How Atwix Developed the Feefo Extension for Magento

In a recent study by the Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University, researchers found that displaying customer reviews can increase conversion by 270%. Other studies have shown that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. These statistics show the importance of consumer feedback in the world of eCommerce, and the power of user-generated reviews.

Feefo is synonymous with online reviews. The UK-based company specializes in collecting reviews for eCommerce websites. More than 4,000 industry leaders rely on the power of Feefo to connect with their customers, drive business to their websites, and gain real, actionable user insights. Thousands of brands, including Expedia, AXA, and Next trust Feefo to independently collect reviews from their customers, matched to real transactions. These reviews improve buyer confidence, but at the same time help businesses learn how to increase traffic, footfall, and sales. Leveraging the artistry of Magento custom extension development further enriches your eCommerce platform’s functionality, crafting bespoke solutions tailored to your unique business needs and enhancing the overall user experience.

Top-tier websites invest heavily into building reliable reviews and rating systems. From Google to Facebook and Bing, the world’s pioneering Internet companies love to build trust with their community, and they do this in partnership with Feefo. In 2016 Feefo teamed up with Atwix to build solutions for B2C and B2B eCommerce businesses. They trusted us to develop exciting new ​extensions for Magento Commerce 2, to help merchants who use Magento to deliver meaningful customer feedback on their online stores. They came to the right place: Atwix is one of the longest serving Magento Solution Partners, and we were one of the first official Magento Commerce 2 Trained Partners in the world.

Building a module from scratch

We got to work straight away, developing the Feefo module from scratch. It was designed to be compatible with Magento Commerce and Open Source editions. We created Feefo support for the multi-store integration in Magento Commerce 2, adding the ability for merchants to install Feefo on multiple stores within one Magento instance. We also made it easier overall to integrate the Feefo widget in eCommerce stores, in just a couple of clicks.

One of the main challenges was to keep both Magento and Feefo’s backends updated with actual data. A configuration form in the System Configuration section of the Magento admin panel allows the merchant to register and configure the module directly from the store; there’s a JavaScript snippet for a Service Rating Widget on all pages; We added a product stars count widget in the “Add to Cart” section. We also created an additional tab on the product view page called “Feefo Reviews” with all listed Feefo reviews for the current product. We also created the ability to place the Feefo widgets in custom places.

The Atwix team built a flexible multi-store module which kept the integrity of data for both Feefo and Magento. As Feefo has all reviews verified by Google or Facebook, it was a critical feature to ensure the reviews work perfectly. As soon as the extension was finished, we made sure that the verification process at Magento Marketplace ran smoothly. The extension was quickly approved and available for download to the hundreds of thousands of Magento merchants worldwide. Meanwhile, the Atwix team provides ongoing technical support for the extension.

A winning partnership

The partnership with Feefo helped us develop a new solution for those who rely on customer feedback. Our team embarked on a period of meticulous development, with unit and acceptance testing to ensure that even the most complex use cases of data exchange can function perfectly for both parties. The extension was tested manually for compatibility with all popular web browsers. And now it’s live, Magento merchants have already started using the extension and have shared positive feedback about the Feefo performance and engagement.

Also, don’t forget to check our Best Magento SEO extensions list.