As you know, a Shopify theme can turn a business into an overnight success or into a total failure. Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but you get my point – it is important.

The looks and performance of your store leaves the biggest impression on customers at first. By having a stylish, well-functioning, and professional theme, you ensure that your business is on the right track. 

Today, we will let you in on all of my secrets and give you the best tips on how to find the best Shopify theme.

So, buckle up and let’s get started. 

What to Look for When Choosing A Shopify Theme?

Choosing the right theme isn’t just about finding something that looks good and has a standout design. It’s much more than that. Your theme has to be aligned with your brand’s personality and color schemes, as it is just one additional way to present your company to the world.

Now, let’s talk about some key aspects you should pay attention to while on the hunt for a Shopify theme.

Main Features & Functions

Think about all the features you want and need for your store. Write them down. Now that you know what you’re looking for, you can begin your search.

It’s important to determine which of these features are “nice to have” and which are “must-haves”. That way you know what sacrifices you can make while picking up a theme for your store.

Our advice is to look for themes that have most of the features you want. In case there are one or two things that are missing, you can always get a developer to do them later. If you want to cut down on cost, then look for a theme that has all of the features from the get-go, so you spare development costs.

Look for Niche-Specific Themes

There are thousands of Shopify themes currently available on the internet and you will go crazy if you start looking through them all. That’s why ‘filtering’ is a pro tip for saving time, so you only see themes that are related to your market segment. So, while hunting for a perfect store theme, consider what is your niche, how many products you plan on selling, and which advanced functionalities you may need.

Search for Mobile-Friendly Options

Users love fast-loading websites. Speed is such an important factor when it comes to SEO ranking. According to online portals, around 40% of users will close a website if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds.

In order for your store to be fast and responsive, it needs to run a lightweight, optimized
theme. The focus of such themes is on high performance, thus they tend to lack crazy
animations, fancy scrollers, and other unnecessary details.

Most lightweight themes are also simple and minimalistic. These themes aim to make website navigation easy. In recent times, more and more people are doing their shopping online on their mobile devices, thus such lightweight themes are perfect for stores. It promises consumer satisfaction and in turn, creates a good image for the brand. 

Optimized Checkout Process

Look for themes that offer an easy two or three-step checkout process. Research shows that businesses lose a ton of potential sales due to long and demanding checkout processes. So, make sure you avoid that.

Our recommendation is to look for Shopify themes that have well-designed add-to-cart buttons and that allow for changes to be made to the checkout form. That way, you can simplify the process even further by only requesting the information you absolutely need. Remember, a happy customer will always come back. 

Great Design & Aesthetics

One of the most challenging aspects of eCommerce is retaining people on your website. Nowadays, we are bombarded with pictures and information. So, it’s really difficult to get someone’s attention for a longer period of time.

One way to achieve this is by having a store that is aesthetically pleasing and attractive.
In our opinion, the right Shopify theme is always the simplest one. It has an attractive
storefront. It has colors that match those of your brand. And most importantly, it has an
easy-to-use interface.

Now, you know what to look for when searching for the perfect Shopify theme, so let’s
take a look at our favorite themes, both free and paid for.

Best Free Shopify Themes You Should Look for in 2021

Startups are usually a bit tight on money and are always looking for ways to cut costs whenever possible. For these ventures, I always advise that one should simply choose free themes at the beginning. You can find tons of great options available online, so you’ll still be able to create a professional-looking, responsive store. 

Let’s take a look at some of the best free themes out there.

1. Debut –  A Light Tone Theme

Debut is a free of charge, light-in-tone Shopify theme that’s ideal for stores that have a carefully curated selection of products. Even though it has a simple design, it still packs a lot of premium features.

Features of Debut

Product Filtering

This feature lets customers filter the products they desire, whenever they are searching for a product on your website. Let’s say, you sell furniture. There is a customer on your site, looking for chairs and tables only. Now, with the filter option, they can get rid of all the unwanted products that may cramp up the search result. 

Multi-Level Menus

Debut allows its users to create a menu and a submenu below it. This makes product categorization a lot easier for both you and your customers since you can section the store well. 

Promotional Banners

Do you know those small lines that contain text and run on the top side of websites? This is called a promotional banner.  With Debut, you can feature these promotional banners on your website. They come in handy when you want to offer promo codes or promote sales. 

Pros & Cons of Debut

Pros

• Demo versions available for the desktop and mobile 
• Clean and minimalistic style
• Easy to use interface 
• Packed with additional features

Cons

• Not ideal for companies that have a large selection of products 

I would personally recommend the Debut theme for more artistic, exclusive businesses that focus on style and love minimalism. 

2. Minimal – A Modern Design Theme

Minimal is the perfect theme for fashion retail stores. It has a clean, simple design that
offers its users the option to neatly organize a variety of products with ease. It also has
optional features like slideshow and product videos that can help attract more
customers.

Features Of Minimal

Slideshow

Minimal lets its users add several banners, include announcements, and even add product images in a slideshow format. Another good thing is that you can make these images clickable which will lead customers to their desired page. 

Video On The Home Page

There are very few themes that allow you to put a video on your home page and Minimal is one of them. 

Product Image Zoom 

This is a feature that a lot of companies use, so basically,  whenever customers hover their mouse above a product image, it will automatically zoom them in. 

Pros & Cons of Minimal 

Pros

• Minimal is great for stores that have a large inventory but still want a clean and simple design
• A combination of vintage and modern design makes it a perfect match for fashion boutiques
• Terrific for start-ups as it is free to use

Cons

• Looks generic at times

Minimal is my personal go-to theme for stores that deal with clothes and accessories. It is simple, yet elegant and can be used for a variety of different products. 

3. Brooklyn – A Classic Theme

This theme is called Brooklyn and it honestly looks and feels like New York City. It has a classic, yet modern vibe. It’s the perfect theme for contemporary stores that are into selling more exclusive products that appeal to modern society and urban customers.

Features Of Brooklyn

Dynamic Product Display

If you start using the Brooklyn theme, you will notice that the website will automatically adjust the spacing of photos to make them look more liquid. This means that even if you upload only two images, to a row that can fit five, the theme will automatically fill in space, so it doesn’t look empty.

Slide Out Cart

I really enjoy using this feature as a customer. It allows you to view your cart, while still searching for other items in the store. This way you don’t have to go back and forth between the product page and the checkout page. It really simplifies the checkout process and can quickly boost sales.

Image Slideshow

With this theme, you can use slideshows as a way to market different products. On each slide, you can put an image of the product and on the other side you can add an important message about the product or even about the company.

Pros & Cons of Brooklyn

Pros

• Sleek, unique, and  modernised design
• Available for both desktops and mobile version
• Versatile and can suit different businesses 

Cons

• Doesn’t fit well enough for every niche 

For me, Brooklyn would be a perfect fit for an art store that sells exclusive products. It can also be used for something like a tattoo parlor, as the theme carries an artsy vibe.

4. Venture – The Outdoorsy Theme

When I look at Venture, I imagine myself hiking around mountains, hunting, and lighting
fires. It’s a theme that gives you an adventurous feel. It has the ability to speak to
extroverts that love the adrenaline rush and the presence of mother nature.

Features of Venture

Single Featured Product

This is a great feature to have if you really want to emphasize one product. It lets you highlight an item and put it in the centre of the page. It can come in handy when you have to do promotions, or you have a new and  an exclusive item in the store. 

Product Filtering

Venture is a theme best suited for large stores that have a lot of products in their inventory. It’s a very useful feature for customers, as they don’t have to spend a lot of time mindlessly scrolling through the store until they find the desired product. Instead, with product filtering, they can customize their search and only see items that interest them.

Multi-column Menu 

This is yet another useful feature for bigger stores. With Venture, you get a multi-column drop-down menu that features product details and images. That way, your customer will see the content of each menu, right as they click on it. 

Pros & Cons of Venture

Pros

• Tailor-made for stores with large product catalogues
• Offers the option to create a highlight for flagship products
• Very fast and responsive 

Cons

• A niche-focused theme for a specific type of business

I would recommend Venture to all entrepreneurs that sell products in one of the following categories: 

• Hiking
• Outdoor adventure
• Extreme sports
• Winter sports

5. Prestige – A Classy Theme

Prestige is the go-to option for all the sellers of premium products. The theme oozes style, class, and minimalism. It supports high-definition product images, which makes it perfect for showcasing the detail of exclusive items.

Features Of Prestige

Image Hotspot Linking

Image hotspot linking is a lot like tagging your friends in Facebook photos. However,
instead of people, here you can choose to tag a certain product in a picture and thus
lead the customers to the product page from where they can purchase the item.

It works great for businesses that rely on visual aspects for the sale of their products. 

Social Media Icons

With Prestige, you can integrate your social media apps into your store. The theme offers icons not only for Instagram and Facebook, but also for Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter.

You can add the icons to the top of your page or at the bottom, depending on your preferences.

Story Timeline

Customers love to know the history of a company as it makes them relate more to the brand. It makes them feel like a part of the brand. Thus, making them a long time users and loyal customers. 

The Prestige Theme offers you a “timeline section”, where you can add special dates for your company and short texts that tell customers what happened during these dates. For example, you can add the year 2016 and then add a short write up that says the company was founded in the same year. 

The timeline feature can be used on your landing page, as it helps build the reputation of your company in the eyes of potential customers.

Pros & Cons of Prestige

Pros

• Comes with an option to build a visual timeline to tell your brand’s story
• Perfect for companies that rely on great images and storytelling for marketing
• Excellent customer service team that’s ready to assist at all times

Cons

• This theme can look plain if it’s not redesigned correctly

When I look at Prestige, I imagine stylish restaurants in Paris, beautiful, well-dressed people, with class and elegance. That’s why I find it perfect for stores that offer premium products. This theme is quite elegant and it provokes a sense of sophistication in customers. 

Best Paid Shopify Themes – Super Helpful for Outcompeting

Free themes are a stellar option for companies that have just created a name for themselves in the market and don’t have the budget to cover larger expenses. But things are different when you have the money to spare. 

In my opinion, if you’ve got the finance part under control, you should definitely take a look at the paid options, which are within your budget.

Read on to know more about the best paid themes on the market here: 

1. Ella – The Five Star Hit

Ella is the most popular theme on Envato Market. It has a 5-star rating and over 16k downloads. If you take a look at it, you will understand why this theme has become such a big hit with creators out there. 

For just $69, you get a versatile theme with multiple layouts and styles that give you the needed flexibility to create your own design.

Features of Ella Shopify Theme

Seamless Checkout Process

Ella has multiple cool features related to the “add-to-cart” feature. When the customer wants to purchase an item, instead of refreshing the whole website, Ella just refreshes the cart icon at the top of the page, thus making the user experience more enjoyable. 

Another special feature is the “drop-down cart” feature. This lets the users see the whole content of their cart in a list, when they click on the cart icon.

Infinite Scrolling

Instead of having to go to the next page to view products, you can enable Ella’s infinite scroll feature. With this feature you can just let customers freely browse the product page without needing to click anywhere else. 

This is a really great feature as it helps boost your store’s SEO ranking and helps you garner more organic traffic. 

Out of Stock Notification

Whenever a product is out of stock, you can enable this feature and let customers submit a form, so they can get notified whenever the item is back on the website. By doing this, you can make sure you don’t lose any potential customers just because a product was not available at the moment. 

Pros & Cons of Ella

Pros

• An integration with Instagram Shop makes it great for brands with a big social media presence
• Offers smart search and product suggestions, which helps boost sales
• Great customization and fast loading

Cons

• Best-suited for only those stores that sell a lot of products 

I recommend Ella to all owners of fashion eCommerce stores, as I deem it to be the best fit for that type of business niche. It has a really modern style and it’s terrific at showcasing a variety of products. 

2. Parallax Effect – A Theme for A Visual Experience

Parallax is a Shopify theme created by ‘Out of the Sandbox’, and it mainly focuses on visual storytelling. This theme offers a ton of cool features including multi-level menus, which make site navigation easy for customers.

This Shopify theme also has the parallax effect, which allows the user to see an object from various perspectives, 

thus creating a feeling of movement as the users scroll through the store website. 

Features of Parallax Effect

Quick Shop

By using this feature, you let users open a condensed version of the product page, without having to leave the one they are currently on. This way, they can get more information about an item and even add it to the cart without getting redirected across the website. 

Promotional Banner

This feature helps the brand to draw the attention of site visitors to the current offers, promotions, or sales you’re doing in the store.

By having a good promotional banner active, you can show your customers that they can get a great value offer immediately, without having to earn a membership first. 

Video Content 

The Parallax theme lets you feature videos on both your home and product pages. It is
a really great option to have, because the visual medium is sometimes the best way to
market certain products.

Pros & Cons of Parallax

Pros

• Has the ability to incorporate videos on the store
• A really cool checkout process, due to the slide-out cart feature
• Fantastic customer support ready to assist at all times

Cons

• One of the more expensive themes on the market which costs around $180

Parallax is a great option for eCommerce businesses that offer a service, instead of a
product. This theme is built in a way that emphasizes storytelling and so it can help
create a real connection with customers. If you are a brand that focuses on content
marketing, we feel Parallax is a good option for you.

3. Turbo – The All-Around Theme

Turbo is a true powerhouse when it comes to Shopify themes. It is an eye-catching
theme, designed to be fast and mobile-friendly. It is an outstanding choice for stores
with large product catalogs, especially Shopify Plus merchants, as it is able to handle a
huge amount of traffic.

