User-generated content (UGC) has become a powerful tool for online businesses, especially in the e-commerce space. As shoppers increasingly seek authenticity and trustworthiness from the brands they buy from, UGC offers a way to showcase real customer experiences. Free UGC, specifically, is a cost-effective way to build credibility without the hefty price tag of traditional marketing campaigns.

In fact, studies have shown that 79% of people say user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions. For Shopify store owners, this presents an incredible opportunity to tap into content created by your customers, driving engagement and conversions while keeping costs low. In this post, we’ll explore five practical ways to add free UGC to your Shopify store and leverage it to grow your business.

Benefits of Free UGC for Your Shopify Store

Incorporating free user-generated content into your Shopify store can offer a variety of advantages that not only help improve your store’s performance but also strengthen your brand’s reputation. Let's break down why free UGC is a must-have for your business and how it can enhance the customer experience while providing significant value.

1. Builds Social Proof and Trust

Social proof is one of the most effective psychological principles driving e-commerce success. When potential customers see that others have purchased and enjoyed your product, they’re more likely to trust your brand and make a purchase themselves. Free UGC, whether it’s reviews, photos, or videos from real customers, provides that social proof.

Consumers tend to trust other customers more than they trust the brand itself. According to Neil Patel, UGC is not only an authentic form of advertising but also one that builds customer loyalty and trust. When a customer submits their own content, they are effectively vouching for your brand, helping to create an organic endorsement that resonates more than traditional ads ever could.

2. Increases Engagement and Interaction

Engaging customers through UGC encourages them to actively participate in your brand’s community. This interaction not only deepens your relationship with existing customers but also increases brand visibility across social platforms. As customers post about your products on their own social media accounts, they create organic buzz, increasing your brand’s reach.

Moreover, featuring customer content directly on your product pages or in marketing materials invites others to join in. Customers are more likely to engage with a brand that values their contributions, which can create a positive feedback loop of more UGC being generated over time.

3. Boosts Conversions and Sales

When people are shopping online, they want to be sure that the product will meet their expectations. Free UGC helps alleviate that concern by showing real-life examples of how your product works in everyday situations. A photo or video from a satisfied customer using your product can be much more persuasive than a product description written by you.

Research shows that products with user-generated images have a higher conversion rate than those without, as consumers feel more confident in their purchasing decision. According to BigCommerce, UGC can lead to higher conversion rates by providing a visual representation of the product's value, which can boost consumer confidence and result in more sales.

4. Saves Time and Money on Content Creation

Creating high-quality content for your Shopify store can be expensive and time-consuming. Professional photoshoots, video production, and writing original copy can quickly add up. The good news is that free UGC allows you to leverage content that has already been created by your customers, saving you both time and money.

This is particularly useful for smaller businesses or Shopify store owners working with limited marketing budgets. By featuring photos, videos, and reviews submitted by your customers, you can keep your content fresh without the added costs of traditional content production. It's a win-win!

5. Improves SEO and Online Visibility

Free UGC can also help improve your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. User-generated content is often packed with relevant keywords and phrases, increasing the chances of your store showing up in search results. Search engines like Google prioritize fresh, high-quality content, and free UGC can offer just that.

Additionally, UGC can drive more organic traffic to your website as it gets shared across social media platforms, creating inbound links to your site. The more UGC you have, the more content search engines have to index, which can ultimately improve your store’s ranking in search results.

1. Encourage Reviews and Testimonials

One of the simplest and most effective ways to add free UGC to your Shopify store is by encouraging your customers to leave reviews and testimonials. Reviews have always been a cornerstone of consumer decision-making, and they can serve as powerful social proof for your brand. When customers see that others have had positive experiences with your product, it makes them more likely to trust your brand and make a purchase.

Why Customer Reviews Matter

Customer reviews are a form of free UGC that help build credibility and trust. Positive reviews show that your product is high-quality and that previous customers have had a positive experience. In fact, Trustpilot reports that nearly 90% of consumers read reviews before making a purchasing decision. These reviews can provide potential buyers with the confidence they need to hit the “buy” button.

Reviews and testimonials also give customers a platform to share their personal experiences and opinions about your products. These insights not only add authenticity but can also highlight features or benefits that you might not have thought to mention in your product descriptions.

