it will appear in the front-end.
• Review - Enter the contents of the review as they will appear in the front-end.

When you are finish, click Save Review. If you set the Status to Approved, this review will now appear in the front-end.

The process by which customers create reviews in the admin is very similar to the process by which they are created in the front-end. Customers, however, cannot edit the Status or Visible In fields. When a customer first submits a review, by default the Status will be Pending. It will therefore list in the Pending Reviews queue. To access this queue, navigate to Catalog > Reviews and Ratings > Customer Reviews > Pending Reviews. You can make changes to any review by clicking Edit in the Action column. Select Approved to remove this review from the Pending Reviews queue and display it in the front-end. Select Not Approved to remove this review from the Pending Reviews queue without displaying it in the front-end. The Visible In field will automatically select the Store View in which this review was submitted, however you can choose to change, add, or remove Store Views from this list. You can also edit any of the content of the review. You may notice there is a field here that was not present when creating a review from the admin: Posted by. This field describes whether the reviewer was logged in (Customer) or not (Guest) when they submitted the review. It will say Administrator for reviews that you created in the admin. When you are finished, click Save Review.

If you do not need to change the contents of any reviews, you can make batch updates to pending reviews in order to save time. In the Pending Reviews queue, select the reviews to which you would like to make updates. At the top of the reviews list, you have the option to Select All reviews or Select Visible reviews (reviews currently displaying on the page). Or, you can simply check the checkboxes of each review to which you wish to make updates individually. You can see the number of items selected at the top of the reviews list, and it will update each time a checkbox is checked or unchecked. When you have all the desired reviews selected, chose your preferred Action from the drop-down menu, also at the top of the reviews list.

• Delete - This will delete the selected reviews from your site when you press Submit.
• Update Status - Selecting this will produce a Status drop-down menu to the right, where you can choose to set the Status of all selected reviews to Approved, Pending, or Not Approved. The status will change when you press Submit.
• Set Visible In - Selecting this will produce and Store(s) multiple select menu to the right, where you can choose the Store Views in which the selected reviews will display. The “visibility” will change when you press Submit.

When a review is Approved or Not Approved, it can still be edited. Simply navigate to Catalog > Reviews and Ratings > Customer Reviews > All Reviews, locate the desired review, and click Edit in the Action column. You can make the same edits here that you can in the Pending Reviews queue. If you wish, you can also subscribe to an RSS Feed of all newly created Reviews. In both the Pending Reviews page, and All Reviews page, there is a link called Pending Reviews RSS. When you click on this link, you will be prompted to enter your User Name and Password. These are the same that you use to access the Magento admin panel. You will be redirected to the RSS page, where you can select which reader you would like to use for receiving this feed.

Tags are essentially one-word descriptors that act as keywords. They can be assigned to products by registered customers who are currently logged in. Tags help your customers organize and remember the products that they have seen, offer quick navigation options in your store, and aid in the process of search engine optimization. Each product has an Add Your Tags field at the bottom of the page on the front-end.

When a customer enters a word and clicks Add Tags, that tag will be sent to the Pending Tags queue (if they are not logged in, they will first be prompted to do so, or create an account, before the tag will be submitted to the queue). If they add multiple words, each word will be separated as a separate entry in the queue, unless the separate words are surrounded by single quotes, in which case they will be grouped as one tag. If you wish, you can allow customers to be alerted of new tags via RSS feeds. There is more information about customer RSS Feeds in Chapter 5: Promotions, Marketing, and Content Pages. To access the Pending Tags queue, navigate to Catalog > Tags > Pending Tags. You can make changes to any Tag by selecting Edit Tag in the Action column. Select Approved to remove this Tag from the Pending Tag queue and display it in the front-end. Select Disabled to remove this Tag from the Pending Tags queue without displaying it in the front-end. You can also edit the name of the Tag. When you are finished, click Save Tag. If you do not need to change the name of any Tags, you can make batch updates to pending Tags in order to save time. In the Pending Tags queue, select the Tags to which you would like to make updates. At the top of the Tags list, you have the option to Select All Tags or Select Visible Tags (Tags currently displaying on the page). Or, you can simply check the checkboxes of each Tags to which you wish to make updates individually. You can see the number of items selected at the top of the Tags list, and it will update each time a checkbox is checked or unchecked. When you have all the desired Tags selected, chose your preferred Action from the drop-down menu, also at the top of the Tags list.

• Delete - This will delete the selected Tags from your site when you press Submit.
• Change Status - Selecting this will produce a Status drop-down menu to the right, where you can choose to set the Status of all selected Tags to Approved, Pending, or Disabled. The status will change when you press Submit.

From the Pending Tags queue you have the option to view the list of all products to which this Tag has been applied, by locating the desired Tag and selecting View Products in the Action column. For each product you can see how many times this tag was applied to it. Clicking a product will redirect you to that product’s page in the admin. From the Pending Tags queue you also have the option to view the list of all customers who have applied this Tag to a product, by locating the desired Tag and selecting View Customers in the Action column. For each customer you can see the Store View(s) in which they used this Tag, the product(s) to which they applied this Tag, and the product SKU. Clicking a customer will redirect you to that customer’s account page in the admin.

Once a Tag has been approved, it will display on the front-end for all products to which it has been applied. It no longer needs to be approved each time it is added to a new product, or added by a different customer. It will automatically display on the front-end, above the Add Your Tags field, with the number of times this Tag has been applied to this product in parentheses.

Clicking on the Tag will produce a list of all products that have the same Tag applied to them. Additionally, a Popular Tags block will appear in the left column of your site, listing the most commonly used approved Tags in a cloud. Clicking a Tag here will also produce a list of all products that have the same Tag applied to them.

Although Approved and Disabled Tags no longer appear in the Pending Tags queue, they can still be edited, Simply navigate to Catalog > Tags > All Tags. You can make the same individual or batch updates that are possible in the Pending Tags queue.

Magento’s Email to a Friend option allows your customers to help you in promoting your site through word of mouth. They can customize a message that will be sent in the email, along with a link to the product from which they chose to “Email to a Friend”, making it easier for people to find out more information about your products. This is similar to the Share Wishlist feature available in the Wishlist (refer back to Chapter 5). To configure your Email to a Friend settings, navigate to System > Configuration, and select the Email to a Friend tab in the left column.

• Enabled - Select Yes to Enable the Email to a Friend feature. This will place the Email to a Friend link on every product page, below the product name, where your customers can click in order to use this feature.
• Select email template - Designate the template of the Email to a Friend emails. For more information on how to configure these templates, refer back to Chapter 6.
• Allow for Guests - Designate whether you would like guests to be able to use this feature. If you select No, the Email to a Friend links will only appear for logged in customers.
• Max Recipients - Define the maximum number of different email addresses your customers can enter each time they send an email. They can add multiple address by clicking the Add Recipient button on the front-end. When they have reached this limit, the button will no longer appear, and they will be notified that they have reached the limit for addresses allowed. This is to prevent spamming.
• Max Products Sent in 1 Hour - Define the maximum number of different products for which your customers can send an email within a 1 hour period of time. This limitation will be explained to your customers at the top of the Email to a Friend page. When they have reached the limit, they will no longer be able to send emails, until the 1 hour period has passed. This is to prevent spamming.
• Limit Sending By - This works in conjunction with the two anti-spamming features above. Designate how Magento will define a user, so that the anti-spamming features can be enforced. You can choose to identify a user by IP Address, or by browser Cookies. As indicated in the drop-down, however, Cookies are the less secure method, because the user can simply delete them and avoid the email limitations.