Along with this, Turbo has outstanding features including call-to-action buttons,
predictive search, and advanced layouts.

Features Of Turbo

Creates a Lookbook

This is a terrific feature, especially for a fashion store, as it allows you to build a lookbook of pictures that show how your products are being worn or used. This can serve as a great marketing tool, as people love to look at beautiful pictures and imagine themselves as the ones using/wearing the item.

Advanced Mega Menu

With the advanced mega menu, you can combine a lot of elements such as menus, text, and images into an endless combination in the layout. It’s a great choice for stores that have large inventories. You can use this feature to promote sales, featured items, or upcoming collections, as it allows customers to see images instead of text and makes navigation more intuitive.

Predictive Search

This theme has a unique, professional feature called ‘predictive search’. If you choose to utilize it, your customers will be able to quickly look for what they want. It helps them to save time and massively improves the customer experience, as it makes navigation easier. 

Pros & Cons of Turbo

Pros

• Multiple designs make it suitable for various niches
• Updated for free on a regular basis
• Offers a lookbook or gallery page which is good for stores that sell clothing 

Cons

• Such great features come at a price which ends up at $350

Turbo is an outstanding choice for bigger companies and enterprises. It is very fast,
mobile-friendly, has tons of different designs and layouts, and various premium features.
It can be a bit too pricey for start-ups and small scale business models, but is a great fit
for bigger projects.

4. Roxxe – Great Value For Money

Now, it’s about time that I introduce you guys to an all-around Shopify theme. Roxxe is a multi-purpose theme that can work for stores in almost every industry. Roxxe’s features are easily adaptable and the design can quickly be changed, depending on your needs.

One of the best things about Roxxe is that it has several themes integrated into it, with different skins made for specific industries – from automobiles to baby products. 

Features of Roxxe Shopify Theme

Quick View

Roxxe allows customers to quickly review any product detail with a box pop-up, which gives them the needed information without redirecting them to another page. 

Another cool thing is that product pages come with review options and social sharing. Also, items are usually displayed in a grid format that lets viewers see most of the product line-up from the get-go.

Mega Menu 

This feature lets you customize a complex drop-down menu and create a specific structure for your store to suit your business model. This is especially useful if you own a store that has a lot of inventories and different product categories.

Header And Footer Optimization 

Customers have access to a powerful search module that helps them navigate the store. You can also display login and registration forms at the top of your screen and link social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

In the footer area, the theme provides a newsletter subscription form that helps you grow your email marketing list. 

Pros & Cons of Roxxe

Pros

• Cost-effective, as Roxxe, with all of its functions, costs only $39
• Quite versatile and can be used by a variety of industries 
• Fast and responsive, great for SEO optimization

Cons

• May look a bit too generic and doesn’t make your brand stand out from the competition

We would recommend this theme to just about any entrepreneur, regardless of their niche. It’s highly versatile, stylish, and modern. If the personalization is done correctly, it can work great for any company. 

5. Fastor – The Best-Selling Theme

Fastor won the 2019 Best Selling Shopify Theme Award on Themeforest. It’s a multipurpose, responsive, and well-designed theme, which is loved and preferred by many merchants. Fastor has over 87 demos and quite good extensions. It also gets constantly updated with cool and useful features.

Features Of Fastor

Built-in Pop-ups Tool

Fastor has a lot of built-in pop-up tools, which helps in engaging customers and
increases the conversion rate of your store. You can use the notification pop-up to
showcase your current sales or new products. It also lets you encourage purchases by
offering discount codes.

Store Customization Without Coding

This theme allows you to create banners, customize headers and add content in a very easy and simple way, without you needing to have any prior coding knowledge. It’s very intuitive and can be utilized even by people who have no prior experience in creating online stores. It also lets you put your own ideas in the designing of your website.

SEO Optimization 

Fastor has incredible speed, helping your store’s SEO ranking. But even more than that, the theme’s layout and navigation are made in a way that it gets your store noticed by the search engines. This can be of crucial importance for stores that have just started out, and it helps in building your organic reach, thus increasing your traffic. 

Pros & Cons of Fastor

Pros

• Highly economical – $39
• Advanced product filters are amazing
• A sales badge that would eventually increase the revenue

Cons

• Fastor gets a tad bit overused because it’s one of the most purchased themes 

Fastor is an all-around, great theme for any kind of eCommerce store. We really don’t think you can go wrong by picking it. However, if you are using this theme, then you should focus on customising the design of the theme to make your brand stand out from the crowd. 

Final Words

There are many places that offer beautiful and responsive Shopify themes, and there are a dozen different themes available for every kind of eCommerce store that exists under the sun. 

Thus, we want you to remember that there’s no such thing as a universally perfect
option. Each theme has a unique usage and your job as a business owner is to find the
one that fits your project.

We all must have heard the saying, Don’t judge a book by its cover. As good as it sounds, the ground reality of Shopify theme often turn out different. Visual objects appeal to human beings more than we think. Whatever information we receive through our eyes, we carve all those different emotions and beliefs based on how something looks.

It’s human nature and thus, unalterable. 

In our case, if your store doesn’t look polished and professional, you will fall short in generating a ton of sales and you might lose out on having that sharp spike in the growth curve of your business.

However, it’s not a no-hassle task to achieve that shiny and sleek look of your store, especially when you’re just starting out.

So I’m here to help you find the best places for some elegant Shopify themes.

Importance of Having A Beautiful Shopify Theme 

Even if you think that products, shipping rates, and customer service are the only factors that need everything to be perfected, you still need to have some time to focus on the way your store works and looks.

Before we dive right into the places, let’s just see what impact a beautiful Shopify theme can make and what should we look for while purchasing one.

First Impression is The Last Impression

When you’re just starting out and no one knows who you are and what you stand for, the first impression you leave on potential customers plays a pivotal role. This is It’s what separates successful start-ups from the ones that fail miserably.

Internet users have the attention span of a goldfish. Research shows that 40% of users will leave a website if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds. Now, what does that tell you? 

That quick load times are a must for customers, which indicates you should ensure your Shopify theme is fast and optimized for your store.

If you make the right choice, you can get a theme that kills two birds with one stone – fast and sleek.

Create A Long Lasting Brand Image

When your customers visit your store, “oh! It’s that brand!” should flash upon their minds. Your Shopify theme can be a wonderful way to do that. You can get customers acquainted with your brand image by using specific colours that fit your company’s style, along with your logo and other images. You can seamlessly make a lasting impression on viewers and really stand out from competitors this way. 

When people get a notion of your brand and they remember you by something, even as little as the logo or slogan, you will for sure start getting more sales. How many times it had happened to you that you remembered a brand by the colour of its logo or maybe the font of its landing page? Memorable brands have a better reputation, they seem like a legitimate business and not another generic, shady online shop.

Drive More Sales

The bottom line for any company is generating revenue and increasing sales. By creating a functional and visually appealing website, you ensure your potential customers an amazing experience.

By engaging audiences and creating a lasting impression you will be able to generate more traffic to the store and thus, get higher revenue.

Now that you know why Shopify themes matter, It’s a great time to you all about the best places to look for great Shopify themes.

Checkout the Shopify Theme Store

I’m starting off with the most obvious place possible – Shopify’s own theme store. And even though it may seem like a generic and easy place to look at, I can assure you will not be disappointed.

Let’s take a look at some of its stand-out features.

Key Features of Shopify Theme Store

Plethora of Choices 

What I love most about Shopify’s very own store is their inclusivity – they literally have something for everyone. When you look through the catalogue, you will find free themes, which is a good-to-go for startups with a lower budget, as they are professional without making a hole in your pocket.

For businesses with more financial freedom, the Shopify Store offers multiple premium paid themes that are made by professional designers and are sleek-looking and original.

Find the Right Fit For Your Brand

One really cool feature that the Shopify store offers is the option to filter themes by the industry in which you operate in. This helps you to cut down on time and saves you from scrolling for hours through ones that just wouldn’t fit, as you can view only the themes that fit your brand perfectly. 

There are a ton of industries available, so you can rest assured yours is somewhere in there too:

• Art & Photography
• Clothing & Fashion
• Jewellery & Accessories
• Electronics
• Food & Drinks
• Home & Garden
• Furniture
• Health & Beauty
• Sports & Recreation
• Toys & Games
• Other

Pros & Cons of Shopify Theme Store

Pros

• A vast array of options are available that fit every type of business model
• Has well-designed themes that are optimized for the platform
• Offers both free and paid options suited for every type of company

Cons

• It’s tough to stand out amongst competitors as too many companies use these themes

Even though it may seem like the most basic option out there, I still believe that the Shopify Theme Store is an excellent place for finding the right theme for your brand. I especially recommend it to start-ups, as a superb way to get a great design and functionality without any additional cost.

Out Of The Sandbox

Out of the Sandbox is one of the most popular theme sourcing tools on the market. It was created back in 2011, in Ontario, Canada, and has since gotten over 800 positive reviews on Shopify’s store.

Key Features of Out of the Sandbox

Beautiful designed, customizable themes 

Out of the Sandbox offers only 7 themes for Shopify stores. And you can say they’ve chosen quality over quantity. All of their designs are visually stunning, responsive and what’s even better? They are customizable.

What I love the most about Out of the Sandbox is that they have created themes that allow easy personalization, so you never feel like you’re just using a generic template. All of the themes get regular updates, which ensures that you will never miss out on a cool new Shopify feature.

Incredible Customer Service

If you’re a young entrepreneur, who is just starting his first store, you’ll need all the help you can get. That’s when you’ll start loving Out of the Sandbox. They have an incredible customer support team, that’s always there to assist when you need help setting up the theme on your store.

More than that, they have a ton of free resources available on their website, including a knowledge base for all theme-related topics.

Pros & Cons of Out of the Sandbox

Pros

• Offers beautifully designed and fully customizable themes
• Great customer support team and a great community that is always there for additional help
• The themes are fast and responsive, which is great for SEO

Cons

• Limited options as only 7 themes are available

Out of the Sandbox for me is the perfect choice for all those looking for a sure thing. When you get a theme from them, likely, it will be worth your time. 

Pixel Union 

If there’s a leading agency for creating Shopify stores, then it’s Pixel Union for sure. The company started operating back in 2009 and since then has amassed a list of impressive customers including Tesla, BBC, and The White House.

Let’s take a look at what makes them unique. 

Key Features of Union Shopify Themes

Beautifully customized Shopify themes 

A real stand-out feature of Pixel Union is the ability to create your own Shopify themes. If you want to have a personalized theme for your store, you can request one by writing to them directly.

Afterwards, they will design it exactly as you imagined. For that to happen, you simply have to give them as many details and information as possible, so they get a real sense of what you’re looking for.

You’ll also need to set a budget, as they can make themes that cost anywhere from $4 to $2000.

Special Shopify Theme Finder

Pixel Union has a really cool way to show you which exact theme will fit your store. It’s through an app on their website called ‘Shopify Theme Finder’. What does it do? It runs you through a questionnaire that aims to grasp the niche and size of your store. After you’ve answered the questions, it gives you a list of recommended themes that you can then select for your website.

Pros & Cons of Union

Pros

• A wide variety of theme options
• Great for businesses that want a custom-made Shopify theme
• Offers great support and a lot of resources to help out starting business

Cons

• Could be an expensive option, so it’s more exclusively available to more financially stable companies

Pixel Union is perhaps the best app for creating Shopify themes. It offers some pre-made beautifully designed ones, but moreover, it lets users create a custom option that actually fits the image of their brand. It’s a great option for businesses that want to stand out from the competition by having a personalized look and feel.

Troop Themes

Troop Themes is the place to go for companies that lean more towards the creative side of life. All of their themes are easy to customize, modular, and artistic looking. Troop Themes was created by a Canadian-based development team that strived to target more artistically inclined businesses.

Key Features of Troop Themes

Each Theme Has A Demo

Troop Themes offers its users the option to demo all of their themes, before making a purchase. That allows customers to make the best choice of several options without any confusion, as they can see exactly how each one will fit their store. I find this to be extremely effective, as oftentimes people get stuck between three options and waste too much time and effort trying to make the correct choice. The decision becomes much easier to make after going through the demos. 

Free Upgrades Are Always Available

Troop Themes are focused on keeping their customers happy and that’s why they try to give you many benefits free of charge. For example, once you purchase one of their themes, you get all of its updates automatically, without having to pay extra. I think that’s really cool, as it means that you are always up-to-date with the most recent features.

Pros & Cons of Troop Themes

Pros

• Automatic updates for every purchased theme
• A demo version is available for testing before buying
• Great integration with Shopify that creates a seamless experience

Cons

• Very limited choices of themes that are focused on one niche

Troop Themes has great options for those more creative-type businesses. It’s also a stellar choice, no matter how far along in your entrepreneurial journey you are. Their designs are a good fit for both budding start-ups and established companies.

Underground

Underground has provided Shopify themes since 2008. They’re one of the most experienced developers and are well-known for providing high-converting, gorgeous-looking designs.

Key Features of Underground Shopify Themes

Incredible Customization Ability

What makes Underground different from everyone else are its incredible, high-quality designs. Whenever you look at one of their themes, professionalism and effort are evident. Considering that, it’s incredible that they offer you such a wide variety of customization options for each of their themes.

Each Theme Serves A Purpose

Undergrounds offer a total of 5 themes and each of them is created for a specific type of business.