How to Get More Reviews

The key to getting more reviews is to make it as easy as possible for customers to leave feedback. Here are a few strategies to consider:

• Follow-Up Emails: Send a friendly email after a purchase encouraging customers to leave a review. Make sure the process is simple and quick by linking directly to the review page on your Shopify store. A gentle reminder can go a long way!
  
  
• Incentivize Reviews: While you may not want to pay for reviews, offering a small incentive like a discount on future purchases or loyalty points can encourage customers to take the time to leave a review. Just ensure that the incentive doesn’t come across as a bribe for positive reviews, which could harm your brand's authenticity.
  
  
• Make It Mobile-Friendly: Many customers browse your store from their mobile devices, so it's important to make sure leaving a review is a seamless process on all screen sizes. Shopify themes typically allow you to add review widgets that work perfectly on mobile, making it easy for customers to leave feedback while they’re on the go.
  
  
• Ask for Video Reviews: While text reviews are great, video testimonials can be even more engaging and authentic. Encourage customers to upload short videos showing how they use your product or sharing why they love it. You could even create a video review submission guide to help customers feel comfortable with the process.

Read: How to Turn Customers into UGC Creators

Showcasing Reviews on Your Store

Once you start gathering reviews, it’s important to display them prominently on your Shopify store. Product pages should feature both written reviews and any images or videos customers have submitted. Adding customer-generated images and videos can help potential buyers visualize how your products will look in their lives, leading to more conversions.

Consider using a review app that integrates with Shopify to automatically collect and display reviews. Many apps allow you to showcase not only written feedback but also star ratings, photos, and even video testimonials, making your product pages more dynamic and trustworthy.

2. Leverage Social Media Posts and Mentions

Social media is an incredible platform for collecting free UGC, and leveraging customer posts and mentions is one of the easiest ways to tap into the content your audience is already creating. When customers share photos, videos, or stories of themselves using your products, they’re providing you with valuable content that you can use to showcase your brand in a more authentic and engaging way.

Why Social Media Mentions Matter

Social media posts from your customers serve as social proof that your products are being used and loved. These organic mentions and photos from real people can be far more persuasive than any branded content you could create. They show potential buyers how your products fit into everyday life, which can significantly influence purchasing decisions.

In fact, Sprout Social highlights that 79% of consumers say user-generated content on social media highly impacts their purchasing decisions. When you feature content created by customers on your Shopify store, you’re building a connection between your brand and your audience, showing that you value real customer experiences.

How to Encourage Social Media Posts

Encouraging customers to post about your brand on social media doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are a few strategies to help inspire social media posts and mentions:

• Create a Branded Hashtag: One of the easiest ways to track and encourage customer-generated posts is by creating a unique, branded hashtag. Encourage customers to use it when posting photos or videos of your products. This will make it easy for you to find and collect their content.
  
  
• Run Social Media Campaigns: Create engaging campaigns or challenges that ask your customers to share photos or videos of themselves using your products. For example, you could run a campaign where customers share how they use your product in a creative way, with a specific hashtag. You can offer small rewards, such as discounts or features on your store, for those who participate.
  
  
• Engage With Your Customers: When your customers tag your brand or mention you on social media, take the time to engage with them. Like, comment, and share their posts on your brand’s social media pages to show appreciation and build a community. This interaction will encourage other customers to post about your brand too.
  
  
• Collaborate with Influencers: While influencer marketing can sometimes be expensive, partnering with micro-influencers who align with your brand can be a more cost-effective option. Micro-influencers often have smaller but highly engaged audiences, and they’re usually more open to collaborating in exchange for free products. The content they generate can be used as free UGC on your Shopify store.

Displaying Social Media UGC on Your Shopify Store

Once you start collecting social media posts and mentions, it’s time to feature them on your Shopify store. There are several ways you can do this:

• Add UGC to Product Pages: Display customer posts directly on your product pages. A widget or gallery that features social media content can help customers see how others are using your products in real life.
  
  
• Create a UGC Gallery: Create a dedicated page or gallery in your store where customers can browse social media content from others. This can be an engaging and interactive way to showcase your products and provide real-life examples of how they look in use.
  
  
• Include UGC in Marketing Materials: Don’t limit your social media UGC to just your website. Incorporate customer-generated content into your email marketing, ads, and social media posts. This can help you extend the reach of the content and show that you value customer participation.
  

