Have your say in Community Polls: What was/is your greatest motivation to start your own business?

Re: How do I respond to comments on blog posts

How do I respond to comments on blog posts

pjmmpls
Explorer
42 0 140

Hi, I searched and found an answer to my question from 2010. I am wondering if things have been updated? I would like to respond directly to comments (similar to how it works on FB or IG)  and not have to add them as a visitor does. Is this possible?

Thank you for your help!

Pam

Replies 165 (165)
MonsterMawd
Excursionist
28 0 64

I understand it's hard to justify the expense of apps, esp when you're small, but they are write-offs for your business. Trust me, when you have good year in sales, these annoying write-offs add up and save you from owing alot in taxes. Your business must registered with state and federal, so you're given a tax ID (if you havent already).

 

I've been doing e-commerce since 2001. I moved to Shopify in 2019 by the advice of a friend already on it. It's SEO is unmatched by any other e-store because Shopify uses Google Cloud to power its platform. What does this mean? If you setup your product pages correctly, ie: good photos with white background, long description with key search terms, you'll be easily discovered in Google searches. Shopify allows you to easily plug-in your store to Google Shopping. Google just launched a massive billboard AD campaign to attract the public into using Google Shopping.    

Keep this thread alive. Shopify added the ablility to BLOCK people in live chat, because disgruntled owners came here and kept the request thread alive. 

Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13

Of course it's a tax write off, however for a blog system to not have a built in replying system already there is BONKERS. 

www.emilyhare.co.uk
keith88
Excursionist
17 0 24
Agree! I really want the blog comments feature to be added and robust, but this will only be further helped if everyone keeps requesting it. Shopify took years to add the customer merge feature but that launched recently. Still have fingers crossed that one day this will be added, but I am not hopeful for anytime in the near future.
MonsterMawd
Excursionist
28 0 64

Yes, it's very annoying since our blog content drives a great deal of traffic. 

Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

@MonsterMawd I agree that Shopify is a fantastic site and it does everything we want and more.  However, I believe that if you can't respond to comments, there should be no functionality to leave a comment, as this does hurt your business.  As far as paying for another app., that's probably what we will do but this is basic functionality that should be included, in my opinion.

Tanya64
Tourist
3 0 1

It's now 2023 and there's still no option for store owners to directly reply to blog post comments.  

Come on Shopify! Rae said back in 2019 that if enough people were interested you'd do something about it.  You just have to look at the years of comments to know it's a priority for store owners.  And I have to agree with the comment above "This is such a basic feature and the problem shouldn't even exist"

Tanya64
Tourist
3 0 1

I've just discovered that Rae, the Shopify representative, is now retired and it looks like we are just wasting our time talking amongst ourselves on this feed. No one is listening here.

pjmmpls
Explorer
42 0 140

update...I accepted this as a solution, meaning that I appreciated your reply, not that buying another app is an acceptable solution.

ddavidd
Tourist
8 0 7

I'd also love to see this added. I understand that it's not a simple request to add a feature like this, but the ability for users and mods to reply to specific comments would be incredibly useful. Being able to reply directly from the admin page would be nice as well, but that's less of an issue to me.

 

On a related note, is there a list of planned features that us shop owners could look at and upvote/downvote? That seems like it would be a great way to know what features to work on in what order.

RosesAndAzalea
Visitor
1 0 2

Has this been resolved yet? I see this as an issue as well!  We should be able to reply to comments...

pjmmpls
Explorer
42 0 140

No, it has not been resolved, I accidentally hit "accept as a solution", hopefully, they see this is still an issue! I refuse to pay for an app to make this happen. I don't know what more we can do aside from complaining!  

KateShore
Tourist
9 0 49
I just started a new post called "blog comments". Please try posting there since this one was marked "solved" and I dont know if they're still looking at it. https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/Blog-comments/m-p/689392#M162327

SJ_89
Visitor
1 0 2

Hi, I too would like this feature implemented. Surely this feature should have been implemented already? Please can you also tell your dev teams that another person has requested this feature. 



 

wool-down-under
Tourist
5 0 4

We too would like this feature please! 