• The Icon is best-suited for shops that offer many, different products as it’s made to show photos beautifully.
• The Vantage is the perfect choice for companies focused on content marketing, as it makes sure to showcase pieces in the best light possible.
• Mr.Parker is the ultimate fit for fashion and apparel companies. It has an incredible blog feature, as well as cool marketing pop-ups designed to attract clients.
• The Fashionpolism is for all those of you looking for an elegant and sophisticated feel for your store. In my opinion, a great choice for shops designed to sell watches or jewellery.
• The Testament is the option for smaller brands that still lack inventory, as it focuses on big, beautiful imagery that could be used as a cover-up.

Pros & Cons of Underground Shopify Themes

Pros

• Extraordinary themes that stand out amongst the competition
• Combines a premium feel with customization abilities
• All themes are made in order to help increase conversion rates

Cons

• Limited theme options

I’d recommend Underground to those business owner who’s looking for elegance and class. They offer a few themes, but they’re all sophisticated and professional-looking, making them the perfect fit for brands that want to convey class and style to the customer.

Final Words

I hope that by now you’re convinced that Shopify themes are, indeed, important. In this article, I’ve given you my favourite places to go, whenever I’m looking to switch up the design of a store.

As a final word, don’t forget to always make the choices that fit your brand. Don’t go for the current trends or the too-outlandish themes, instead trust your gut and choose the one design that speaks to you and looks like the company you want to have.

A single product Shopify theme have been making rounds on the internet ever since the advent of eCommerce.

Over the years, Shopify has created multiple templates for its users. Choosing one that fits the requirements of your e-Business is a tardy process.

To save you from the hassles of choosing the perfect Shopify template, we have come up with a list of the top 10 best single page Shopify themes. 

Top 10 Single Page Shopify themes in 2021 

Citrus – One Page Shopify Theme 

Citrus is one of the top-ranking single page Shopify themes designed by Buddha Themes. It is an aesthetic theme. Stores like jewellery, watches and digital gadgets can highly benefit from the elegant style of this theme. 

Here are the features of Citrus: 

Features of Citrus 

• Citrus is compatible with browsers that include IE9, IE10, IE 11, Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox 
• This theme is created with Shopify 2.0 
• Files include CSS files and JS files for a catchy display
• The layout of Citrus is highly responsive 
• Contains powerful admin module for theme management 
• The theme contains integrated Google fonts 
• Slider effect added for customer engagement 
• Custom styled checkout and member section available 

Pros & Cons of Citrus 

Pros 

• Citrus offers customizable options for layout details
• Parallax Effect granting a 3D view 
• Works with various browser 
• Looks good on various devices 
• Provides smooth functioning 

Cons 

• Customizable options are slightly difficult to operate 
• Can be hard to understand for a new user 
• Does not support high resolution 

Citrus is best for you if you are looking for a single product store. Since Citrus is highly responsive and customizable, it is a perfect candidate for our ‘10 Best single page Shopify themes in 2021’ list. 

Xcop – One-page Entertainment-Based Shopify theme

Xcop is one of the best digital entertainment themes by Shopify in 2021. It can be used for services like TV entertainment, luxury music shopping, projectors, and other devices. Xcop is designed by Buddha Themes. 

Read on to know more about the features of XCop: 

Features of XCop

• XCop is created with Shopify 2.0 
• It supports over 4 columns 
• CSS files and JS files are included 
• Ajax shopping cart and product filter added 
• Inbuilt newsletter pop-up feature 
• Compatible with all the latest browsers
• Order tracking feature available 
• Quick shop and Cloud Zoom available 

Pros & Cons of XCop 

Pros 

• Highly responsive layout 
• Inbuilt strong admin panel 
• Easy to customise 
• Various selling and customer engagement features present 

Cons 

• No high resolution provided 
• Crowded menu 
• No Gutenberg Ready 

Xcop is surely one of the best themes in the market. It has an attractive layout and is fully equipped with customer management tools. It is one of the best electronic one-page Shopify templates in 2021. Those who are looking forward to starting an online electronic business should definitely consider this Shopify theme. 

Single Store – Minimal one-page Shopify Theme 

Single Store is one of the most elegant minimalist one-page Shopify themes available in 2021. It is created by Xlent Themes.

Here are the feature of the Single Store Shopify theme: 

Features of Single Store theme

• Compatible with several internet browsers 
• Well documented 
• Built-in Bootstrap slider 
• Unlimited colours available 
• Newsletter feature in-built 
• Detailed product labelling and structuring 
• Swatch style integrated 
• Cross-browser support available

Pros & Cons of Single Store 

Pros 

• Various customer engagement tools available 
• Smooth functioning due to Cross-browser and Product labelling 
• Elegant layout and design 
• Great compatibility

Cons 

• Single column provided 
• No high resolution provided 

Single Store is one of the most elegant and minimalist Shopify themes.  It is easy to use and understand and easy to operate. It is a definite recommendation for those who are looking forward to venturing into eCommerce. 

iooi – A Modern Shopify Theme

Iooi is created by Buddha Themes. This theme is predominantly used by entrepreneurs who are into the medical-related eCommerce business. 

Here are the features of iooi, which make this theme a perfect match for medical businesses: 

Features of iooi 

• Highly optimised for premium quality service 
• Drag and Drop Shopify builder available 
• Stylish Slider integrated 
• Ajax Wishlist and Tag filter integrated 
• Product comparison available 
• 50+ homepage sections for smooth functioning 
• User friendly and highly customizable 

Pros & Cons of iooi 

Pros 

• Reliable support provided 
• Extended support available 
• Social media integrated 
• SEO optimised 
• Highly optimised and mobile-friendly 

Cons 

• No High resolution 
• Url structure is not 100% customizable 

Iooi has a highly optimised and customer-friendly layout, which is necessary for retaining customers in the long run. The social integrations this theme has to offer is one of its best features. It is a definite yes when it comes to choosing a template for your business. 

Acua – Medical Stores & Health-Related Shopify Theme 

Acua is a soothing one-page theme created specifically for health stores. It has a very calm layout and offers a colour pallet that is appealing and comforting. 

Here are the features of Acua:

Features of Acua

• Social integration for customer engagement 
• Integrated SEO for better results 
• Google fonts added 
• Coded with the latest HTML5 and CSS3 
• Extensive documentation added 
• Support system available for customer queries and problems 

Pros & Cons of Acua  

Pros 

• Soothing themes and setup 
• Faster loading available 
• Various browser compatibility 
• Highly responsive layout 
• Customer support available 

Cons 

• No High Resolution available 
• Minimalist design 
• Tailored for health-related eBusiness

Acua is highly recommended to those who are looking forward to setting up a medicines-related eCommerce business. It comes with no hassles and can be operated without any prior knowledge of coding. For these reasons, Acua has been one of the top-selling Shopify themes in the market. 

Electro – Gadget & Devices Shopify Theme 

Electro is one of the highest-grossing themes provided by Arena Commerce. Such a theme comes with optimized colour pallets and it’s also less crowded than other electronic services related themes. 

Here are the best features of Electro: 

Features of Electro 

• Fast and easy installation 
• Unlimited designs to choose from 
• Customizable headers 
• One of the best and uncomplicated Mega Menu in the market 
• Variation Swatches are built-in 
• Advanced and Custom Metafields 
• Predefined page templates available with specific block layout 
• Customer engagement tools available 

Pros & Cons of Electro 

Pros

• Simplistic design 
• Clear and direct layout 
• Built-in customer support features 

Cons

• Relatively high costing template 
• Too many paid setups 

Electro is surely different from all the other electronic eBusiness related templates in the market in 2021. It has a clear and distinctive look and a relatively good rating on the internet.

More importantly, it’s one of the most elegant themes that are readily available for electronic and digital eCommerce business. This template is quite experimental and is a go-to option for several entrepreneurs. 

Handy – One-page Luxury Goods Shopify Theme 

Handy is one of the best templates of 2021 by Arena Commerce. It has been specially integrated and optimised for small screens like mobiles. 

Following are the features of Handy: 

Features of Handy 

• Mobile-first design 
• Search-focused menu provided 
• Multi-column menu provided 
• In-built quick link contact bar 
• Custom promotion tiles available 
• Free theme update provided 

Pros & Cons of Handy 

Pros 

• Easy theme setups 
• Amazing support system 
• Aesthetic layout 

Cons 

• Low functionality 
• UX can be further developed 
• Pricey template 

Handy is specifically created for mobile viewing thus it is the best fit for selling luxury clothing business. It has a simplistic and elegant layout that makes it more appealing. The support system of this theme is also worth mentioning. Overall it is a good template but is a bit pricey.  

Furnito – Furniture store Shopify theme 

Furnito is a highly responsive Shopify template created by Template Monster. It is packed with all the necessary eCommerce tools. 

Read on to know more about this template’s features: 

Features of Furnito 

• Responsive design and layout 
• Bootstrap 3.0  supported 
• Strong Admin panel  
• Customised Modules 
• Multiple languages supported 
• Web forums included 

Pros & Cons of Furnito 

Pros 

• Future updates available 
• 6 months of support provided 
• Extended support available 
• Online Chat support available 
• SEO optimisation 

Cons 

• Highly-paid theme 
• Costly add-ons 

Furnito is one of the best themes out there in the market. However, it is relatively costlier than its peers. It is best suited for luxury goods. Pre-established business models can highly benefit from this Shopify template. 

Ella – Multipurpose Shopify theme 

Ella is a multipurpose Shopify template created by Halo Themes. It is an all-in-one Shopify template that grants its users multiple layouts. 

Read on to know more about this top-notch Shopify template: 

Features of Ella 

• 17+ homepage layouts and skins 
• 16+ child themes 
• RTL support 
• Multiple languages available
• High-Resolution feature 
• Compatible with Bootstrap 4.x 
• Layered PSD and CSS files 

Pros & Cons of Ella 

Pros 

• Easy to Use 
• Fast and optimised navigation 
• Smart search options 
• Highly updated 

Cons 

• High pricing 

Ella is one of the most attractive templates in the market. It is highly recommended and holds the second position in our list of best one page Shopify themes. It’s is highly customizable and can perform a high range of functions. Those who are looking to grow their eCommerce business must consider this template before making a purchase. 

Wokiee – Single Shopify theme 

Wokiee, created by P-Themes, is one the best themes in the current market. Reportedly, it has over 50,000 active users. 

Read on to know more about the features of this Shopify theme: 

Features of Wokiee

• Compatible with BootStrap 4.x 
• Well documented presentation 
• Excellent responsive layout 
• High resolution provided 
• Various skins added 
• Elegant and clear design 
• Pros 
• Supports 3D model and videos 
• Ajax support provided 
• Quick view pop up 
• Google rich snippet tools 

Pros & Cons of Wokiee

Pros

• 3D support 
• Easy to use 
• High resolution 
• Highly updated 

Cons 

• Pricey template 

Wokiee is so far the best template that we have come across. It provides the best and the most updated features. This template has garnered several eyes and has over 50000 active users, which shows the efficiency of this template.

The Best Single Product Shopify Theme You Want for Your Store

The above themes have been tested for a long time. The best single page Shopify theme depends on what store you’re planning to build.

Choosing a stunning theme is one of the pillars for your Shopify website. If you choose a theme that your audience doesn’t like, your bounce rate will be up the roof. The profits you expect to achieve will never be possible with a theme that’s not fit for your audience.

So, make sure to choose a theme that you think will be perfect for your audience.

Impressive product constructors are already all over the web. When you visit the Nike website, you instantly see the title “Customize” right in the header next to the customary categories. A product configurator takes absolutely the same place on Ray-Ban’s online shop. The main page of Tesla immediately offers to make a custom order too.

Experts anticipate all kinds of product personalization to be amongst the hottest trends in online retail in the nearest future. Importantly, this regards businesses of any scale and scope. Product customization grants a classic win-win situation for both companies and consumers as everybody obtains the desired outcomes.

In this article, we’ll name the major advantages of product builders for brands. Then we’ll take a look at some strong examples of customizers in eCommerce.

One Note Before Adding a Product Builder

Customizers definitely enrich the shopping experience and ensure a high tier of personalization. Nevertheless, the core aspect in terms of customer satisfaction is the speed and the overall performance of the online shop. People tend to leave websites that make them wait too long. And by saying “too long”, we mean 1-3 seconds! So, it’s vital to examine these indicators and fix problems before embedding a customizer into a website.

In any case, when considering adding such advanced technology to the site, you may also think about building a PWA for your eCommerce site based on one of the headless commerce platforms. A progressive web app is somewhere between an ordinary site and a native mobile application. The best thing about PWAs is their incredible speed of site loading and processing operations. But these apps have far more advantages in comparison with regular versions of websites.

Pros of Product Customizers

One survey revealed striking outcomes: 49% of Americans are interested in purchasing customized goods. Furthermore, one-fifth of the respondents bought something customized during the year. And it seems that people will only get more involved in such a type of online shopping.

Thus, companies from completely different fields add the option for modifying commodities. Among them are producers of apparel, footwear, accessories, bags, furniture, baby strollers, electronics, and even cars.

Let’s consider 7 aspects that make product customization so attractive for online businesses and users.

1. As individuality has been the hottest tendency so far, people are greedy for uniqueness. They are tired of the one-fits-all approach. They want to show off their creativity and refined style.
   
