Is a store trustworthy? Here is how to check reviews before you order

You can tell a lot about an online store by looking past the average rating to the spread underneath it: are there three and four star reviews mixed in with the fives, does the store respond to complaints, and do the reviewer profiles look real. A page with nothing but glowing praise is more suspicious than reassuring. Below are six things you can check right now, each with a quick test, so in a few minutes you'll know whether to keep shopping or click away.

1. Nothing but five stars? That's not a good sign

A store with zero critical reviews looks perfect, but usually isn't. Negative reviews are just part of running a business that ships thousands of packages: sizes get mixed up, deliveries go sideways, colors come out wrong sometimes. If you never see any of that, the negative reviews were probably filtered out or deleted.

Try it yourself: open the review page and count how many reviews are three or four stars. If you don't see any, read the text of the five star reviews themselves. If not a single one mentions a "but" or a small downside, that's a sign to click over to an independent source.

2. When were the reviews posted, and are they spread out over time?

Sort reviews by date and look at the pattern. A store that steadily collects reviews over months, from happy customers and less happy ones, is building that trust the honest way. Fifty reviews in one week followed by silence usually means customers were pushed to leave a review during some kind of campaign.

Try it yourself: click the "most recent" filter and scroll back a month. A steady trickle is a good sign. If you see big gaps or sudden clusters, pay closer attention to what those reviews actually say, and check whether they all use the same phrases around the same time.

3. Does the store respond to criticism, and how?

A trustworthy store doesn't hide negative reviews, it responds to them. Don't just check whether a reply exists, read what it says. A canned line like "we'll reach out to you" with no follow up from the customer afterward doesn't tell you much. A specific fix, followed by an update from the customer themselves, tells you a lot more.

Try it yourself: find the most negative review you can and read the full reply underneath, including any follow up from the customer. Is there a name signed under the store's reply instead of just "Customer Service"? That's often a sign a real person is reading these, not just a system. If you're not sure whether a store's reply was auto generated, here's how to spot an AI response.

4. Are the profiles behind the reviews real?

You usually can't spot a fake review from the text alone, but you often can from who posted it. A profile that left ten reviews in one day across totally unrelated products and brands is rarely a real buyer. A profile with a normal history, the occasional review scattered over time, looks the part.

One shopper told us exactly what she checks before ordering:

"I always check the profiles of the people leaving reviews, just to see if it's real."

Try it yourself: click on a few names behind five star reviews. See an account that only ever reviews this one brand, all within the same week? Be careful. See a mixed bag of reviews on groceries, clothes and electronics stretched over years? That's probably a real customer.

5. Do the reviews show up anywhere besides the store's own site?

Reviews that only live on a store's own website can't really be checked: the store decides what gets shown. Reviews on an independent platform like Trustpilot are harder to manipulate, though not foolproof.

Try it yourself: open a new tab and search "[brand name] trustpilot". If the rating there is roughly in line with what's on the store's own site, the picture checks out. If there's a big gap, say 4.8 on their own site versus 3.2 on Trustpilot, pay extra attention to what the negative reviews there say, especially anything that comes up more there than it does on the store's own site.

6. Do the reviews actually tell you what you want to know?

A review that just says "nice product, fast shipping" doesn't get you very far. A review that describes exactly how something fits or feels does. If you're on the fence about a wireless bra, search for words like "poking", "rides up" or "band curls" instead of just going by the overall star rating.

That's not a random example. Of nearly 2,900 women we asked about their biggest frustration with a bra, 32.8% named the underwire and 23.3% said their bra pokes, digs in, or cuts. So if you're looking at reviews for a wireless bra, that's exactly what you want to see missing.

Try it yourself: use Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on Mac) on the review page and search for the word that matters most to you, like "size" or "return". If you land straight on ten relevant reviews, you'll have a more honest picture in a few minutes than any average rating could ever give you.

7. What do the reviews say about returns?

A store can have glowing product reviews and still be a pain when something goes wrong. Search specifically for reviews about returns: did the customer have to ship something back themselves, where to, and who paid for it. This is one of the moments where the gap between a good and a bad experience with a store shows up the most, because it's usually the first time a customer really deals with customer service directly.

For more on this, read about your rights when return shipping costs abroad run high, and if your package is already on its way back, how a return to Asia actually works in practice.

Try it yourself: search the reviews for the word "return" and read at least three of those in full. If a clear pattern shows up, like fast refunds or weeks of waiting, you'll know what to expect from that company if something goes wrong for you too.

What does this mean for you if you're on the fence about an order?

You don't need to read every review on every store before you order something. Run through the six checks above in a few minutes, and you'll know more than any average star rating could ever tell you. A store with a handful of critical reviews next to a lot of happy customers is often more trustworthy than one that scores a perfect record on paper. That mix of positive and critical voices, and how the store responds to it, tells you more than any average rating ever could.

Want to see what that looks like in practice? Take a look at the reviews under the Daily Essential Bra: you'll find customers who were unsure about sizing at first, and customers who got it right the first time. That spread, and how it's responded to, is exactly what you want to watch for.