What do you have to search for when selecting a Shopify theme?
A recent study found that 70 percent of Americans shop online more than ever.
Ecommerce is booming and there has never been a better time to open an online store. One of the best platforms to start your ecommerce store with is Shopify.
Why do so many people love Shopify? In part because of its:
- Affordability
- user friendliness
- Scalability
- security
One great reason many ecommerce store owners love Shopify is the flexibility it offers through Shopify themes. With thousands of paid and free themes, you can create a unique ecommerce store that will deliver a positive user experience (UX) to your customers.
This could be why over a million companies are using Shopify to build their ecommerce businesses.
What are Shopify Themes?
Shopify themes are a template that determines how your website looks and feels to customers who visit your store. Different themes offer different styles and layouts. In addition, each topic offers a different UX, depending on how it is designed.
Design plays a huge role in the way your business attracts, engages, and converts. Because of this, the Shopify theme you choose is critical to the success of your business.
In e-commerce, the topic of your choice must reflect your industry and niche. For example, if you're in the health and wellness niche, you want a topic that looks professional and feels comforting.
On the other hand, if you are into electronics, you want a subject that is elegant and energetic.
Will changing themes damage your store?
One concern most store owners have about changing themes is that it will damage their Shopify store.
That is not true.
Changing your Shopify theme (or editing your current theme) will not affect your content or any other part of your account.
So feel free to play around with your theme settings or even get a new Shopify theme that you like. Your ecommerce store will not break and you will rarely experience downtime if you do it right.
Why your Shopify topic matters
Now that you know what a Shopify theme is, let's take a quick look at why your theme choices are so important.
Helps you plan your brand personality
One of your most important assets as a company is your brand.
And no – branding doesn't just mean a logo.
An essential aspect of branding is your brand personality. Brand personality is a set of human characteristics that can be assigned to a brand. For example,
- Sophistication
- excitement
- fun-loving
- sincerity
- robustness
Your subject plays a crucial role in projecting these features. As a result, your Shopify store will attract customers who share and love your personality.
Determines the UX of your website
Your theme is a crucial aspect of your store's design as it determines the UX of your website. This is because your theme determines essential aspects of your ecommerce store like navigation, layout, color schemes and aesthetics, etc.
Your topic determines the experience of your customers as they navigate your store, consume your content, and search for products. If the experience is positive, they will likely keep coming back. A negative experience, on the other hand, leads to high bounce rates.
7 tips on choosing the perfect Shopify theme for your business
Are you ready to search for the perfect Shopify theme for your business?
Here are some tips to help you find the perfect one.
1. Decide on your budget
Shopify stores come at different prices. Because of this, the first thing you need to do is determine how much you want to spend on a theme in order to choose your Shopify theme.
Examples of factors that affect the price of the topic are:
- The developer: Experienced and well-known developers usually charge more for their subjects.
- flexibility: The degree of customization of your theme will affect the price. For example, if it has drag-and-drop capabilities, you can expect to pay a little more.
- Degree of functionality. Some themes are limited in functionality while others allow you to turn your ecommerce store into anything you want. Those with extra bells and whistles, like forms or SEO features, tend to cost more.
Like everything else in life, when it comes to Shopify-themed, you get what you pay for. Before you buy, be sure to read the fine print and understand what features and functions a subject has.
2. Prioritize themes in the Shopify Theme Store
Shopify theme developers are a dozen. You can get a theme for your Shopify store from many theme marketplaces.
However, I strongly recommend choosing from the themes in Shopify's theme store.
One of the main reasons is that Shopify carefully reviews all the topics submitted so you can be sure that you are receiving a high quality and safe topic.
Another reason to prioritize topics in the Shopify topic store is to get regular updates and top notch support.
3. List the main features and functions you want
The key to finding the perfect Shopify theme for your store is to consider the key features and functions that you want for your store.
Would you like a pull-out trolley drawer?
Is a video player a priority?
Do you need forms, landing pages, or a blog?
Finding a theme with the most features you are looking for can help reduce development costs. If you can find a topic with one of the key features you're looking for but not the others, go ahead. The key is to find one that includes most of the topics you want. You can always have a developer add the missing functions.
For information about the features included in a topic, see the topic preview page. However, since all of the features may not be listed there, you may want to play around with the theme demo.
You can also use the live store samples to get an idea of all the features of a topic you are considering.
4. Look at your niche
Most of the themes are designed for specific types of industries. When choosing a Shopify theme, you need to make sure that it is designed for your niche. For example, an e-commerce store that sells various electronics and accessories cannot easily use a theme for artwork.