2. Product customization is an amazing tool to make extraordinary gifts for friends, relatives, and loved ones. This is a rare opportunity to create something really special.
   
3. Customizers have the potential to increase sales. Firstly, adding them extends the possibilities to offer shoppers precisely the things they are looking for. Secondly, a study by Deloitte showed that one-fifth of respondents are ready to pay 20% more for a made-to-measure item.
   
4. Due to their interactive nature, configurators are appealing and engaging for customers. The ability to create personalized products is an added value to a client. Plus, they can increase the overall time users spend on the site.
   
5. People are more likely to share their bespoke purchases on social media especially if those items were created by themselves! Steadily such interaction turns customers into brand ambassadors and certainly expands the online presence of the brand. Good news for marketers, right?
   
6. Data collected from product builders helps a brand to better understand the tastes of the target audience. This can be of great assistance to the product development teams as it allows making better predictions about the trends and upcoming changes on the market.
   
7. The option of product personalization is an advanced tool in terms of marketing. It allows brands to stand out in the accelerating competition.

Examples of Well-Done Product Customizers

To help you get a better understanding of what product builders can look like and which features they may have, we’d like to overview constructors from five completely different industries: footwear, car manufacturing, apparel, furniture, and jewelry.

1. Nike

The brand has a really outstanding configurator “Nike By You” which was introduced in 1999. Probably, this is the very first project in this direction; thus, it deservedly appears in almost every article dedicated to the given subject. The major achievements worth borrowing here are almost limitless possibilities for change, the speed of the customizer, and the quality of renders.

First of all, a huge number of shoe models are available for modification. Let’s select one of them and take a look at the screenshot below. You can choose the colors for the 9 main elements of your future sneakers. Then, you may add a small personal text message onto the heel area. Finally, you can either buy the pair or share the image via Facebook or Twitter. Lightning-fast, detailed rendering and photos from every side make this customizer an impeccable example to follow.

Screenshot taken on the official Nike website

2. Toyota

Currently, many car giants provide customers with a service that helps users to vividly imagine their future vehicles. Toyota named its one “Build Your Toyota”. It suggests constructing every model according to one’s requirements.

Let’s look at the screenshot below. As we see, the process takes 5 steps. You can choose a car model, the engine type, the colors of the exterior and interior, packages, and additional accessories. Then you get a summary with the total price. Further actions can be the following: to request a quote, to download the summary, or to print it.

This product builder helps prospects explore the features and pricing of their desired car. And, most importantly, without the rush and pressure from a sales manager.

Screenshot taken on the official Toyota website

3. Lanieri

Men’s clothes shops succeeded in making custom jackets, shirts, and trousers with the help of product builders. It even seems like configurators have been becoming a classic feature for such eCommerce players.

Italian brand Lanieri has built its entire concept on customization made by clients themselves. On the website, you can not only customize a jacket and trousers separately but also create a whole flawless suit. 

Numerous elements are changeable: the style of the jacket and trousers, the number and color of buttons, pockets, shoulder style, lining, and many more. Every single option contains an explanation about the type of elements and the differences between them. Such prompts help to build a more formal, casual, sporting, or a bit retro suit. The last section allows users to review the changes and to return to a particular one if needed. Then you can purchase the item.

Screenshot taken on the official Lanieri website

4. Crate & Barrel

Frankly speaking, online customization in furniture stores is still not as popular as in the sector mentioned above. This is a bit weird as it’s extremely handy to choose a new sofa with its type, color, and texture of fabric, modules, and materials while sitting on your old one. Thus, this is the chance for many brands to implement the tool and get ahead.

American furniture manufacturer Crate & Barrel focuses its product customization on the selection of fabric for sofas and chairs. The number of possible colors is astonishing; plus, all shades are divided into several groups.

Besides this, a user can filter the fabrics by such features as “Textured”, “Velvet”, “Linen Look”, and “Stain Resistant”. Below a visitor can read more about specific fabric properties and advantages.

Screenshot taken on the official Crate & Barrel website

5. Allurez

This US-founded jewelry brand encourages customers to be as creative as possible. Take a look at the screenshot below. The section of the online shop called “Design Your Own Engagement Ring” invites you to select the style, model, color of metal and stones, and the shape of stones. To further inspire users, Allurez posts customers’ photos on every product page.

To be honest, this product builder seems to be a bit overloaded with details and looks not so intuitive. We’d recommend redesigning it by cutting off excessive info, improving navigation, and highlighting core options. But anyway, this is a rare instance of genuine customization in online jewelry stores that is very convenient for people who know exactly what they want.

Screenshot taken on the official Allurez website

To Conclude

Product customization is a very useful tool for all businesses that want to set loser contact with their audience and improve conversions. Unsurprisingly, eCommerce keeps moving forward this way. In the coming years, we might see a substantial rise of configurators in online stores in all sectors mentioned in the article and many more (stationery, toys, home appliances). Therefore, we recommend you to develop a configurator as one more powerful personalization option. Together with customary personification strategies in social media, email marketing, and other directions, this step will bring better financial results.

At the same time, it’s vital to maintain the best of the best performance of the website. Thus, the main step prior to implementing product customizers should be a total revision of the site. If your online shop performs not so well, the update in line with the latest technical standards will resolve the issue. Then your customers will be able to create unique pieces worth sharing and talking about!

About the Author

Kate Parish, Chief Marketing Officer at Onilab with 8+ years of experience in Digital Marketing and website promotion. Kate always strives to stay in pace with the ever-advancing online world, and the sphere of eCommerce PWA development. Her expertise includes in-depth knowledge of SEO, branding, PPC, SMM, and the field of online sales in general.

Are you a young entrepreneur who is just trying to be good at product photography? Do you want to make those product pics look more professional without spending loads of cash? 

If you answered yes, you have arrived at the right place as we’re teaching product photography today.

The imagery on a website is crucial because that makes the first impression on your customer.

So that’s why why you want to make sure your site looks as polished and as professional as possible. One of the best ways to ensure that is through well-made product images.

Now, you may be thinking it’s impossible to get good shots without spending a ton of cash on equipment, but I assure you that’s not the case.

Keep reading for the best tips on budget-friendly product photography.

Basics of the Product Photography Process

Whenever you’re starting something new, you always have to begin with the basics. They’re actually quite easy to remember and are also the key to creating high-quality photographs.

I will be taking you through some of the most important aspects of photography, that you have to keep in mind regardless of the size of your budget. 

Setting Up A Proper Background And Product Placement

A proper background is key for a good product photography. My advice is to always use a white background for product pictures as the white really makes all other colors and the tiny details really stand out.  White or light backdrops are also a must-have as they will simplify the editing process afterward. 

Once you are done setting up the perfect background, you need to pay attention to the product placement. 

You must look for the best way to present the key elements of the item and there are some important tips to remember:

• The product must always be in front of the background
• If you are photographing clothes, it’s best to use a mannequin that you can remove later
• Use hair clips or tape to attach small objects that can’t stay in place for a photo

Picking the Right Light for the Shot

If you know anything about product photography, you know that lighting can make or break a picture. Even though setting it up can be a long and tedious process, it’s one decisive factor that largely determines the quality of your photos. 

When it comes to light, you generally have two options:

Natural Light

If you’re on an extremely tight budget, you have to make do with natural lighting. It’s very easy to manipulate and it can save you lots of trouble and money. 

You must simply place your background next to a window where the light is coming through. From there, it’s your job to find the perfect angle to shoot from. If the light is too harsh, be smart and cover the window with white paper or cloth.

One tip here is to always shoot when the day is at its brightest as this gives you more light to work with. 

Studio Light

If you want to use artificial lighting, you will have to send some cash – a minimum of $30 for a set of lightbulbs. After that, you have to put your DIY skills to the test and create a box with the two lightbulbs clipped to its walls. If you are willing to spend a little bit more money, you can just go ahead and get two softbox setups from Amazon.

The idea here is to utilize one of the lights as a key light and the other as your fill or backlight, depending on the result you want to achieve in the end. As a matter of fact, studio lights give you more creative freedom as you’re able to manipulate them to your liking.  

If you’re shooting for multiple hours, you will quickly get the hang of it and start getting more creative with lights and angles. In the long run, that will aid you in producing professional-looking images consistently. 

Getting the Right Camera

If you’re really looking into minimizing cost, you should look to your smartphone as the camera equipment for the shoot. During the last few years, phone cameras have come a long way and they now have a lot of settings available, so much so that you’re left feeling like you’re working with an actual camera. 

Should you want to spend some extra dollars on equipment? Well, you can look into purchasing a DSLR camera as their prices have been steadily dropping during the last few years.

If you decide to go with the smartphone, you gotta make sure you have the correct setup on the phone and you know how to use it along with all of its functionalities.

My advice is – do a couple of shoots for fun, play around with the camera, and look for some videos online that give tips on how to make the most out of your phone’s camera. 

Don’t Forget That Post-Processing Matters

Remember, the photos you see in magazines didn’t look like that fresh out of the camera. To get a perfect, polished photograph, you need great post-processing. 

In the beginning, photo-editing can be a tough and boring process, especially until you get the hang of it. But if you’re a beginner, shooting with a smartphone and editing properly is what can take your photographs from mediocre to incredible in a matter of minutes.

We can all thank the companies that produce great software that can be used for free, as that will be your holy grail for post-processing.

There are many great applications out there, so pick the one you like best and start learning how to use it. I’m sure you will be able to find a tutorial for every app on the internet. 

All the Tools You Will Need for Great Budget-friendly Product Photography

Now that you already know the basic concepts for creating great imagery, you are probably wondering about what kind of equipment you will need.

I know we are on a budget, so I will only be showing you essentials and also be sharing a ton of DIY tips with you so that you can save a buck or two whenever possible. 

Purchase A Stunning Background 

I know I already told you about the importance of having a white background. But hey, I didn’t give you any options for buying or creating one. 

If you’re going to shoot often, my suggestion is to look into some white background options to purchase off Amazon. I personally get a white sweep, preferably a paper one as it’s easier to change when it gets dirty. Besides, you can also look into getting white bounce cards made of foam board. They can be great whenever you are getting a lot of shadows and need some brightening. 

Another tip here is to purchase a black foam board so that you can create an illusion of deeper shadows that will be particularly useful while shooting white objects.

In reality, foam boards are not that expensive and can be found in your local drugstore or on Amazon. 

If you are really tight on money and you want to try some DIY, you will need only:

3 Things for Creating Your Perfect Background

1. A chair
2. White Paper
3. RollClips

The idea here is pretty simple! Place the tips of the white roll at the top of the chair, clip them, and then let it fall. Doing so, you will seamlessly create a transition between the top and bottom halves. 

A Designated Room

Light is the key to good photography as you have discovered that already. So whenever you’re picking a location for shooting, your best bet is to pick the room in your house with the highest amount of natural light. That would usually be a bright room with big windows.

Once you pick the best place to shoot, you will also need a table and a chair. You can then manipulate the placement of objects so that you can use the light that’s coming most effectively.

My advice would be – set up a small corner in your shooting room with all the essentials you need. That will save 

you time the next time you have to do a shoot. 

Tripod

Human hands get shaky, which leads to blurry or uneven pictures. That’s where tripods come to save the day. 

It doesn’t matter whether you use a DSLR camera or a smartphone, Amazon offers tripods for both devices. Usually, they cost anywhere from $20 to $100 (for the cheap ones), so you won’t have to break the bank.

Tripods can be found for even cheaper on huge marketplaces like AliExpress or even down at your local store. 

Of course, they aren’t something you can’t shoot without, they certainly up the quality of your work and make post-processing easier to do.

Proper Post-Processing Programs

I have already told you all about the importance of post-processing, so now is the time to really look into some useful software.

When it comes to photo editing, you can essentially go in two directions. You can either dedicate yourself to learning a more complex and usually paid-for software or you can choose to work with a free, easy-to-use program, that’s also a bit more limited in functionality.

Both options are valid and what you choose is based on your personal goals and needs. If you’re looking to take photos daily and their quality is crucial to the success of your business venture, then you should invest in great software. Here are the three applications that I personally recommend:

Adobe Photoshop CC

When it comes to photography, Photoshop can do almost everything that you can imagine. And even though Adobe took the controversial decision to make it a subscription software, it still remains unmatched in the business.

There are tons of features you can utilize and it has a slick and clean interface, still it’s not the complete package without Lightroom. 

One downside to Photoshop is that it can be difficult to learn and you may need some time to adjust to the program and be able to utilize all of its different functionalities. 

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Lightroom is Photoshop’s perfect partner in crime. It’s an all-in-one image cataloging, raw processing, and editing application. And if you simply need photo enhancement and not modification, you will do just fine by only using Lightroom. 

Lightroom is available for both PCs, mobile devices, and it syncs beautifully through platforms. It’s tricky to learn and you will definitely have to spend some time looking at tutorials, but once you get the hang of it, you will certainly see major improvements in the quality of your photos.

Corel Paintshop Pro

This is what I would call the perfect budget-friendly photoshop. It has all the essentials of Adobe’s photoshop but costs a lot more and you can get it with a one-time payment instead of a subscription.

Corel keeps updating this application every year, adding more and more new features and now it’s certainly very close to Photoshop in terms of usability and functionality.

With Paintshop Pro, you also get a ton of help and tutorial videos that save you the trouble of searching. The only downside to this program is that it’s unfortunately not available for macOS. 

