Two stores sell the same products to the same customers. One collects five times more reviews than the other. The difference is almost never the wording of their invitation email. It is when it arrives. Timing is the highest-leverage variable in review collection, and most stores set it once, wrong, and never look at it again.
The three timing mistakes, in order of popularity
Mistake 1: asking at the order, not the experience
Invitations triggered at checkout or dispatch ask the customer to review something they have not received. At best they are ignored. At worst the customer, prompted while their parcel is somewhere in a warehouse, reviews the only experience they have had so far: waiting. This is how stores collect shipping complaints about products that turned out to be excellent.
Mistake 2: triggering on the estimated delivery date
The subtle version of the same error. Estimated dates are wrong constantly, and every late parcel means your cheerful "how did you like it?" lands in the inbox of someone staring at an empty letterbox, conveniently equipped with a review link. Stores doing this are literally soliciting their angriest possible reviews. The trigger has to be confirmed delivery, from carrier tracking, not the estimate.
Mistake 3: asking weeks later
Past a certain point the product is just part of life, the emotional peak is gone, and the response rate collapses. The review that would have been written with enthusiasm in week one is simply never written in week four.
The window that works
The principle: ask when the customer has enough experience to say something true, and still enough emotion to bother saying it.
- Baseline for most physical products: 3 to 7 days after confirmed delivery. The parcel has been opened, the product used at least once, the delivery experience still fresh.
- Adjust for the product's proof time. Fashion needs a wear or two: earlier in the window. Skincare and supplements need results: later, two to three weeks. Consumables that are experienced immediately: early. The question to ask about your own catalogue: how long until the customer knows what they think?
- Respect the human calendar. Midweek mornings outperform weekend evenings for response quality. Never send review requests during a delivery-problem storm, fix the storm first.
The sequence around the ask
Timing is not one email, it is a small sequence, and each piece has a time slot:
- Delivery day: no ask. If you send anything, it is care: how to use, sizing help, who to contact if something is off. This message quietly catches problems before the ask arrives, so the ask lands on people whose issues are already being handled.
- Day 3 to 7: the ask. One honest question, one link, signed by a person. The craft of this email is covered in our Trustpilot collection guide.
- Around a week later: one reminder to non-responders, and only one. It typically adds a third to your volume. A second reminder adds annoyance and unsubscribes.
And a rule that outranks all timing rules: the moment a customer reports a problem, they exit the review sequence and enter the support one. Asking someone with an open complaint to rate you publicly is self-harm with a timestamp. What matters legally is that resolution comes first and the honest invitation still follows for everyone, the distinction we detailed in the review gating guide.
How to find your store's exact window
The generic answer above beats no answer, but your data beats the generic answer. The experiment is simple: split invitations between two delays (say day 3 versus day 7), run a few hundred orders through each, compare response rate and review quality. One store's products want day 3. Another's want day 10. The difference is routinely worth more than any copywriting change you will ever make, and in our study of 578 struggling brands, 80% were not asking at all, at any time. The bar is low. Clearing it precisely is the advantage.
Not sure whether your current flow asks at the right moment, or at all? The free audit maps your entire post-purchase sequence against where your reviews actually come from.
FAQ
What if my carrier does not confirm delivery reliably?
Use the best signal you have, and pad it: estimated date plus a safety margin, or tracking status where available. The principle stands: never let an invitation outrun the parcel.
Should international orders have a different delay?
Yes, if triggered on dispatch. If you trigger on confirmed delivery, the same post-delivery window applies everywhere, which is the point of using delivery as the anchor.
Is there a best day of the week?
Tuesday to Thursday mornings perform steadily. But day-of-week effects are small next to the delivery-anchored delay: fix the anchor first.
How many reminders are acceptable?
One. Platforms limit repeated invitations for the same experience, and the second reminder's yield does not cover its goodwill cost.