Jon_at_Sunny
Shopify Partner
21 0 1

Hi everyone, 

I've spoken to a number of merchants frustrated by this problem. I've created an app that addresses it as best as possible. 

The app:

- sends you an email notification for each comment

- lets you approve or delete the comment from the email

- you can reply to the email to post a new comment

- you see the commenter's email address.

 

I was hoping to make it free but it was a fair bit of work in the end so there is small monthly charge.

You can check it out here: https://apps.shopify.com/blog-comment-manager

Hope it helps!

Jon

 

Colleen_O_Conn1
Tourist
4 0 7

Hey Jon thanks for putting time into this!   I wanted to try this out but got a 404 error.  

Colleen

Jon_at_Sunny
Shopify Partner
21 0 1

Hi Colleen,


Thanks for letting me know. Can you email info@sunnysideapps.com and we'll try to get your trial set up?

Cheers,

 

Jon

AnirudhH
Visitor
1 0 1

I can't believe it's been 10 years (assuming you had this question in 2010), or at least 3 years and Shopify STILL hasn't addressed this issue.

Replying on the storefront does not let the customer know I'm replying to them, nor does it nest my response under their comment.
This is half-baked and unprofessional looking.

Jon_at_Sunny
Shopify Partner
21 0 1

Hi AnirudhH,

Our app addresses this exact problem. It now posts your response directly above the original comment (not nesting, but close) and emails your reply to the commenter. 

There's a 30-day free trial and then a small monthly charge, if you're interested.

https://apps.shopify.com/blog-comment-manager

Jon

 

pjmmpls
Explorer
42 0 140

It is ridiculous that we need to buy another app to support Shopify, We pay a monthly fee and service charges for sales. It is the least they could do for their customers! Thank you for the option.

 

Zanimalys
Visitor
1 0 1

At home the application doesn't work ...and I think it's outrageous to have to pay just to be able to reply to a comment on a blog.... so share your code if you want to make things happen Sunny...
Have a nice day

Jon_at_Sunny
Shopify Partner
21 0 1
Hi Zanimalys,

Feel free to get in touch by emailing info@sunnysideapps.com if you'd like
support with the app.

Cheers,

Jon
pjmmpls
Explorer
42 0 140

Clearly, Shopify does not want to offer the same customer service we offer our customers. Shopify does not care, nor will they respond to why we can reply to each other here and they can't make the same service to our blogs. The irony lacks humor.

Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13

I've just been trying to find out how to do this too. I've just built my own membership website using Wordpress (which is a horror in itself haha!) and it's immediately possible to reply to comments. I don't know why Shopify would have comments and not the ability to reply to them. It's INFURIATING! I'm fortunate in that I have very few comments (plenty of spam comments though, ugh) but it would be nice to be able to reply to those who have commented and for them to be notified. I'm almost considering shutting down the blog here and hosting it on WP and linking it.

Shopify blog looks great, I just don't get why they've still not added this reply feature! 

www.emilyhare.co.uk

YokedOutdoors
Visitor
1 0 3

Chiming in here from 2022, hoping this feature has been updated!?

Thanks.

Flaxa
Tourist
9 0 13

Unfortunately not 😞

Anjee_a
Tourist
7 0 1

Its absolutely frustrating to not be able to reply to comments directly on the blog!! Seems like a such basic feature to have!!! 

Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13
I've stopped using Shopify for my blog for this reason, I gave up! 
www.emilyhare.co.uk

AussieQBBQ
Tourist
9 0 6

how on earth hast this simple feature been added yet? I Cant respond to any questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

miroslavuzice87
Visitor
2 0 4

Clearly, Shopify won't implement the possibility to reply to a blog post, which is the essence of a post, because it has some kind of interest in it. Won't get into what kind of interest but is almost ridiculous not to have this option and be pushed to pay for it through the app. I can only assume that monthly payment for Shopify plans isn't enough and think that they could stop making us all fulls and simply delete this entire discussion.

AussieQBBQ
Tourist
9 0 6

It’s crazy!! How can this simple feature be behind a paywall!

KateG142
Tourist
5 0 5

And still not possible. 

The right time is now.
Fenriz
Excursionist
20 0 11

This thing is INSANE.

