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#Feature Request

FluentCart Product Reviews – Privacy and UX Enhancement Suggestions

Hi FluentCart Team,

Firstly, thank you for introducing the new Product Reviews feature. It's a welcome addition to FluentCart, and I've started implementing it on our website.

During testing, I identified a few areas where some additional options could improve customer privacy and the overall user experience.

I've managed to address these through custom code snippets, but I thought it would be worthwhile sharing the feedback in case you would consider incorporating these options into FluentCart itself.

1. Reviewer Name Privacy

Currently, reviews can publicly display the customer's username or full name.

From a privacy perspective, I would prefer not to expose this information unnecessarily, particularly when a customer's WordPress username might contain personally identifiable information.

I've implemented a custom solution that displays only the customer's first name, falling back to a generic label such as "Customer" when a first name is unavailable.

Suggestion: Provide a setting that allows store owners to choose how reviewer names are displayed publicly, for example:

  • Full name
  • First name only
  • First name and surname initial
  • Anonymous / Customer

Ideally, this setting would apply consistently across all public review displays, including review cards, popups and any associated API responses.

2. Reviewer Avatar Privacy

The review section currently displays a customer avatar or profile image.

Some customers might not be comfortable having their profile photographs displayed alongside public reviews.

I've hidden the avatars using a CSS snippet.

Suggestion: Add an option to enable or disable reviewer avatars globally.

3. Privacy Notice When Submitting a Review

When a customer clicks "Write a review", a modal opens containing their name, email address and review fields.

I've added a small privacy notice beneath the heading explaining that only their first name will be displayed publicly.

Suggestion: Allow store owners to configure a short privacy notice within the review form, ideally reflecting the selected reviewer-name display setting.

This would provide greater transparency and reassure customers before submitting their reviews.

4. Jump Link to Customer Reviews

On longer product pages, the reviews section can appear quite far below the purchase buttons.

I've added a "Read customer reviews" link below the Buy Now and Add to Cart buttons that takes visitors directly to the reviews section.

Suggestion: Consider providing an optional review jump link near the purchase buttons, or a shortcode/block that store owners could position wherever they prefer.

Final Thoughts

I appreciate that FluentCart's Product Reviews feature is still relatively new, and I'm sure further refinements are planned.

These are relatively small enhancements, but I believe they could make the review system more flexible and privacy-conscious, while reducing the need for custom CSS and JavaScript.

Thank you for your continued work on FluentCart. I'm really enjoying the direction the plugin is taking.

  • 7 likes
  • 5 comments

Ryk Melck

Additional Consideration: Reviewer Privacy

One additional recommendation would be to implement the reviewer-name privacy options at the server level, before review information is returned to the public-facing interface.

Simply hiding surnames using CSS or JavaScript may not adequately protect customer privacy, as the original information could still be accessible through the page source or API responses.

Ideally, FluentCart could distinguish between a customer's registered account information and their public reviewer display name. This would allow customers to leave reviews without exposing their WordPress usernames or full names.

It might also be worth grouping the first three suggestions under a dedicated Reviewer Privacy section within FluentCart's review settings, making these options easier for store owners to manage.

Ryk Melck

Some images of what was accomplished

F. C.

+1. Quite important and I've raised some of these concerns with support earlier.

Jorge de los Reyes

Any enhancement on privacy by design and that helps with consent collection for reviews would be super valuable!

Makdia Hussain

Hi Ryk,

Thank you so much for trying out Product Reviews and for sharing such thoughtful feedback. It's really helpful, and we appreciate the time you've put into it.

Here's where each of your suggestions stands:

1. Reviewer name privacy: This is already available from FluentCart 2.1.0. You can replace your custom snippet with this filter:

add_filter('fluent_cart/review/reviewer_name_format', function () {
    return 'first'; // full | first | first_initial | anonymous | masked
});

If you'd prefer to hide reviewer names completely:

add_filter('fluent_cart/review/show_reviewer_name', '__return_false');

2. Reviewer avatars: Also available in 2.1.0, so you won't need the CSS anymore:

add_filter('fluent_cart/review/show_reviewer_avatar', '__return_false');

3. Privacy notice in the review form: It isn't available yet, but we've noted it for a future update.

4. Jump link to reviews: We already have a slightly different approach planned for this, which we're looking forward to bringing in a future release.

Thanks again for the kind words and for helping us make FluentCart better.