Now, if you want to do shoots once a month or every couple of months, these programs are not worth the investment of time and money. For simple photoshoots, you can do good enough using free editing software. And these are my favorite apps: 

Pixlr X

It’s a free, Photoshop-like app that’s available to use on mobile devices and PCs. It’s one of the first SAAS (software-as-a-service) programs for photo editing and super easy-to-learn tool for beginners.

Of course, it isn’t nearly as powerful and lacks many of the features of Photoshop but it’s great for beginners and some temporary photo editing.

Canva 

Okay, so Canva isn’t really a photo editing application in the traditional sense. It’s more so a marketing tool for creating beautiful graphs and logos. 

You can use it to put borders on photos or to add your logo in product pictures. It’s cheap, available across a multitude of devices and the premium version allows for many users to be working on it at the same time.

It’s one “must-have” app for every entrepreneur. By the way, it’s free version is more than enough! 

Snapseed

This is one of the most popular free  image-editing apps on the market. It has gotten a lot of hype over the years and there’s a reason for that. 

Snapseed is easy to use and offers a ton of features related to editing and fine-tuning photos. Along with that, it offers the use of presets and allows users to change everything: from brightness to contrast, saturation, and much more. 

For a free application, it offers everything you might need as a beginner and more. Another cool thing is that Snapseed can be used across multiple devices regardless of their operating system. 

5 Tips For Creating Stand-Out Product Photography

Always Take Multiple Photos – No.1 Product Photography Tip!

If you’re going through all of the trouble for creating space and time to shoot, you must utilize it to the max. Take shots from different angles, get close, and then back away. Use the light in different set-ups and move the product around. 

Get creative. Photography is an art, so be an artist. Take a variety of photos – some for the store, others for social media. 

Don’t forget to take close-up shots that capture cool details and little quirks of the product. These types of images are what show the customer the uniqueness of the item and proves that you’re selling something of quality. 

Getting too many photos shouldn’t be something you have to worry about. In fact, the more material you have, the better it is because you will be able to pick the best ones during the so-called post-production process.

Choose A Color Palette 

Every successful brand has a specific color palette that makes them stand out. You usually see those colors used in their logo, their website, and in all product photographs.

If you really want to make an impression on your customers, you must identify the colors that fit their brand. Of course, that’s no easy task and it’s not just randomly picking some fun colors. It’s a tough job as you have to consider the color palette, which reflects your ideas and the feelings you want to provoke in customers.

An easy way to create a color scheme is through Adobe Color. You can start with one color and then expand using different color theories.

DIY for Product Photography As Much As You Can

Here’s the deal: If you want to save money, you have to sacrifice the time to do as much DIY as possible. And if you’re good with your hands (unlike me), you may also find the process of building tolls easy and enjoyable.

There’s a ton of equipment that you can craft instead of buying. Backgrounds can be made at home with a few simple materials, such as white paper and a chair. Lighting can also be done at home with good quality light bulbs and cardboards.

There’s a ton more you can craft with your hands and it will definitely save you a lot of dollars. This is especially true if you don’t shoot regularly and don’t need items for longer periods of time (DIY projects tend to fall apart rather quickly).

Turn Your Friends And Family Into Models

Way to Save Some Cash: Don’t hire professional models. Leverage your cool-looking friends.

Adding a human being to a photograph can be quite useful. It gives perspective to the size of the product or an idea of how it can be used. If you’re selling clothes, by having a real person wear them, customers can have a better idea of how the clothes look. Somehow, this heats up the desire to buy. 

Hiring professional models can be a really expensive endeavor. So, I would advise you to go with your friends and family. I’m certain that you will find people who love getting their picture taken or who want to get some modeling experience under their belts. 

Even the shyer ones that don’t want their face shown can be of help, as most of the time you won’t need to capture their faces in most cases.

By working with friends and family, you can also turn shoots into a fun event, where you all explore creative ideas together. 

Be Honest

Product photography is descriptive in nature. Your product should look the way it does in real life – true to size and with its real colors and materials.

You also have to show it in context – if it’s a lamp, show people reading or turning it off before going to sleep. 

In many places, there are ethical codes that forbid you from misleading customers. So always make sure that your product looks exactly as it does in real life. That also builds trust with the customers as they know they will get exactly what you are showing. 

Final Words

Having well-photographed products is what can take your store from “just another online shop” to a professional-looking brand.

People always look for aesthetics, even unconsciously, and giving them something beautiful to look at helps in building a relationship that makes sure your company leaves a positive impression. 

And look, you can do great product photography without spending too much money or in fact any money at all. All you need is creativity, dedication, and practice. 

In the beginning, you may not get the results you imagined, so don’t get discouraged. Keep trying and you will get better. 

Follow the tips in this article for a ton of ideas on how to save money and learn to capitalize on your creativity. 

Have you ever fallen into a situation where you add an item to your online shopping cart but never get around to buying it? Online shopping cart abandonment is an action taken by a customer in which they add a few products into their online cart but later abandon it without making any purchase. 

As a retailer, everyone wants their customers or visitors to purchase from their online shop rather than leave! Why is shopping cart abandonment a problem? And why do customers leave something they like behind? 

Alright, we’re gonna discuss the causes of shop cart abandonment and its effects on retailers & relevant solutions. According to Forrester, about 88% of the total online purchasers have abandoned their cart without completing the payment. And it’s time we need to tackle it! 

Why is Online Shopping Cart Abandonment A Problem for Retailers? 

For a long time, offline retailers have considered eCommerce as a threat to their business. However, the overall purchase scenario depends on the customer’s experience on that platform. 

It doesn’t matter whether you have an online or offline retail shop, every customer has its comfort space and if the business service fails to hit that point, the customer abandons them. 

Retailers like Sears and Toysrus failed due to their lack of adaptation to the changing world trends. Retailers and eCommerce sites both have their pros and cons, but one thing that only eCommerce sites face in abundance is Shopping cart abandonment.

Top 5 Reasons for Online Shopping Cart Abandonment

Everyone wants to tackle the problem. But first, try to understand the customer’s perspective. After all, no one abandons something they like unless they face external forces. Sometimes, these can be other aspects of your website itself! 

Delivery Time & Cost Of Shipping

Several reasons have come up for online shopping cart abandonment. One such reason is the delivery time of the product and the cost of shipping. Many buyers rely on online stores for fast delivery but when the delivery time exceeds their expectations, it results in shop-cart abandonment. 

Besides, sometimes the additional charges included for shipping get high, resulting in abandonment. The delay in delivery and high shipping cost has become the main reason for turnoffs. 

Shoppers look for products that have quick deliveries and no shipping charges. However, it gets difficult for the retailers to avoid shipping charges in all of their products due to transportation fees. Similarly, shipping charges depend on the mode of transportation and the head location of the seller. 

Price Too High Or Complicated!

If you think that shipping cost is the only factor for shop-cart abandonment, you are wrong. In general, the high price of a product can get in between the customer purchase. If a customer is interested in buying something but the cost of that product is beyond their budget, they won’t purchase it.

Complicated pricing means the mean value of the product along with additional tax charges that display during checkouts. Customers are majorly interested in overall costing instead of detailed billing sheets. 

They Are Not Ready To Purchase

Sometimes, people visit an online retailer shop to track down things they might buy in the future. 

It gets convenient for customers to note things they like by adding them to their online shopping cart since it’s easier to access the shopping cart from any page of the eCommerce site. 

However, some of those customers may visit again to buy products they added to their shopping cart.

Payment Issues

Several times it happens that the customer proceeds to checkout, but the mode of payment they use is unavailable, or the server fails to proceed with payment. In such a case, the customer has no other option but to abandon the online shop cart without making a payment. 

Mobile Payments often face more payment issues than any other payment device. It occurred because most of the websites support desktop versions that are not optimized for mobile devices. 

So, a majority of young users who make payments using their mobiles abandon shopping carts.

Poor Website Experience

If a website doesn’t have a user-friendly interface and leads to several issues while browsing, it can affect the online shop cart abandonment rate. Believe it or not, your site’s overall work plays a vital role. 

For example, a customer wants to buy cosmetics but your site doesn’t have a primary category for cosmetics. In this case, customers have to manually search for the products they want. 

It can result in abandoning the shop cart or the overall website. Therefore, it gets necessary to manage the overall user interface of your eCommerce site.

10 Ways to Reduce Online Shop Cart Abandonment

Gain Trust Of The Customer In Your Transaction Process

Many customers hesitate to make payments due to the risk associated with online payments. Several sites ask the customers to fill in transaction forms with sensitive information like their credit card numbers. Such details can make customers hesitant and might bring doubt for your transaction process. 

Make sure you use some trusted security logos in your transaction forms as this will build the trust of your customers.

According to a Shopify survey, 61% of customers quit payment due to lack of security logos in the transaction forms. 

However, it also stated that 75% of the customers leave payment procedure because of the unfamiliar security logo in the transaction form. Therefore, it gets necessary to use a logo that people are familiar with (for example, Norton) in your eCommerce transaction forms. 

Display Thumbnail of The Product During The Payment

Not many people will forget what they added to their shopping cart. Sometimes, the customer gets distracted and doesn’t keep an account of the products in their cart. 

In that case, thumbnails can work as a reminder for the products they have in the cart. In fact, they will find the convenience to look into the products they added to the cart before proceeding to the payment window. 

When customers enjoy their shopping experience, they tend to return for more. 

An Effortless Transition Between Cart And The Website Pages

When customers opt to pay, the website takes to another page – known as the payment gateway. Interruptions or a non-smooth transition can turn off customers. Why do people switch to online stores? For convenience.

Efficiency is the point where online stores score higher than offline stores. Hence, site optimisation is absolutely necessary. This includes optimised, faster-loading pages and user-friendly interactions. Having a smooth transition can make users look forward to the next checkout page instead of opting out because of a forever-loading animation. 

Tip: The more friendly your website is for customers, the more chances of their revisiting increases. Therefore, eCommerce businesses with optimal sites have high conversion rates.

Multiple Modes Of Payment

While buying something, you don’t want anything to interrupt your purchase. Similarly, your customers don’t want any interruption that makes their payment inconvenient. 

The main reason for seeing a decrement in conversion rate is the mode of payment. Some customers use a credit card while others use debit cards. Make sure to offer different payment modes like debit card, credit card, cash on delivery, PayPal, etc. 

If you can do this right, you can remove the boulders that occur between your customer and your product sale. 

Implant Strong Action Buttons

When a customer adds something to their cart, they’re primarily thinking of purchasing that product. Implanting an action button, like the checkout option in the cart itself, can trigger the customer to initialize payment. 

Also, it may improve the efficiency rate of your site for the customers. Make sure to use powerful words for your action buttons instead of a word like continue.

However, many sites fail to set firm action buttons on their sites due to several underlying reasons, which does nothing but increase the online shop cart abandonment rate. 

Use Progress Indicators

Standing in a line may get boring and you might want to know your progress rate. Just like your daily life experiences, waiting for your online payment procedure to end without any clue of progress may look tiring. Giving your customers a broad idea of their payment progress can help with the payment procedures. 

This progress indicator triggers them to believe that buying something from your website by following a few steps is simple. You can also allow them to save their payment progress, reducing the chances of redundancy.

Mobile Optimized Websites

Mobile phones have become a vital part of our daily lives. When websites have an optimal interface for mobile, they help customers purchase whenever they want. It may boost the conversion rate of your eCommerce business as well. 

According to a survey done by Retail Dive, 4 million people own mobile phones. Out of which, 25% of users rely on their phones to access the internet. 

Make sure to turn your websites good enough for mobile phones and responsive. By doing so, you can attract more of your targeted customers to initiate the payment procedure.

Increase The Loading Speed Of Your Site

In a survey, Shopify stated that 15% of customers leave payment procedures due to website time-out, and 24% of customers quit because the website crashed. 

In a modern era when everything is moving fast, you can’t expect your customers to invest their time in waiting for your website to work appropriately. 

Customers will leave if your website takes more than usual time to load. Therefore, it’s necessary to make sure your customers have a smooth running experience with your eCommerce website.

Incorporate Realistic Content Creation

Imagine you want to eat a pizza that you saw in the TV advertisement. But, when you ordered that pizza, it was no way close to the advertisement. Is it disappointing? It is! 

When the customer gets something from your online store, they wish to get exact products as displayed on the site. If the product turns out to be different, the customer feels betrayed and abandons your store.

In case you don’t want to lose any customer, you have to be on the real-view side. By doing this, the trust of your customers will touch the roof and they will be more likely to return.

Transparency In The Prices

Customers get disappointed when they realize additional payments like the cost of shipping, GST, etc., at the time of checkouts. Due to this customers abandon online shop carts. As an online business retailer shop, you can induce your customer’s interest in your online store by providing transparent rates of the products and their shipping charges.

This tactic may decrease the online shopping cart abandonment rate as customers will think twice before adding something to their online carts. Furthermore, it reduces the chances of bounce-back rates from the customers.

According to Statista, 65% of shoppers abandon shop carts due to unexpected additions in the rates of the products. 

Best Tool for Reducing Online Shopping Cart Abandonment

When it comes to reducing online shop cart abandonment, I use Growave Shopify app to do it as it helps us with not only cart abandonment problems but also makes it possible to create reward and loyalty programs to make your customers feel like insiders. 

Read this Growave review  to know how you can leverage it for your Shopify store to reduce online shop cart abandonment.