As I already stated on another post I can not count the number of issues I am having on Shopify for BASIC things. Cookie policy? Third party?, Translate? Third party?, Analytics? Third Party (Shopify Analytics are horrible), Spam filter? (my god!!) Third Party, and the list goes on. Now it turns out we also need a FU*** third party to answer comments?? What will be the next thing? A third party to log-in? I am more and more disappointed with Shopify.

Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13

Yeah I have to say, while I love all the things like bulk editing etc - it does make me wonder whether to go back to Squarespace when my year runs out with Shopify, at least they have analytics as part of it. It seems on the surface that it's not too expensive in comparison, but once you add all those extra third party things, it's not a good deal at all. 

www.emilyhare.co.uk
Fenriz
Excursionist
20 0 11

indeed, plus it terribly slows down the store

Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13

Yeah. I doubt they'll ever change it though as they clearly must get a lot of money from allowing apps to do this. I resolved my issue by just linking my blog to another site (wordpress) instead. But it shouldn't be necessary. 

www.emilyhare.co.uk
Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

@Artbyemilyhare, thank you. That's a good suggestions.  I do love Shopify and it works really well for us as we have many integrations with other pieces of software but this one is just crazy.

Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

Hi @Artbyemilyhare, we use Make.com for bulk editing.  It worked great.  We already use it in conjunction with Airtable for managing the thousands of products we have so it didn't cost us anything. It was fantastic and all updates done in a flash. 

KateG142
Tourist
5 0 5

A third party app to login got me. 😅

The right time is now.

Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

@Shopify, this issue was raised in this thread back in 2019 - it's now 2023 and there's still no resolution.  That seems ridiculous.  It seems to me that this is just a minor blog function - why supply a comment function if there's no way to respond to them - it makes no sense.  Can you please give an ETA on when this will be resolved - yes, resolved because it is a problem.

Fenriz
Excursionist
20 0 11

It is, but simply don't care. It's unbelievable having to ask for this, but it's even more  unbelievable they do nothing. We don't  have that many comments on our blog, but we have to constantly be monitoring them (is there even an option to receive a notification???) in order to answer, because if two comments overlap we have to delete one comment, answer the previous one, paste the deleted comment and answer the new one.

Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

@Fenriz I would like to know that too.  I had two comments and didn't even realise that they were there.

 

I have started a new thread on this one by asking a question. You can find it here if you would like to comment - https://community.shopify.com/c/technical-q-a/responding-to-blog-comments/m-p/1909155.

 

I thought it might raise awareness that people still want this resolved.

Fenriz
Excursionist
20 0 11

@Carol_AJS 

I've seen your new post and, as expected, they are telling you to use an app in order to justify they do nothing, what a surprise. Meanwhile there are seven pages here and counting, so it's pretty clear they don't give a damn.

MonsterMawd
Excursionist
28 0 64

Shopify added the ablility to BLOCK people in live chat because disgruntled shop owners came here and kept the request thread alive.  

GrasshopperGeo
Tourist
6 0 12

I'm just here to add my frustration as well. This is such a basic "feature", the problem shouldn't even exist.

Sewlastsummer
Tourist
4 0 1

I can’t believe it is 2023 and we have all just had our billing increases and this still isn’t an option?

Disabled Entrepreneur & your number 1 cheer leader
Carol_AJS
Excursionist
12 0 23

@Sewlastsummer they have us over a barrel really - we need their shop so they don't have to do anything about it.  

Sewlastsummer
Tourist
4 0 1

It’s so flippin’ frustrating!

I’ve working in customer service for 2 decades, and I can’t imagine ignoring a basic need like this. It’s certainly not how I would choose to conduct business?

 

 

i’ve just created a new discussion, hoping that an active member of staff may respond. (https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/billing-increase-but-basic-functions-still-not-a...)

 

Debating writing a blog about it, and reaching out to media companies. With places like Etsy being under scrutiny, and investigation in the UK, I wonder how this could play out

 

 

Disabled Entrepreneur & your number 1 cheer leader
Artbyemilyhare
Excursionist
10 0 13

Yeah I gave up on their blog system and just use Wordpress for mine and send them there. Not ideal since I'd prefer it all in one place, but hey ho, I've given up!

 

www.emilyhare.co.uk