Basic Guide to Shopify Themes (Free & Premium)
It is not an exaggeration to point out that Shopify has become an important part of the success of millions of online businesses in the world. Shopify might be known for its user-friendly tools and interface, but successfully utilizing those is extremely difficult.
In recent years, there has been a debate regarding the comparison between free & paid themes, as well as the best themes that could convert to sales. In this article, we will discuss the importance of themes at Shopify, the differences between free and premium Shopify themes, and powerful Shopify themes to enhance your online stores.
Why do you need to consider your Shopify themes seriously?
Do you know that roughly 75% of online customers emphasize only on the website design to judge the integrity of an online business? Most of you might also have the experience when you lost interest because the looks and functionality of an online store are not good. In other words, the theme of your online store could be the key that leads you to success.
You might think that it is relatively easy to set up the good looks and appearance of your online store. However, it is more complicated than you think. As an example, even the most outstanding theme might not be suitable for your products due to the contrast in colors, product positioning that emphasizes your website design more than the attractiveness of your products, etc. Designing your website by picking suitable colors and product placement is important.
The functionality of your online store is even more important. Depending on the functions of your websites, it will affect the seamless process of the customer journey from the beginning until the purchasing step. Complicated functions or lack of functions/tools in your online store will slow down the process of the customer journey and resulting in the loss of sales.
Obviously, the theme is not everything. It still depends on your products, marketing, etc. Nonetheless, we believe that picking and designing themes correctly are essential in the success of E-commerce. In the above paragraphs, we have mentioned the importance of appearance and functions. In detail, they are reflected by a clean & customizable design, responsive (PC & Mobile), SEO responsive, and has a reliable coding.
Shopify Themes: Free & Paid
Some people mentioned that using paid themes is needed to get more sales. They are not fully wrong, but it does not mean that free themes could not convert to sales. Even free themes in Shopify are powerful enough to bring in great appearance and functions. In addition to this, since Shopify is specialized in E-commerce solutions, their free themes have enough built-in tools that you could utilize to set up a successful online store. Nonetheless, we believe that without a paid theme, you will lose sales in the long term. Let’s see what paid themes provide that free themes do not.
1. Outstanding Functions
Both free and paid themes provide us with key functions, but only the paid ones have outstanding functions. To summarize, the paid themes have a home page video, products slideshow, customer reviews, and product recommendations.
You might think it is just a home page video. However, never underestimates the power of storytelling in marketing. Storytelling through videos can give a brief overview of your concepts and motivation of your brand. Thus, connect you and your customers better.
Products slideshow is also ideal to tell your customers your products/service easier, and customer reviews have the ability to convince potential customers to buy your products. In addition to this, paid themes also provide functions that simplify customers’ checkout process.
While you can use a free theme and add more add-ons, it is always more reliable especially as beginners to have more built-in tools to enhance the performance of your websites. This is also possible using the paid themes of Shopify. Unique built-in tools that paid themes provided are the quick-buy button, integration with Instagram feeds, product filtering, and many more.
2. Mobile-First
It is estimated that more than 50% of online purchase is done through mobile devices. Therefore, it is important that your Shopify theme be mobile-friendly. We believe that almost all Shopify themes are mobile-friendly. However, mobile-first is only achievable using Shopify paid themes.
Mobile-first is simply defined as maximizing digital marketing through putting content and designing the websites efficiently for all users using different devices. We do notice that mobile-friendly does not always lead to sales conversion, and mobile-first website has a higher chance for sales conversion.
While paid themes could boost the performance of your online stores by providing better functions and appearance, it does mean that free themes could not convert to sales. A great designing using free themes could provide great functions and appearance as well. Some successful online stores outside there still use free themes, but paid themes could be better in the long run for your stores.
Shopify Themes Recommendations
As we have mentioned above, you need to pick your themes considering many factors such as your products, designing skills, others. However, we could recommend reliable and famous themes for free and paid.
Free:
1. Simple
2. Venture
3. Narrative
Paid:
1. Prestige
2. ShowTime
3. Pipeline
Conclusion
Choosing the perfect themes for your online stores is essential because website design is the ‘face’ of your online business and you need to have a good appearance and functions embedded in your websites. While paid themes provide you with a better appearance and more functions, free themes can also do the same with good designing skills. However, paid themes are seen as a long-term investment and better for your websites in the long run.
We hope you have a clearer understanding of Shopify themes after reading our article.