How to choose a Shopify theme
by Andrew Cox
What are Shopify themes?
Shopify themes are e-commerce designed templates that you can use as a foundation to design and develop your online store. Most themes are carefully crafted to help you showcase your products in the best light possible, enticing customers to make a purchase.
How to choose a Shopify theme
Let's dive deeper into the UI and aesthetics of Shopify stores by taking a closer look at Shopify themes. We’ll also be discussing how to choose the right one for you.
First impressions matter. In the space of a few seconds, a potential customer will form an opinion of your store that will fall somewhere between “Oh wow…” and “Yuck”.
But store design isn’t just crucial for attracting attention - it also needs to inspire confidence, help the customer find what they’re looking for, and ultimately enable a purchase.
Different Shopify themes look and behave differently. If they’re free, you can test them before implementing them. If they’re not, you should gather enough information about them to make an informed decision. Whatever the case, you have to know what you’re looking for.
Here are 6 things that you should consider when choosing a theme:
#1 Consider your brand
Who is your target audience? What do you want your brand to mean to them? Think about how you want them to feel when they visit your site. Classy and chic, or urban and rebellious?
Consider how the theme would look in your preferred colour combination and layout.
With that said, don’t base your choice solely on template colours or fonts, as you can customise these things later on.
If you have a clear target persona, find a few people who fit that criteria and ask them which theme they prefer. Narrow down the selection to a maximum of three choices and see what they think.
#2 Make a list of must-have features
Outline what you want your store to offer.
- What kind of campaigns are you planning to run?
- What kind of promotions will you offer?
- What are you going to track?
- Will you rely on social media to acquire customers?
- How do you want to present your products?
If you aren’t quite sure what you want yet, go through some themes and write down any features that you like.
Ideally, you want to find a theme that has most of your must-have features already, as it will improve your store and cut down on development costs in the future.
#3 Think about your inventory
If you’re crafting and selling a small number of unique products, you don’t need a theme that has been built to handle hundreds of categories and thousands of products; a lot of its features will be of no use to you. On the other hand, you want your homepage to look as stunning as possible, so you should find a template which allows this to happen.
And vice versa - if you have a huge inventory, you need a template that can accommodate it.
#4 How do you want to present your products?
Finding a template that matches your offering can give you a competitive edge.
Your customers can’t get a real feel for the products, so they have to rely on your visuals and descriptions.
If you’re selling fashion and beauty products, you’ll want to display a lot of high-resolution photos which clearly demonstrate all of the hues and best features.
If you’re selling gadgets and hi-tech devices, you can go for a sleek and minimalist design that makes your flagship items stand out. You may also want to implement a video presentation of each product, and you’ll certainly need to have a clear and compelling description of its features.
Evaluate the amount of text, photos and video that you want to display, then look at the theme, keeping all of those factors in mind.
#5 Is your theme intuitive?
Once you’ve chosen a theme, you should make sure that it’s intuitive to use.
Shopping must be effortless - it shouldn’t require your customers to spend an unnecessary amount of time trying to figure out where everything is.
The structure must be well-defined and neatly organized. It really shouldn’t differ too much from standard layouts that people are already accustomed to, as unfamiliarity creates confusion. Your template should also be mobile-friendly and compatible across different browsers. CTA buttons (‘Buy now’, ‘Add to cart’, etc.) must be clearly visible and easy to find.
You can test some of these things yourself, but I’d also suggest finding three people from your target customer group and letting them use the theme, even if it’s by looking at another store. Ask for feedback and see if they think that the theme is user friendly and intuitive.
#6 What's your budget?
The Shopify theme store offers both free and paid themes.
Free themes are themes that Shopify has designed and developed. Paid themes have been designed and developed by 3rd party vendors.
Free themes tend to have less bells and whistles and simpler designs.
"Remember that while premium themes often offer more features, a free Shopify theme can be just as effective if it aligns well with your brand and meets your functional requirements." - Neil Patel
#6 Don’t forget about support
All free Shopify themes are supported directly by Shopify through the Theme Support team. However, all third-party developers have their own team and you really need to do your research and see what people think about the help being offered. The last thing that you want is an unresponsive support team while you struggle with your new store.
Navigating the Shopify theme store
Shopify theme types
The Shopify theme store offers a range of theme types for a range of:
- Large inventories - if you've got lots of products
- Minimalist - looking for clean and simple? Start here
- Big, beautiful imagery - if you've got beautiful images
- Grid-style layout - products arranged in grid format
- Themes with sections -
Shopify theme industries
Sorting Shopify themes
There are five ways that you can sort themes in the Shopify theme store:
- Most Popular
- Most Recent
- Price (low to high)
- Price (high to low)
- Alphabetical
Things to keep in mind
1. Design is personal
We don’t all like the same designs. You need to pick a design that you think reflects your brand and stay true to it.
2. Follow the experts
Big brands and big online stores spend thousand of dollars designing, testing and tweaking their websites. Their sites look the way they do because it works. Don’t try and be clever with your site. Choose a theme that sticks to ecommerce norms – nothing too new and funky as it can confuse your customer.
3. Images are everything
Some themes rely more on images than others. For example some themes have one main image that covers the entire screen above the fold. For a site to look good with this theme it will need to have killer images. If you don’t have killer images, don’t choose this theme. Choose a theme that relies on a larger number of smaller images.
4. Get functional
Before you make your final decision on a theme make a list of the functionality that you would like the store to have. Visit other sites you love and write down the must have features for your store. A lot of the must have features are discussed in this manifesto so you can use this as a checklist. Then cross reference this list against your short list of themes. Try to pick the theme that has most of the your must have features already packaged into the theme. It will save you time, money and improve your customer experience.
The Essentials
To help you reduce the number of choices – here are some key elements that your theme must have or be:
Responsive
Your site needs to adjust its layout for different screen sizes. This ensures that there is a good user experience on all devices. Most of the Shopify themes are now responsive but double-check first.
Work on ALL major browsers
Your site needs to look good and work on all major browsers. Double check this by testing on all the most used browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
Fast loading
Web users expect your site to load in 2 - 3 secs. Make sure the theme you select is fast to load and keep images clear but small in size. You can check the load time of a template using Pingdom tools.
