… are still an issue and being widely abused.
Recently I was asked to write a review for an app on a store I manage for another store owner. I was accessing the store as a collaborator, went to the app admin and clicked ‘Write Review’. This resulted in the following: 2026-03-20_10-04-05 - TechSmith Screencast. This is good.
I then went to the themes admin, and did the same with the published theme, and had no issue adding a positive review. I have self reported this to Shopify for its removal.
Any theme developer can offer ‘free’ customizations, gain access via a collaborator account and leave positive reviews for their theme. This is a free review unless a merchant notices and decides to take action. Even then, there is little repercussion for the partner.
Reviews are one of the most difficult conversions theme developers face, and well established, popular theme dev’s will tell you that seeing multiple positive reviews in 1 day or week is near impossible without incentivising a merchant or just doing it your self.
Shopify may be removing some of these, but policing the existing is just a band-aid. This should be preventable, like within the app store