By using social media UGC, you're not just getting free content — you're building a stronger relationship with your customers, showing them that you appreciate their contributions while also increasing brand visibility.

3. Run a UGC Contest or Giveaway

If you're looking to kickstart a wave of free UGC, contests and giveaways are one of the fastest ways to do it. People love free stuff—and when you tie that excitement to your brand, it creates the perfect opportunity to collect authentic, user-generated content at scale. Whether it’s a photo contest, a video challenge, or a simple “tag us to win” giveaway, customers are much more likely to share content when there's a fun incentive involved.

Why Contests Work So Well

Contests tap into a few powerful motivators: the chance to win something, the fun of participating, and the desire to be featured by a brand they love. But beyond that, they also create a sense of urgency and excitement around your products. A well-run UGC contest not only generates content you can reuse—it also drives traffic, grows your email list, and boosts engagement across your channels.

According to Social Media Examiner, UGC campaigns that involve incentives or prizes see significantly higher participation rates. It’s a low-cost way to encourage your existing customers to become your most powerful marketers.

How to Run a UGC Contest That Actually Works

Here’s what makes for a successful UGC contest or giveaway:

• Keep It Simple: The easier it is to enter, the more participation you’ll get. Asking customers to post a photo or video of themselves using your product and tag your brand is a great starting point.
  
  
• Offer a Clear Incentive: Whether it’s a free product, gift card, or exclusive discount, make the reward worth the effort. Don’t be afraid to get creative—limited edition items or early access to a new product can be just as compelling.
  
  
• Set a Deadline: Contests with a clear end date perform better because they create urgency. Give customers a specific window to submit their content so they feel motivated to act quickly.
  
  
• Make Sharing Easy: Include step-by-step instructions on how to enter, what to post, what hashtag to use, and where to tag your brand.

Use Moast to Streamline the Whole Process

If you want to run a UGC contest without all the manual effort, Moast’s Shoppable Video app is built for exactly this. With Moast, you can:

• Set up incentives like discount codes or gift cards for participants—automatically sent when someone submits content.
  
  
• Run email campaigns directly from the app to invite past customers to take part in your contest.
  
  
• Collect video and photo submissions that plug right into your Shopify store as shoppable UGC widgets, where shoppers can browse real customer content and click through to buy.

By using Moast, you can turn a one-off giveaway into a repeatable UGC engine that lives right on your storefront. Instead of letting contest entries collect dust in your inbox, you can turn them into high-converting, interactive content with just a few clicks.

Maximize the Value of Your Contest Content

Once your contest ends, don’t stop there. Repurpose the entries by featuring them on:

• Product pages (especially for the featured product in your giveaway)
  
  
• Your homepage or UGC gallery
  
  
• Social media reels or TikTok compilations
  
  
• Email campaigns highlighting your customers’ creativity

The best part? You’ve just generated a batch of free UGC that you can continue to use long after the contest wraps up.

4. Ask Customers to Share Photos and Videos

One of the most compelling types of free UGC is visual content—photos and videos that show your product in action. There’s nothing quite as persuasive as seeing a real person using (and loving) your product in their own environment. These visuals help shoppers imagine how your product fits into their life, which makes them much more likely to convert.

And the best part? Most of your customers already have the content—you just need to ask for it.

Why Visual UGC Matters

Visual content grabs attention, builds trust, and drives conversions. A well-shot customer photo or a short video testimonial can often outperform professionally made brand assets simply because it's real. According to Yotpo, shoppers are 6x more likely to purchase a product if the page includes photos from real customers.

That stat alone makes it worth reaching out and asking your buyers to share their content.

How to Encourage Visual Submissions

Here are a few simple ways to encourage your customers to send in their photos and videos:

• Ask Post-Purchase: After a customer receives their order, send an email asking them to share a photo or short video of how they’re using the product. Timing is key—wait until they’ve had a chance to experience it.
  
  
• Make It Easy: Don’t ask your customers to jump through hoops. Provide a direct link or simple form where they can upload their content in just a few clicks.
  
  
• Offer a Small Thank-You: A small discount or store credit goes a long way in motivating customers to take action. It’s a low-cost investment that can yield incredibly valuable free UGC.
  

