The problem
Jewelry is often a gift, so the buyer reviews late or never, and asking by hand is the job that gets dropped. If a jeweller sells 40 pieces a month online and each request takes 3 minutes to find the order and write, that's 120 minutes, 2 hours a month.
What the AI does
Judge.me is a review app for Shopify. Its pricing page shows the free plan includes unlimited review requests, automatic scheduling, an email delivery time setting and store reviews; Awesome, $15 (about $15£11€13A$21C$21) a month, adds reminders, AI replies and other extras. Set one neutral request for every order and a delivery time long enough for a gift to have been given. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans fake and incentivized reviews, so don't offer a discount for a review, don't ask only customers you expect to be happy, and never write or edit reviews. Judge.me needs a Shopify store, priced separately.
A worked example
An independent jewelry shop in York with the owner, a bench jeweller and one sales assistant sells about 40 pieces a month on its Shopify Basic shop, which it already pays for, and sets up Judge.me's free plan.
Before
40 requests at 3 minutes by hand: 120 minutes, 2 hours a month
After
About 10 minutes a week reading and replying to reviews: 10 x 4.3 = 43 minutes, 0.7 hours a month
What it's worth
About 1.3 hours a month saved (77 minutes), worth around $43£32€38A$61C$60 if your time is worth $33£25€30A$48C$47 an hour. Judge.me's free plan does the job, so the cost is $0£0€0A$0C$0 if you already pay for Shopify. The value of more reviews on high-price pieces isn't counted.
How to set it up
- Install Judge.me from the Shopify App Store and start on the free plan.
- Set one review request for every order with the same neutral wording.
- Set the delivery time later than usual, for example after Christmas or a birthday for gift orders, and test it.
- Never link a review to a discount, gift or prize draw.
- Reply to every review yourself, especially the critical ones.
What goes wrong
- Offering a reward for a review, or asking only happy customers, can breach the 2024 Act. Treat every customer the same.
- Engraved and personalized orders carry the customer's wording; don't publish personal details from a review without checking.
- Automatic reminders are on Awesome only; on the free plan each customer gets one request.
- A review request sent before the gift is given can spoil a surprise if the buyer shares an inbox; set the timing with care.