This is because the electronic shop needs a theme that supports many categories and advanced search capabilities. The art shop, on the other hand, doesn't need as many advanced features.
When searching for a Shopify topic, be sure to filter your top picks by niche. Fortunately, the Shopify theme store makes it easy to find themes by niche and number of products.
5. Design and aesthetics
Global e-retail sales total a whopping 4.2 trillion US dollars.
To get a part of global ecommerce promotion, you need to attract and retain customers for your ecommerce business. This is key to growing a successful Shopify ecommerce business.
Attracting customers can be achieved through search engine optimization (SEO) best practices such as keyword research.
However, customer loyalty on your website is all about your design and aesthetics. The right Shopify theme simplifies design by offering:
- an attractive storefront
- Color palettes that match your brand
- clean and easy to understand user interface
A well-designed Shopify store not only looks amazing, it also drives more conversions.
6. Prefer lightweight, mobile-friendly Shopify themes
Website speed is critical to online success as it can affect search rankings, conversions, and bounce rate. To give visitors the fast page speed they want, you need a fast, easy topic.
Light topics focus more on performance and avoid frequently busy elements like animations, fancy scrollers, and other unnecessary features that increase the size of the file.
Another benefit of lightweight themes is that they are designed to be simple. Your main goal is to help customers find their way around your store and carry out the actions they have taken.
To provide a fast, easy-to-use website, choose a mobile-friendly theme.
7. Optimized checkout
Studies show that the average e-commerce store loses around 75 percent of its sales by abandoning shopping carts. The same studies show that one of the main reasons the cart abandoned is a complicated checkout process.
Because of this, you need to make sure that the Shopify theme you choose has a streamlined checkout experience.
The best Shopify designs have a quick and intuitive buying process, well-designed add to cart buttons, and an easy way to check the total cost.
Simplifying the ordering process should be a priority. So make sure the topic you choose makes this as easy as possible.
3 Examples of Great Shopify Themes
Now that you know how to choose a suitable Shopify theme for your business. Before you head out to find yours, let's take a look at some great Shopify topics and discuss what makes them stand out from the crowd. Maybe you will find just the thing for you here!
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is one of the best free Shopify themes out there.
The theme is designed for the clothing and accessories niche. Because of this, it focuses on branding by allowing you to showcase your inventory with stunning graphics. Some notable features include:
- A pull-out trolley: Helps customers simply add items to their shopping cart without leaving the current page.
- Homepage slide show: Use the top of your homepage to showcase multiple products or branding images.
- Video integration: Get noticed, tell your story and showcase your best products in action by posting a YouTube or Vimeo video on your page.
If you're looking to pioneer your path to ecommerce success in the clothing niche, Brooklyn is the Shopify theme to help you get there. (Did I mention it's free?)
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Are you looking for a lightweight and easy to use Shopify theme that will allow you to quickly set up a stunning store?
The $ 180 Icon Shopify theme could be exactly what you're looking for.
One of Icon's greatest strengths is the support of omnichannel marketing campaigns. This is thanks to the seamless integration of social media and a blog that supports your content marketing. Other functions are:
- Sticky navigation: Keeps your menus at the top of your page as customers scroll down.
- Product quick view: Customers can view product details in a popup so they don't have to leave the current page
- Multi-column menu: Helps you display product images in a large, multi-column drop-down menu.
As the name suggests, Icon is a Shopify theme that can be used to build a legendary ecommerce store and generate lots of sales.
Expression
Do you have a large inventory of products?
Then you need a Shopify theme that will allow you to display them all beautifully. Your topic should also make it easier for your customers to find what they're looking for.
Expression is one of the best Shopify themes that can help you achieve this and more.
This is because some of the theme's standout features include drop-down menu bars, advanced search capabilities, and a dynamic slideshow.
Other notable features that you can expect are:
- Versatile sidebar area: You can use your sidebar to view blog posts, pictures, ads, and more.
- Product image rollover: Hovering your mouse over products will display different product images, giving customers a clearer picture before buying.
- Grid layout: This allows you to showcase multiple products or promotions in a grid layout across your store.
Expression gives you $ 180 back, but it's well worth the investment as it lets you create an ecommerce store with eye-catching graphics. It is also designed to make your promotions stand out and thereby drive more conversions.
Conclusion
The e-commerce space is growing rapidly as more and more entrepreneurs open e-commerce stores. One of the most trusted platforms for starting a business is Shopify. When designing your store, pay close attention to the Shopify theme you are using.
Remember, your topic affects the following:
- User experience
- aesthetics
- performance
All three factors have a huge impact on your conversion rates.
What Shopify topics are you familiar with? What do you like about that?
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