The Bottom Line 

Online Shop cart abandonment has become one of the main problems for many eCommerce businesses. However, research on the reasons laid above and strategizing a two-step goal that suits your online store will decrease the abandonment rate.  

If you succeed in converting the abandonment customers into buying your products, your business will set the highest purchase history. Planning strategies based on your business analysis can boost your conversion rates, preventing mass online shop cart abandonment. 

The world of digital marketing is adrift with new terminologies – landing pages, landing page builder, lead generation pages, sales pages, and so on. Well, if you are looking to land more customers – the one thing you really need to focus on is your landing page. 

So what is a landing page? Simply put, it’s a page that the customer arrives upon. 

People might tell you that landing page is a whole different thing. Let me tell you that any page can be a landing page. Just look at the these two words: 

1. Landing 
2. Page

Basically, it’s a page where customers land. Anyway, today we’re specifically referring to pages that make some sort of offers. As these are the ones that result in maximum lead generation. 

Around 68% of businesses use landing pages within their marketing scheme. And if the thought of creating one terrifies you – don’t worry we’ve discussed the best landing page builders of 2021 and the landing page templates they offer. 

5 Best Landing Page Builders for Your eCommerce Store

Landing page builders are essential tools that can help you create a landing page from offered templates or from scratch. A good builder will offer options to code, customize, integrate CTAs, and most importantly – offer user analytic reports! 

PageFly – Landing Page Builder for Shopify

Pagefly is an easy to use and a modern landing page builder for Shopify. It’s one of the most used Shopify landing page apps used on Shopify. 

The ultimate goal of PageFly is to ensure that their customers are well equipped with everything they might need to build a stunning landing page. 

Read this Pagefly Shopify App article to know everything about the platform. 

Elementor – Best Landing Page Builder for WordPress

Elementor was founded in 2016 as a way for WordPress users to easily edit their websites without the help of a coding professional. 

As one of the most beginner-friendly landing page builders, Elementor is used by over 5 million professionals. 

Features of Elementor

• 300+ unique design templates that you can drag and drop onto your site
• Offers a visual workspace so you don’t need to work with HTML
• Over 80 different design elements and widgets like icons, dividers, buttons, forms, etc
• Integrate any WordPress plugin – be it related to contact importing or email marketing
• Comes with responsive editing that adapts itself for viewing on both desktop and mobile
• Enjoy a visual workplace for designing pop-up ads and forms as well
• Set up content upgrades so that you can hide premium content from free users
• Get access to a theme builder that can pick up on the existing theme of your site

Pros and Cons of Elementor

Pros

• Gives free version to experiment 
• Get access to a huge template gallery along with an Elementor library access
• Create extremely complex and intricate websites using the very easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor

• It’s beginner-friendly and has a short learning curve 
• You can get community help anytime

Cons

• Some features like content upgrade and pop-up builder are only available in the Pro version
• Elementor does not offer 24 x 7 chat support hence complaints may take time to get processed

Elementor Integration

You can integrate Elementor with pretty much every major marketing tool. Their list includes MailChimp, Aweber, Drip, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, Zapier, and GetResponse. 

Elementor has a wide range of features as far as landing page builders go. More importantly, the free version has pretty much provided everything that an SMB would need! The integration with other apps is extremely smooth. The UI is clutter-free and easy on the eyes. 

Some top design and architecture brands like Korytko Design use Elementor. A simple visit to their domain will assure you of Element’s ability. 

Hubspot – Create Landing Pages that Convert

Few in the realm of digital marketing may not have heard the name HubSpot. Since 2006, HubSpot has provided everything a digital marketer would need. 

From customer management systems to landing page builders, HubSpot offers some of the best and most reasonably priced tools for marketers. 

Features of HubSpot

• Add dynamic content to your page
• Offers a visual workspace along with a drag-and-drop editor
• Gives an opportunity to do A/B Testing which means you can try out up to 5 different variations for each landing page
• Design sign-up forms that can be submitted in a single click to save the user’s time
• Gives suggestions to improve the SEO performance of your landing pages 

Pros and Cons of HubSpot

Pros

• Personalize the content of the landing page based on the user 
• Allows users to run tests to check the expected performance of their landing page
• Get detailed metrics to access all types of user data like click rates, bounce rates, average screen time, etc

Cons

• Use the free version to create up to 20 landing pages
• Can’t buy the HubSpot Pro landing page builder only
• Need to buy the entire HubSpot SEO toolset

Hubspot Integration

Hubspot has an App Partner Program which allows it to integrate over 500 different tools seamlessly. This includes Intercom, NeverBounce, the Google Suite, Proposify, Microsoft Teams, Shopify, and much more. 

You can integrate it with Salesforce in both ways. This means you can access Salesforce click rate data on Hubspot and vice versa. 

Overall, Hubspot offers a pretty convincing deal. And for any feature that you can’t find in the free version – you can opt to get an integrated widget. With the entire Hubspot toolkit, you will be able to get an even deeper insight into your user’s patterns and preferences. 

Instapage – The Geeky Landing Page Builder

Sometimes Landing Page Builders might simply not be enough. You might also need auxiliary tools that allow you to test the pages, loading speed, and user engagement. 

With Instapage, you can get everything you need along with a 4.2 times higher conversion rate!

Features of Instapage

• Instapage has over 500 different layout templates that you can choose from 
• They have a feature called Global Blocks that allows you to scale your landing page in a single click
• Leverage A/B testing to select the most engaging option
• Create dynamic content with 1:1 ad-to-page personalization
• Use Instapage’s collaboration feature to add members
• A visual and highly intuitive drag-and-drop editor
• The editor provides real-time suggestions and edits to cut down lengthy review processes later 

Pros and Cons of Instapage

Pros

• Improve your page loading speed by up to 3 times by using the Thor Render Engine
• Easily send and receive reports between teams
• Provides user heat maps to gauge engagement

Cons

• Need to work separately for the mobile version of your page
• No free trial version available

Instapage Integration

Currently, Instapage can integrate with over 120 tools. For marketing automation, you can avail HubSpot, Marketo, Autopilot, Keap, and much more. For Email Marketing, the list includes MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, Emma, Drip, FreshMail, etc. You can even get Zoho, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and SugarCRM for sales support. 

With Instapage, you can get the biggest template library on this list. Besides, they have a special package to boost eCommerce sales. 

The package includes more mobile responsive layouts, quicker optimization, and the ability to make personalized content. Instapage offers not one but six robust tools. Probably, that’s why it’s certainly one of the best landing page builders for e-commerce sites. 

Leadpages – Build, Test, Optimize

If you’re a small business owner, Leadpages is among the best landing page builders for you. The tool is smartly designed to make your job easier. 

Anyone can sign up for the Leadpages webinars to learn more. Over 40,000 SMBs use Leadpages to build their amazing pages! 

Features of Leadpages 

• Consists of more than 200 different landing page templates in their library 
• Incorporate a transaction gateway on your landing page to sell products and services
• Create up to 5 accounts and collaborate in real-time even with free trial version 
• Get SEO suggestions while creating a landing page
• Add a Global footer on your page which will be displayed on all pages and can contain Help, FAQ, etc
• Leadpages will pay your domain registration fee for a year (if you have a paid package) 
• Use the drag-and-drop editor to design pop-up ads, alert boxes, drop-down menus, sign ups forms and more

Pros and Cons of Leadpages

Pros

• You can publish your site with Leadpages Domain with lpages.com as the domain behind it
• You can build your very own 404 error page
• With global settings, you can set your brand theme and follow the same patterns everywhere. This includes font style, height, etc.
• 14-Day free trial 

Cons

• A little bit expensive considering other landing page builders 

Leadpages Integration

You can integrate various sales, CRM, eCommerce, and marketing & automation apps with Leadpages. The list includes some top platforms like Google Analytics, Shopify, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, Calendly, PayPal, and more. 

Leadpages has excellent abilities to run A/B split testing. Their low price range and the domain integration makes them ideal for any SMB looking to start on their digital journey. As a matter of fact, you can get the entire Leadpages tool to get more in-depth analytics, PPC rates, marketing campaigns building, etc.

Unbounce

For eCommerce stores, Unbounce stands out amongst all landing page builders. Their tools can let you build captivating pages with CTAs, customized features, and stand-out promotions. 

Features of Unbounce

• Access over 100 different landing page templates in their library
• Offers a smart traffic feature and intelligence converter to convert users with best results
• Publish your landing page immediately to your domain using their built-in WP plugin
• Comes with an extremely intricate and well-built split testing tool
• Add customized features by coding HTML, Javascript, or CSS
• Unsplash partnership allows you to access thousands of free high-resolution images

Pros and Cons of Unbounce

Pros

• Schedule seasonal offers and customize your landing page for it in a few clicks 
• 9 different safety features including SSO log-in and two factor authentications make it highly secure 
• Pop-up building and designing tool with a drag-and-drop editor eases up the work 
• Templates are highly customisable even without coding

Cons

• Paid plans can be expensive as compared to others 
• Split testing can’t be performed on pages that were never created using Unbounce 

Unbounce Integration

Unbounce proudly presents that they have the highest integrations among landing page builders. The current tally stands at 3,000+ apps and tools.

The list includes tools like Google Suite, Pipedrive, MailChimp, Slack, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce, Pardot, Zapier and much more. You can connect to just about any CRM and marketing tool with this software. 

Unbounce allows quick publishing and updating of webpages. This feature can save a lot of time, especially during seasonal campaigns. 

Along with this, the Unbounce marketing tool can set seasonal campaigns beforehand and update the landing pages when needed. 

Unbounce  constantly updates itself so that all landing pages created are up to AMP standards. However some of the features like the AMP landing page are only available in the higher plans. 

Best Landing Page Builder for Your eCommerce Store

Among all landing page builders, my first suggestion would be Elementor. Its free version is one of the strongest on this list. I’ve myself leveraged its free version to design many pages. 

The flexibility of Elementor allows both beginners and professionals to use it to create layered pages. It doesn’t matter whether you’re as non-technical as my grandma or a coder, it would suit you well enough. 

You might be wondering what horses have to do with Ecwid vs Shopify, no?  Let me tell you that they indeed do. 

Where Shopify is an old established and one of the best (Stallion) platforms in eCommerce, Ecwid is upcoming (Trojan horse) in this competitive market. 

In this article, I am gonna discuss with you the features and benefits of two platforms for creating an online store. I’m going to take a look at the most popular and acclaimed platform – Shopify and the underdog – Ecwid. 

So, let’s get to know what platform for us and who finally wins the race – Stallion or the Trojan horse!

Ecwid vs Shopify – Which is More Powerful

Shopify Overview

Shopify is a platform you can use to create your online store. It’s the most well-known platform for starting a dropshipping business or expanding your physical store online. 

Let’s now take a look at some of the Shopify’s best features:

• Ability to create a truly customizable website, online store, and blog.
• Opportunity to sell on multiple platforms like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and much more.
• Great customer service 24/7
• A dedicated plan for larger corporations
• Unlimited bandwidth and online storage
• Multiple subscription plans for any type of business

Ecwid Overview

Ecwid is another software-as-a-service platform that allows users to create online stores without any knowledge of coding. Along with allowing businesses to start an eCommerce store, Ecwid is also available as a plug-in that you can use to make your already existing website into an online store. 

Let’s take a look at the other features the platform offers:

• A free plan that allows anyone to create a website on the platform
• Multiple other plans depending on the size of your business
• Ability to import and export products 
• Dropshipping integration 
• Multi-currency selling 
• A ton of shipping options to choose from
• Enhanced SEO options 

Ecwid vs Shopify Comparison

Benefits of Shopify 

Let’s explore in-depth the different benefits that you can find by using Shopify.

Quick And Easy Set-Up

If you’re not particularly tech-savvy, but you still wanna create an online store for your company, then Shopify makes that pretty easy for you. 

Shopify’s user interface is simple and can be learned quickly. Besides, it’s also very intuitive and requires zero coding skills, so you don’t need to be a developer to design a professional website! 

Outstanding Customer Service

Even if you get stuck while creating your website, you can always rely on Shopify’s customer service representatives to help you out as they’re available 24/7 via phone, chat, or e-mail. 

On the Shopify Plus platform, you get a dedicated engineer that’s assigned to help you create your online store specifically. 

Integrated Marketing & SEO Tools

Shopify gives you access to numerous marketing tools. It allows you to integrate it with social media channels, email marketing, and other tools.

Shopify’s Major Plus Point: It offers great SEO optimization for eCommerce, which can boost your store to the top rankings in the Google search engine.

Security and Reliability

As the industry-leading SAAS (software-as-a-service) for online store creation, Shopify offers great security to its customers – including SSL certification and PCI that encrypt all data.

Shopify verifies the stability and security of integrated payment services.

Flexibility in Usage

Shopify offers many built-in tools that enable you to showcase products, integrate coupon systems and gift cards, and much more. In the app market, you can also find applications that help you customize shipping and payment options.

Benefits of Ecwid

Affordable Solution

For people that are new to eCommerce or are not sure whether they need an online store, Ecwid is perfect as it offers a free plan. With it, you can test out the platform and the features it offers. And by the way, you can even see the way your business performs on the web and pick a plan you can resonate with. 

Can Be Used On An Existing Site

If you already own a website that you want to turn it into an online store, Ecwid can help you with that. It works as a plug-in that you can implement on many platforms, such as Wix and WordPress. Other than this, it can enable you to turn your existing website into an online store in seconds. 

