For a couple of weeks now, I have been using the WP Product Review Lite WordPress plugin by Themeisle on this site to help manage and organise my reviews of shows, movies and products. In fact, I’ve decided to use it while doing this review – in some kind of Inception. However, the main reason I decided that I would review it itself, is I have a laundry list of features I wish it had – but more about that later.

WP Product Review Lite Overview

Overall, this is a simple and really affective plugin, that does what it promises on the tin.

It provides a clean, simple and mobile-friendly overview of the product or service you are reviewing. On-the-fly, you are able to create a nice interface that readers can simply see at a glance over your overall points.

WP Product Review provides the following features

Create a top products review widget
Easily update all the colours of the widget from theme options
Add a download button in the posts
Add an awesome wrap-up widget at the end of your articles
Add specific user review options to WordPress comments
Add rich snippet ( schema ) to your posts

The colours, which can be personalised within the settings to reflect your websites colour scheme, are automatically updated based upon the score you have given the review.

Another great feature, which you can use below yourself, is the review plugin adds addition functionality for readers to add their own reviews below in the comments section – using the same framework that you can set up within the blogpost itself. Great idea!

Unfortunately, unless you are running a specific niche WordPress site, then using this plugin can be a bit time-consuming – changing the grading headers etc. I cover this below in more detail.

WP Product Review Lite Features Wishlist

Review Templates for Grades
The biggest issue I have is the lack of flexibility of the reviews themselves. As I have taken to reviewing a wide range of things on the website – from Wandavision Episodes to iPhone Apps – each has different characteristics that I wish to review the item on.However, with the current version of WP Product Review Lite, the form simply loads the entries of the previous review you created. So for a specific niche wordpress site covering purely films – then this wouldn’t be an issue, as your grade would be the same. Ie Story / Plot, Production Design etc.The biggest issue I have with WP Product Review Lite, is that you cannot save a template of features you wish to cover consistently for each type of review. If I was able to add grading templates within settings – adding the criteria I wish to review first – I’d then be able to simply load ‘films’ or ‘App’ grading system from a dropdown menu in the draft – that would be an outstanding game change.
Adding Pros / Cons Features
Pros and Cons are managed within the settings of the plugin itself – separate from the blog post review you are writing. So instead of having a clean ‘+’ button to add additional pros/cons to the list, you have a set amount. Meaning if you run out of inputs for the items you wish to highlight, you need to save the draft, hunt down the change to be made in settings, then got back to the article. I’ve now made the app show the maximum amount of input fields ‘just in case’.Also, as a sidenote, would be amazing to have the entry fields to add the pros/cons as a decent textarea (so you can see the whole paragraph you are typing), instead of a text field input.
Multiple Links / Buttons
Currently, you are only able to add two buttons at the bottom of the review. However, with films, there are multiple versions for sale – for example: DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD. What would be outstanding is if the plugin would allow the user to add as many buttons as a particular review needs, instead of restricting to two. Meaning, in my case at least, the reviews would be more helpful for readers – and future proofs the article for longer.In an ideal world, I’d truly love to see the settings for the buttons expanded upon. Perhaps to reflect where the button is sending the reader to? If in the settings you were able to add colour palettes for an Amazon link button, compared to an eBay link button – this would be an epic upgrade. Then by each button input, a simple dropdown menu of the palettes you have made. Meaning more flexibility on the
Icon / Font Awesome Support
A tiny change, which would finish off this plugin beautifully, would be more flexibility of the button icons. Currently, there is the option for a shopping cart symbol. Which, if you turn off (which I have as this is a global option on/off, due to the amount of free links I use in my reviews), means the text does not sit centred / correctly within the button.What would be awesome, is if it had Font Awesome support. Allowing users to have the flexibility of what icon best suits the button. Plus, as Font Awesome has many icons based on the major affiliate stores, coupled with the button designs above, the user could high light if the button was a DVD, Blu-ray (etc), or Amazon, eBay (etc) link.

Please note: WP Product Review PRO has been retired and is no longer available – which is a great shame, because I, for one, would have loved to have supported the project.