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Did you know that you don’t have to be a coding genius to create your eCommerce website with Shopify? They offer many pre-built themes perfect for any business: from spa and beauty brands to arts and crafts supplies shops.
Although the store design possibilities are unlimited, your budget is not. Typically, established brands have a large budget and in-house developers handle all the backend and front-end technical issues.
This article will highlight some of the best Shopify themes for your eCommerce websites. Whether you want something clean and minimal, or prefer something quirkier with animations, there are many options. Let’s get started!
What Are Shopify Themes?
Shopify themes are templates designed specifically for online stores to facilitate an easy buying experience. They usually include all the necessary pages, such as product and category pages, a shopping cart, checkout, and an about page.
Shopify themes are built on top of the Shopify platform and can be customized using the product builder. They also come with built-in SEO functionality, which allows you to optimize your store for search engines.
Using a pre-made Shopify theme will save you time and development costs from having to design and code everything from scratch. They already incorporate technical items like HTML, CSS, JS, Liquid, and picture files to create the store’s front-end. Most features are drag-and-drop so that you can create pages quickly and without code.
To learn more about Shopify best practices, check out this resource on ways to enhance your Shopify store design.
Should You Use Shopify Themes?
It depends. Shopify themes are suitable for startups and DIYers on a limited budget. The themes make it easy to build a professional-looking website that suits their needs and matches their brands. For larger brands, themes are a great starting point to build custom coded features that may not be available in the theme template.
Here are five reasons to consider Shopify themes for your eCommerce website.
1. Cost-Effective for Startups - Building a complete eCommerce store from scratch can cost $12,000 to $150,000. You can get started free by downloading Shopify themes or for a nominal fee starting at $180.
2. Customize Without Using a Developer - Shopify themes allow customization. You can select colors, font, layout, and navigation, to match the branding. Should you need a developer to make the customizations for you, it will be less expensive than building the theme from the ground up.
3. Easy To Use - Shopify themes work as soon as you download them. They are relatively easy to customize and change as your product selections evolve.
4. Already Mobile Responsive - It’s hard for an eCommerce store to remain competitive without being responsive on mobile. 79% of mobile phone users purchased goods online with their mobile devices in the last 6 months. Fortunately, Shopify themes are 100% mobile responsive.
5. Installs Quickly - Building a custom eCommerce website can take months. A Shopify theme installs in a few minutes. Once you upload the theme and populate it with your products, you are open for business!
To help you choose from thousands of themes, we’ve narrowed the choices to five of the most successful Shopify themes.
Top 5 Shopify Themes
You can find a Shopify theme suitable for your niche and catalog. Check out the on-page reviews section for more information. Shopify does a good job of giving suggestions and handling customer feedback for each theme. You can also “View Demo Store” and try a theme that you like.
Here are five of the best Shopify theme:
1. Dawn
The dawn theme sets up fast and loads 35% faster than the theme it replaces: Debut. It uses more HTML and CSS and less JavaScript. That means it’s light and nimble for startups who need to customize their stores in the back end and upload the storefront quickly.
It has an easy-to-use interface and drag-and-drop components, which you can change in real-time. Dawn includes all the advanced dynamic features of Operating System 2.0, making integration with extensions and apps much better.
Although it doesn’t have the support of a paid theme, if you are on a tight budget, Dawn is a great way to launch your Shopify store quickly. The Dawn theme will work for you if you use images primarily to sell your products.
2. Expanse
The Expanse theme is the right choice for drop shippers, online stores with high-SKU volume, and physical stores with large catalogs, menu lists, and animations. Some verticals include food & beverage, health & beauty, and home & garden.
Expanse makes it easy for shoppers to add products to their cart while staying on the page to continue shopping. It includes native, mobile-friendly upsell options in the cart too. There is no need for an expensive third-party app to suggest specific products on the cart, drop-down, or page.
Another advantage is that merchants can use Expanse to add non-commerce pages to help improve SEO, drive traffic and customer engagement. Shopify Expanse theme provides complete creative control, such as promo banners, image rollover, slide-out cart features, and many other options for your customers.
3. Warehouse
As the name implies, the Warehouse theme works well for more extensive catalogs like electronics, home & garden, sports, and recreation eCommerce stores. It’s a good choice for drop shippers and international businesses.
The Warehouse theme features a mega menu, allowing customers to view all the collections and sub-collections of products for easier navigation. It includes a robust filter feature that lets customers find products based on their criteria such as color, size, etc.
There are two features based on Amazon’s success that merchants appreciate: the "Buy-It-Now" button and predictive search. The “Buy-It-Now” button lets shoppers buy with one click and sends them directly to the checkout page for a quick sale. The predictive search feature displays product suggestions and images as the customer types in their search keywords. The Warehouse theme includes those features to allow for a quick and easy customer buying experience.
4. Icon
Shopify designed the Icon theme for brands with image-focused content and larger product lines. Drop shippers and stores that process large numbers of transactions will appreciate the functionality.
One of the best features is parallax scrolling images. Images appear in 3D, and shoppers can zoom in to sections of a product image. The Icon theme displays effortlessly on any device. Developed by We are Underground, this theme has a 4.6-star rating and comes with free support.
The theme supports all the necessary integrations for merchandising like animations, galleries, zoom, hotspots, and color swatches, to name a few. The theme makes it easy to set up cross-selling opportunities and other promotions.
5. Prestige
Check out the Prestige theme if you sell high-end products. You can apply editorial or visual content to sell products in niches such as fashion, accessories, health, beauty, business equipment, and supplies.
The Prestige theme offers three styles to highlight your products and customize your store’s appearance: the Allure style, Couture style, and Vogue style. The key features include image hotspot linking, high-resolution images, and home page menu lists for easier navigation.
Prestige is very SEO-friendly. It is simple to add metadata and descriptions to enhance your store’s SEO.
Choose any of these themes to help you build your eCommerce site and once you are ready to scale, check out this resource on Shopify features that can boost your eCommerce sales.
When You are Ready to Scale
A pre-built Shopify theme is a great way to start your eCommerce journey. As you grow, your website will need greater functionality and quality. Think of an “off-the-rack suit” vs. a custom-tailored suit.
Eventually, a pre-built theme won’t keep up with customer demand or the size of your catalog. That’s when it’s cost-effective to bring in an expert to customize your Shopify store to handle the volume of traffic, transactions, and products.
If you're new to Shopify and want to get started start, Shopify offers a Free Trial that you can test-drive for 30 days to see how you like the platform and it's features.