Point of Sale Option 

If you have a physical store to go with your online one, that’s great. Ecwid offers you a point of sale (PoS) system. It allows you to use Ecwid’s card reader, which is already integrated with other PoS brands such as Square and others. 

ECWID offers you the opportunity to use your mobile device as a PoS one.

Multiple Shipping Options

With Ecwid, it doesn’t matter if you’re a business that owns and ships its product or you use dropshipping; the platform allows you to integrate both business plans and customize your shipping methods.

Digital Files Sale

Not all companies ship and sell real tangible products. A lot of companies offer software, specific data, and files to their customers. Ecwid is a perfect option for this type of business model because you can store and sell files up-to 10 GB in size. 

Additionally, the size can be increased if that is needed for your store. The platform offers an increase in bandwidth and can create a solution design for your company. 

Shopify Advantages Over Ecwid

In Ecwid vs Shopify, many similarities can be found between the two platforms, so it’s crucial that you can see the specific benefits that each of them offers. However, we will start with Shopify first.

Customization & Flexibility 

Shopify offers a ton of design opportunities. It has over 60 themes, which you can choose to build an online store that stands out from the competition. The available designs are tailored to suit different types of stores – from furniture retailers to ones that offer clothes and accessories.

With Ecwid, your site can look great from scratch but you have very limited customization opportunities. And if you want to do more, you either have to do coding or use third-party apps such as the Designer or the Decorator one so that you can have the option to change your eCommerce store design.

At the same time, with Shopify, you get control over the whole storefront design. You can quickly switch themes and adjust the webpage view for mobile phones and tablets. 

In addition, Shopify also provides the option to edit the images you upload directly to the platform and then proactively adjust the website’s color scheme at any time.

The amount of control you get over the design is a major winning point for Shopify in the Ecwid vs Shopify comparison. 

Better eCommerce Tools and Features

Shopify is the world’s leading SAAS program for creating an online store and that’s not by accident. It offers its users everything you may need to create the perfect store for your company.

Shopify does all of the basics quite well but it builds on them, offers you powerful and in-depth tools for further customization. Some of those tools include tracking inventory (so that you never sell products you don’t have), support of multichannel selling, multiple shipping options, unlimited bandwidth, dropshipping integration, and much more. 

Ecwid also offers a lot of the same features. However, they’re less scalable. More importantly, it works great for smaller businesses as they don’t need a ton of preferential support and customization. And guess what? Even the most premium plan offers the kind of functionalities that come with the most basic Shopify plan. 

Overall, Shopify gives you more opportunities to scale your business, better customization for your website, and a bunch of integrations. 

Better customer support 

Another bonus point for the big dog in this battle of Ecwid vs Shopify is the great customer service that they offer. 

With Shopify, you get support over chat, e-mail, and phone all year round 24 X 7. 

Along with that, if you’re a larger business on the Shopify Plus platform, then you even get a dedicated engineer to help you with setting up your store. Additionally, you get access to a help center that provides you with relevant articles and help guides if you ever need a step-by-step solution to an issue you are dealing with.

Ecwid also has fast and responsive customer service. However, the free plan offers only e-mail help and access to an “Ecwid 101” guide.  Furthermore, even the most premium plan doesn’t provide you with any special care like Shopify.

Ecwid Advantages Over Shopify

Faster Build Time

With Ecwid, creating an online store can be done in seconds as it enables you to turn your already existing website into a store. And even if you have to create an online shop from scratch, it’s still a simple and quick process.

It’s not like Shopify is slow and tough to do by any means, but it is more complex because of the variety of designs and customizations that the platform offers. 

Ecwid is great for newcomers into the eCommerce sector. It’s a great gateway into the business for any up-and-coming entrepreneurs who want to try running an online store and want to get started quickly.

Easier to Use

Another bonus point for the underdog in the debate Ecwid vs Shopify is the ease of use that the newer platform offers. Just because it can be used only as a plug-in and due to its limited functionalities in comparison to Shopify, Ecwid is much simpler to learn and use. You don’t need to have any coding skills or even know what website hosting is. 

The software is made so that everyone gets to start an online store, even if they have zero technical experience. 

Shopify is also easy to use. However, due to the more developed nature of the platform and its variety of features, Shopify is sometimes a bit overwhelming for beginners in the eCommerce marketplace. 

That’s why Ecwid comes into picture. 

Ecwid vs Shopify Pricing Comparison

How Much Does Shopify Cost?

Shopify offers 3 separate plans that come with different features and prices. Additionally, it has another newer platform called Shopify Plus, which is aimed at larger corporations and has a customizable price tag.

The good thing is that you can test any of Shopify’s plans for 14 days before deciding to use the platform. Yes, without paying anything! 

Here’s a table of the pricing for each of their subscription plans: 

How Much Does Ecwid Cost?

Ecwid offers 4 plans to choose from. There is a free one that I already mentioned several times, which is a big plus for entrepreneurs that are just starting out. 

Additionally, there are three paid plans that you can choose from, which offer more premium features at different prices. 

Here’s a table of the Ecwid prices:

Although Ecwid is definitely cheaper initially, Shopify provides you with all the features you need right off the bat.

The most basic Shopify plan gives you functionalities that you can only find on Ecwid’s most premium one.

Shopify is the perfect choice for any business that wants to scale and grow. Not only this, it provides you access to tools that can help you when your company expands and gathers more clients. With Shopify, you can always adjust your plan to your corporation’s size, no matter how large it becomes.

On the other hand, Ecwid remains the best choice for young people who don’t have much to invest.

Overall, it’s hard to determine a winner in the price aspect of the Ecwid vs Shopify battle, so let’s just move further and see how you can set-up a site on each of the platforms. 

Setting Up Shopify

Interlinking – blog under process

Setting Up Ecwid 

1. Sign up on Ecwid, clicking on the “Get started for free” button.

2. Enter your full name, e-mail address and password, and click on “Next: Set up your Store”

3. Fill in the details asked and click on the “Next” button.

4. Add your company address and postal code, and again hit the “Next” button. 

5. Give them a couple of answers to let them know more about your business for better results. 

6. Choose whether to create a new website or tie the Ecwid store to an already existing one and click on “Finish & Proceed to Dashboard.”

Once you click on that, you are finished with the setup. 

Ecwid vs Shopify – Which One? 

If I were to pick one amongst these two platforms, I would think twice. Both are quite remarkable platforms that serve different purposes.

Shopify is great for scaling your business.

Ecwid is good enough to start your eCommerce journey. 

But, if I’d go with any 1, it would be Shopify.

Shopify is a complete eCommerce platform with a set of apps that no other platform has. It also has powerful features that enable you to adjust the online store to your business’s growth.

If you’re certain about working online and you want to continue developing in the long run, this is something you should look for. 

The fact that Shopify doesn’t have a free plan is a bit of a turn-off, but the 14-day free trial makes up for it.

So, as someone once said – “Old is Gold.” Such is the case here – Stallion is the winner in this race. 

Are you planning on making a great WordPress eCommerce website? That’s great!

WordPress has always been a giant in the website building arena. In fact, over 30% of the websites on the internet are made on WordPress, summing up millions of traffic every single day. 

Creating a WordPress eCommerce website isn’t difficult but it’s surely a lengthy process.

In this guide, I’m gonna equip you with enough knowledge so that you can create your perfect website following up with 10 little steps. 

Along with this, I’ll also leave a few tips and tricks to make the setup process simple for you. 

So let’s get started! 

Here’s A Simple 10 Step WordPress eCommerce Tutorial for You

Step 1: Choose A Short and Catchy Domain Name

Your domain name is one of the first things your visitors will notice about your eCommerce website. Here are a few points you should keep in mind as you pick your domain name. 

Pick a Synonymous Domain Name 

Mostly, you should aim to pick a domain name that is the same as your brand name.  A misleading domain name is a red flag to your potential customer. If they don’t trust your brand’s credibility, they would just move on to purchase from one of your competitors.  

Tap Into Customer Psychology

Every language has words that are associated with positive or negative emotions. To pick a great domain name for your WordPress eCommerce website, you should choose words that trigger emotions like awe, happiness, sadness, etc.

“People don’t buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic” – Seth Godin

Keep it Short

A good rule of thumb for your WordPress eCommerce store is that your domain name shouldn’t exceed 12 characters. Your visitor’s brain memory wouldn’t really appreciate domain names like nylathenecklacebrand.com or booksthebookstore.com. 

Keep your domain name short and simple whenever you can.  Even if the domain name exceeds 12 characters, make sure the words used in the domain name are catchy. 

Precautions to Take While Choosing A Domain Name

1. Numbers: Don’t use numbers as a filler in the domain name. For example, hola5bookstore.com or necklaces5avenue.com 

2. Dashes: Your visitors wouldn’t remember where the dash goes and this would create confusion 

3. Ambiguous extensions: .tv, .flowers, .biz, .dresses are all extensions that create distrust around your eCommerce website – your best bet would be a .com 

You can easily check domain name availability on Whois Lookup for your WordPress eCommerce store. Once you pick one, purchase your domain name from popular providers like NameCheap or GoDaddy. 

Step 2: Select A Good Hosting for Your WordPress eCommerce Store

A web hosting platform rents your WordPress eCommerce store a spot in the online world. Most good hosting providers offer features like payment processing services, SSL, shopping cart software, and much more. 

There are multiple eCommerce web hosts you can choose from. Here are 3 top factors you should consider before choosing your eCommerce web host: 

Budget 

Remember, choosing the cheapest provider isn’t a great option in the long run. Although shared hosting services may seem cheap in the short run, there are several disadvantages like low bandwidth, increased hacks vulnerability that you should be aware of. 

Generally, you look at all-in-one hosts because they provide premium packages with powerful features and affordability. Although such plans save you money, they burn your website down with the slow loading speed, frequent time-outs, and a bunch of errors that even I don’t know about. 

Customer Support 

If you don’t have an IT team in place, you would need good technical support from your hosting provider. Besides, you will also need a high level of support to maintain your site and other troubleshoot issues.

Your best bet would be those hosting providers that offer live or quick customer support over those providers that make you raise tickets and wait for hours in queues. 

Security and Data 

Choose trusted hosting providers that are known for maintaining high levels of encryption and security. As you know, you don’t want to focus on security issues while managing the actual business. If you keep thinking about security, when will you take care of the business?  

Now that we know the important considerations revolving around picking your hosting provider, let’s have a look at the top 3 hosting providers I’ve been good with so far. 

Top 3 Hosting Providers You Can Get Online

BlueHost – The God Hosting

BlueHost and WordPress go like cookies and milk as the hosting company boasts how the top WordPress eCommerce website examples use it as their hosting provider. As a matter of fact, it’s packed with powerful features for WordPress eCommerce stores. 

Its notable features include:

• Free domain for one year
• Microsoft 365 access
• Automatic WordPress installation
• Automatic WordPress updates
• Secure login credential configuration

Here’s BlueHost pricing:

SiteGround – An eCommerce Friendly Hosting

SiteGround is known for its eCommerce-friendly plans that include eCommerce optimized servers and free shopping cart installation. It hosts multiple server locations, ensuring the fastest site speed for your WordPress eCommerce store visitors worldwide. On the other hand, unmetered data transfer ensures scalability for your site growth. 

Here’s a gist of its most important features: 

• The uptime guarantee is around 99.98% 
• Advanced spam protection 
• Auto-installation
• Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate
• 30-day money-back guarantee 

Here’s an overview of SiteGround’s pricing: 

DreamHost  – Unlimited Traffic for Any Plan

DreamHost offers unlimited traffic on every plan, so your WordPress eCommerce store won’t be charged for exceeding a certain amount of bandwidth. 

Here are some of the most notable features of DreamHost:

• DreamHost provides free daily backups with all of its plans
• Domain names are free for the first year when you register a .com, .org, .club, .net, or .info domain
• Unlimited email is offered on every plan except for the Shared Starter plan 
• Free SSL certificate and malware remover

DreamHost pricing is as follows: 

Note: There is a hosting plan offered in WordPress eCommerce pricing plans, so give it a check before deciding which hosting provider you should pick. 

Now that we’ve seen the top 3 hosting providers let’s see how can we install WordPress! 

Step 3: Install WordPress from Your Hosting 

You can install your eCommerce WordPress website in 2 ways:

1. One-click Installation 

2. Manual Installation- Download WordPress and upload it to your hosting account 

One-Click Installation 

A Pro Tip: You should typically pick such a hosting provider that offers one-click installation. After signing up with a hosting provider, you can go to your hosting dashboard and easily click ‘Install WordPress.’  

Here’s an example from BlueHost:

1. Open your hosting dashboard and click on My Sites. Next, you will see the option to ‘create site.’ 

2. Click on the ‘Log into WordPress’ button to access your WordPress eCommerce website.

3. Add in the required details. You can always change the Site Name and Site Tagline later, so don’t worry about it much. 

4. Add your store’s domain name here. 

5. And tada! You can log in to WordPress and notice that your site changes from Coming Soon to Active. Also, this is how your BlueHost installation appears afterward. 

Manual Installation 

Manual installation is often required when your hosting provider doesn’t offer one-click WordPress installation. You should download WordPress from https://wordpress.org/download/ and then upload it to your hosting dashboard. 

Step 4: Set Your WordPress Backend – The Right Way!

As soon as you log in to your account on WordPress, you will be prompted to your dashboard. First, let’s begin with naming your site. Know that site naming is different from your domain name and you can always change your site name. 

