How to Add Reviews to Lightspeed: The Reviews Are From the Room

Lightspeed sells point of sale first and an online store second, and its customers reflect that: shops, restaurants, bars and venues where most of the money crosses a counter. The website is one channel of a business that exists in a building, and the reviews people have written are about the building. That is not a limitation to work around, it is the most persuasive material available, and it means the profile you point the widget at matters more here than the element you paste it into.

The Theme HTML Element

Add an HTML element to the theme where the reviews should appear and paste the widget embed into it. On a straightforward content region that is all there is to it.

On templated regions, paste into the code view rather than a visual field. Visual fields escape script tags, which turns a working embed into visible markup on the storefront, and templated areas are the ones most likely to route through one.

Keep the element in its own block so it can be moved or removed later without disturbing the template around it.

The Business Is Mostly Not Online

A Lightspeed customer usually has a room, a counter and staff, and the online store is an additional channel rather than the whole business. That is the opposite of a pure ecommerce operation and it changes what the site is for.

For many visitors the site is a way to check hours, find the address or see whether you have something in stock before coming in. Those visitors are deciding whether to visit, not whether to order.

A rating serves both audiences equally well, which is unusual. The same signal reassures a person about to order online and a person about to drive over.

Point It at the Location

The review profile that matters is the location one. That is where reviews from people who came in are accumulating, and it is what a visitor finds when they search the business name.

A rating on the site that does not match the one on the map listing is worse than showing no rating, because a customer who checks finds a discrepancy. Consistency is the whole value of showing the number.

On a business with several locations, each has its own profile and its own rating. Point each location page at its own rather than showing the flagship figure everywhere.

Restaurants and Venues Are a Special Case

For a restaurant or a bar the online element is often ordering, booking or a menu, and the decision the visitor is making is about the evening rather than about a product.

Put the rating near the booking or ordering action and near the address. Those are the two moments where somebody commits, and they are usually on different parts of the page.

The review count carries particular weight in hospitality, where a lot of reviews at a decent rating beats a handful at a perfect one. That is a reason to show the count clearly rather than only the score.

How Do You Build the Widget?

Paste the Google, Trustpilot or Facebook profile URL for the physical location, preview the real reviews and rating, then choose from over 100 layout styles and match the colours to the theme.

A compact rating with the count works well on a site whose main job is information, and a fuller section suits a page built to sell online orders.

The header rating comes from the platform aggregate rather than from the cards on screen. Free plan, unlimited widget views, which suits a local business with seasonal traffic spikes.

Where Should the Reviews Go?

Near the address, the hours and the booking or ordering button, wherever those live. Those are the elements a local visitor came for and the rating belongs beside them.

On the online store side, above the product listing rather than inside it, so a shopper meets the reassurance before browsing.

Not on the checkout. The customer has decided by then and a link away from the payment step costs more than it adds.