Use Moast to Streamline Photo & Video Collection

If you want to turn content collection into a repeatable system, Moast’s Collection feature makes it easy. With Collection, you can:

• Send personalized requests to past customers asking them to upload a photo or video of their product in use.
  
  
• Offer built-in incentives, like automatic discounts or gift cards, to reward customers who submit content.
  
  
• Collect high-quality, on-brand content and store it all in one place, ready to be featured across your site.

Whether you’re collecting content for a product launch, a seasonal campaign, or just to keep your PDPs fresh, the Collection feature ensures you’re never starting from scratch. It’s a scalable way to gather free UGC without chasing people down.

Where to Feature Visual UGC

Once you’ve got a steady stream of customer visuals coming in, make the most of it:

• Add visuals to your product pages alongside reviews to give shoppers real-life context.
  
  
• Create a UGC gallery that showcases your community and their creativity.
  
  
• Feature standout content on your homepage, in email campaigns, or in social media ads.

The more you highlight your customers, the more others will want to participate. Sharing becomes part of the customer journey—and suddenly, your content machine is running on autopilot.

Here’s the final section on Feature UGC in Your Email Marketing Campaign, keeping the tone consistent and including an external link:

5. Feature UGC in Your Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is already one of the highest-ROI channels for ecommerce, but when you combine it with free UGC? You get emails that not only perform better—but feel more personal, authentic, and trustworthy. Whether it's a glowing customer review, a user-submitted photo, or a quick testimonial video, adding real customer content to your emails can boost engagement and drive more clicks back to your store.

Why UGC Works So Well in Email

Let’s face it—your customers are bombarded with emails daily. A polished product photo and generic subject line might not stand out anymore. But when you include content from real customers? That’s attention-grabbing.

Emails with UGC have been shown to increase click-through rates and conversions, especially when that content is placed strategically. According to Campaign Monitor, emails featuring user-generated content see a 73% increase in click-through rates compared to standard marketing emails.

That kind of lift is hard to ignore.

How to Use Free UGC in Your Email Campaigns

You don’t need to overhaul your entire email strategy to start using UGC. Here are a few simple ways to weave it in:

• Customer Spotlights: Feature a recent buyer showing off your product in a fun or creative way. Add a short quote from their review or a link to their full story on your site.
  
  
• Review Highlights: Include a few short, punchy reviews in your product announcement or campaign emails. Keep it visual by adding star ratings and customer photos if possible.
  
  
• UGC Collages or Galleries: Create a collage of user-submitted photos and add it to your newsletter or product drop emails. It adds personality and gives your community a chance to shine.
  
  
• Shoppable Video in Email: If you’re collecting video UGC, embed snippets or link to a landing page where subscribers can watch real customers using your product.

Use Moast UGC With Email for Even Better Results

If you’re already using Moast to collect and display free UGC, you can bring that same content into your email marketing too. Here’s how:

• Grab high-quality submissions from your Moast Collection and use them in product launch or promotional emails.
  
  
• Feature shoppable video content directly in your emails or link to your Moast-powered PDPs where customers can see the full UGC experience.
  
  
• Build campaigns around your best customers by highlighting their videos, photos, or testimonials in your emails. It’s a great way to make them feel seen—and encourage others to join in.

When customers see themselves (or people like them) featured in your emails, it creates a deeper connection. And when future customers see that kind of authenticity, they’re more likely to trust your brand.

Real People. Real Content. Real Results.

Email is personal. So is UGC. When you combine the two, you get campaigns that don’t just sell—they connect. Whether you're sending a welcome flow, a product drop, or a post-purchase follow-up, sprinkling in free UGC can elevate the experience and make your brand feel more human.

Conclusion: Free UGC Isn’t Optional—It’s a Growth Channel

Free UGC isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s one of the most powerful tools you can use to build trust, drive conversions, and create a stronger connection with your customers. The best part? Your customers are already creating content. You just need a system to collect, showcase, and amplify it.

Whether you're encouraging reviews, reposting social media mentions, running a giveaway, asking for photo and video submissions, or featuring UGC in your emails—each of these strategies can help you build a more authentic, engaging Shopify store without spending a dollar on content creation.

And if you’re looking for a simple way to do all of this in one place, apps like Moast make it easy to turn free UGC into a shoppable, conversion-boosting experience across your store.

Start small, stay consistent, and let your customers become the voice of your brand. The content is out there—you just need to put it to work.