Let me quickly explain what the 3 terms mean. 

• The icon is basically a favicon that you see
• The title is something that is displayed on top of your browser and visiting page
• The tagline is a short statement placed underneath your site title

Here’s an example:

Now that we’ve done the basis of site naming, let’s move towards ensuring a secure WordPress eCommerce website. 

Setting up HTTPS to Use SSL

Your WordPress hosting package comes with a free SSL certificate, which is generally installed on your domain name. But remember, your WordPress site needs to be customized for HTTP to HTTPS conversion. 

Click on the Manage » Domains,  you wanna change your WordPress Address and Site Address to use HTTPS instead of HTTP.

In the Site Address, add “https” before your domain. The most important reason for using HTTPS is that it builds trust amongst your site visitors and also secures all their transactions. 

Step 5: Install An eCommerce Plugin from WordPress Plugin Section

WooCommerce is the best plugin you can use for your WordPress eCommerce store. It’s a free and open-source eCommerce software that simplifies selling products and services online. Its top 3 features are:

1. Auto-detection of customer’s location so that you can simplify shipping and make tax calculations
2. The mobile app makes it easy to manage your store from anywhere 
3. Enable guest checkout for those customers who don’t wanna register and reduce abandoned carts

Let’s quickly see how you can install and set up WooCommerce on your store. 

How to Install & Set Up WooCommerce On Your WordPress

Let’s first install WooCommerce. To do this, visit the WordPress dashboard, click on the Plugins section and search for WooCommerce.

Now click on ‘Install.’ When it’s ready, you can see the ‘Activate button.’ 

When you click on it, WooCommerce will launch its configuration wizard, which is crucial in setting up your store’s settings.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of the configuration process of WooCommerce. 

First, add in the basic store setup details. 

Add in your currency preferences. 

Fill in your Payment methods: 

Fix your Shipping Methods and Shipping Zones:

Add the recommended extensions as you like. 

A quick summary of the steps: 

1. Install WooCommerce and access the setup wizard
2. Select your payment providers
3. Configure shipping zones
4. Add recommended extensions

Step 6: Finalize A Theme for Your WordPress eCommerce Website

Your WordPress eCommerce store should be personalized and unique enough to catch the attention of your visitors. A theme acts as a design backbone for your web content. 

Just because you picked a theme doesn’t mean your WordPress eCommerce store will be stuck with it. WordPress eCommerce themes (or any themes for that reason) are entirely customizable. You know, the HTML and CSS code of your WordPress can be edited according to your needs.

You can find numerous free WordPress eCommerce themes in the theme directory, which you can access through your dashboard:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard.

2. Click ‘Design,’ and then click on ‘Themes.’ Here, you will see a dashboard for themes.

3. Check a few themes out and select the one you resonate with. 

4. Click on ‘Open Live Demo’ and see how it looks on your website. 

5. If you like how it looks on your website, press the ‘Activate this design’ button and this theme is all yours! 

If you don’t have the time to customize your storefront and are looking for the quickest way to set it up, your best bet is to choose a theme that looks as close to your desired storefront as possible. 

You can purchase premium WordPress eCommerce templates from popular third-party sites like ThemeForest and Elegant Themes. 

To install a premium theme on your site, make sure to follow these steps:

1. Download a .zip file for the theme you wanna put.

2. Go to Theme dashboard – Click on ‘Design’ and then press the ‘Themes.’ 

3. Hit on the ‘Install Theme’ button and WordPress theme dashboard would pop up. 

4. Press the ‘Upload Theme’ button for obvious reasons. 

5. Choose the .zip file from your computer. 

6. After this, there will be a success message with a link to activate the theme.

That’s it, you’re good to go! 

Step 7: Add Products to Your WordPress eCommerce Website

Adding products to your WordPress eCommerce store mainly depends upon your store’s needs. Here are 6 popular product types offered by WooCommerce. 

1. Simple: A single item that you’re selling. Most products fall under this category for your WordPress eCommerce store. For example, a trench coat, a book, etc. 

2. Grouped: Usually, things that come in pairs or sets fall under this category. For example, 4 sets of sock pairs, dinnerware, and more. 

3. External/Affiliate: You might use this option when you’re partnering with another brand to sell their products on your store. One that you list and describe on your website but is sold elsewhere.

4. Variable: One product that varies in style. For example, a skirt that is available in polka, stripes, and plaid designs. 

5. Virtual: Products that don’t require shipping. For example, a service like 1:1 consulting. A virtual product will jump straight to checkout.

6. Downloadable: For example, an ebook, digital album, PDF magazine, or photo.

I’ll do a demo to show how we can add products to our WordPress eCommerce website. 

#1 Add Basic Details 

Head to WooCommerce, click on Products, and Add Products. Fill in the Product Title and Description. Go to the Product Data panel, select downloadable (digital) or virtual (service) if applicable.

Fill up all the details you have in mind. 

Add good product categories: 

#2 Add Product Data 

The Product Data panel holds the most important product features.

First, set the product type and select what you need from the dropdown menu.

Add the pricing:

Click on Inventory:

Update details like SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), stock status, and more. Your SKU is a unique number and that is different from all of your post IDs.

#3 Add Shipping Details 

The physical characteristics (weight, dimensions, class) can be entered in the Shipping section. 

#4 Linked Products-  Upsell or Cross-sell 

Using the ‘Linked Products’ category, you can opt for the ‘Upsells’ option to make your product page feature the “You may also like” section with all the links of relevant products. 

A popular example for your reference would be Amazon’s “Inspired by your recent shopping trends.”

Now that we’ve seen how powerful WooCommerce integration can be when it comes to adding products to your store, let’s look at the top 5 extensions for your WordPress eCommerce store. 

Step 8: Install Other WordPress eCommerce Plugins

Let’s quickly check the top 5 WordPress eCommerce Plugins that are absolute for your store: 

1. Sucuri Firewall 

Sucuri Firewall protects your WordPress eCommerce website from any malware, DDoS attacks, or brute force attacks.

Here are more than a couple of reasons that tell us why we need Sucuri Firewall: 

• Acts as a wall that protects your site against malware so that your site and users information can be safe.
• Unlimited malware scans and cleanup
• Comprehensive processing to ensure top-notch security for your website 
• Removes suspicious redirections and spammy links

2. CSS Hero 

Who said you had to be a designing and coding giant to create the perfect storefront. By installing the CSS Hero Plugin on your WordPress eCommerce store, you can easily customize your site’s look using its intuitive interface. 

Why should we choose CSS Hero? 

• Saved version history so that you can store snapshots of your edits without making the store designs go live
• Works like a drag and drop selector for editable elements
• Effective color management for your theme and the ability to instantly test background image uploads
• Apply on-scroll animations wherever you want

3. WP Review 

WP Product Review is a great WordPress eCommerce plugin for your store. It simplifies how your customer can add reviews and allows you to manage reviews. 

You can even divide your customer reviews into pros and cons, images, and other factors.

Why should we use WP Review?

• Improve your website’s social proof displaying how trustable your store is 
• Save your precious time importing features from Amazon 
• Generate comparison tables from existing reviews in no time 

4.  Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is a hub to create stunning photo and video galleries for your WordPress eCommerce website. 

How does the Envira Gallery augment your store’s outlook? 

• Amazing social media integration to add share buttons, integrate your images with Pinterest, Instagram, and more
• Makes your gallery SEO-friendly using deep linking and pagination
• Protect your store’s creatives adding watermarks whenever needed

5. Yoast SEO 

Yoast SEO has to be on our list of top 5 WordPress eCommerce plugins for your website because of its versatile SEO options. 

Why is Yoast SEO a great choice for your store?

• Analyzes the readability of any content written for your eCommerce store and calculates its Flesch Reading Ease score
• Tracks your store’s important pages and notifies you when these pages haven’t been updated for over six months
• Allows you to add synonyms and related keywords to your content 
• Sets canonical URL to avoid confusing with Google regarding duplicate content

Step 9: Optimize Your Product Page

Your product page has to look professional and attractive to drive those sales. Around 90% of your first-time customers decide whether they want to buy from your store or not, depending upon your product pages. 

Let’s see how you can create high-converting eCommerce product pages for your store. 

High-Quality Product Images 

Product photos create the first impression for your store and products. High-quality product images attract your visitors to explore your product further. Using Product Image Zoom-ins, you can optimize your product image experience. 

Many branding experts recommend using a white or light-colored background for your product photos. In addition, light backgrounds maintain consistency and emphasize your product’s features. 

Detailed Product Content

Your product page should be detailed. More importantly, it should answer most questions your customer may have in mind while browsing your WordPress eCommerce store. 

Along with this, ensure that your product page ticks all these checkboxes:

• A catchy or straightforward product title
• Important features of the product
• Size / dimensions / capacity
• Price
• Material of the product
• Care and maintenance instructions
• Information about the brand

Optimize Your Product Page for Mobile Audiences

Millennials and Gen Z-ers are now increasingly purchasing using their mobile devices. You can lose a large chunk of traffic, sales, and revenue if you don’t have a mobile-optimized product page.

You can also design a mobile-optimized website using many WordPress eCommerce free templates. Most templates are also optimized for mobile audiences, so ensure that you pick a theme, keeping mobile-optimization in mind.  

Clear Call-to-Action

Use a prominent ‘Buy Now’ button and don’t add fancy CTAs that might confuse them. And when it comes to the text in your CTA, don’t overthink it and just put ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ as these two convert the best!

Other than this, use colors that make your CTA button highly visible on your product page. 

Here’s how Victoria’s Secret does it the right way. 

Step 10: Set Up Your Payment Page with WooCommerce

You’ve done all the hard work for setting up your eCommerce store using the WordPress WooCommerce plugin. Here’s the final sprint. Let’s see how you can efficiently set up your payment page. 

WooCommerce offers a wide list of payment integrations that you can use. 

Here’s how you can set up payments on WooCommerce. 

Go to your WordPress dashboard, select WooCommerce, and then click on ‘Payments’.

Find the suitable payment method, pull the button to ‘Enabled’ and click ‘Set Up.’ 

After all of this, you will be prompted to this page. I’ll demonstrate how you can set PayPal up for your WordPress WooCommerce store. 

By default, the email you used for signing up to WordPress would be the one you entered in the ‘PayPal email’ box. 

So, add your email linked to PayPal instead. 

A point to note here is that you should generally have a PayPal business account as you’re setting up an eCommerce business.

Scroll down and add the same PayPal email address in the ‘Receiver email’ input box. 

Visit your PayPal account and click on ‘Account Settings.‘

Scroll down to find NVP/SOAP API Integration and click on Manage API Credentials.

When you click on Manage API credentials, you will be prompted to this page. Make sure you don’t share these credentials with untrusted sources.

Click on Request an API signature and hit Agree and Submit. 

All done? Time to access your API signature. 

Go back to your WooCommerce dashboard and copy credentials back to WooCommerce’s PayPal section: 

After adding the credentials, click on Save Changes.

And you’re done! 

You can see PayPal in the checkout option of your cart. Therefore, we have finally completed the process of setting up a payment method for your WordPress eCommerce store. 

My Advice!

WordPress is an amazing, power-packed, and robust tool that can help you design a comprehensive eCommerce store. It gives you a great flexibility to customize your store to match your branding and customer engagement needs. 

But, such customization takes time. You will end up spending at least a week or two setting your entire WordPress eCommerce store up. 

I understand that most of us might not have weeks to dedicate for building an eCommerce store. We have to juggle family responsibilities, workplace stress, personal well-being, all at the same time.

If you need a fast alternative to set your eCommerce store up, you can definitely try Shopify out. Shopify simplifies the entire process and you will have your store ready in about 3 days. 

Choose either WordPress or Shopify based on your time commitments and business priorities. Don’t be afraid to experiment and have some fun along the way! 

Just imagine comparing Big Cartel Vs Shopify, they go hand in hand with the features and benefits over each other. 

Is it even possible? Here’s a big YES! To be honest, making the best choice depends on what you actually desire for your store. 

There is no exaggeration in saying that both platforms are quite phenomenal and have a lot to offer their users. 

Did you know that around 820,000 merchants use Shopify to sell their products? Whereas about 60,000 stores in the USA are powered by Big Cartel.

However, there’s only 1 winner in every battle! So, in the end, you will know who the winner is. But first, let’s dive in to see a detailed comparison of Big Cartel Vs Shopify! 

Big Cartel vs Shopify – Which is More Powerful

Shopify Overview

Ever wondered how Shopify is the host to million web stores, connecting a lot of customers with store owners every year? 

Admittedly, it is well-known for easiness, extensive integrations, and benefits it provides to the customers. Let’s have a look at the features Shopify offers.

• Construct a store with modern customizations and an easy-to-use drag & drop builder

• Despite the fact that the platform is a multi-features complex engine, it still remains user-friendly

• See unlimited products with multiple variants

• Supports almost all popular payment gateways

• In-built cart abandonment recovery feature gives it an edge over its competitors

• Integrate Shopify apps with your store to scale and optimize your business

Big Cartel Overview 

Big Cartel is a platform that enables you to set up and manage your online store. With real claims of effortless function, you can develop a fully customizable store using your creative skills.

These simple tools allow you to handle the whole system efficiently. Let’s see what are the features of Big Cartel: 

• A customized domain name

• Effective inventory tracking

• Built-in SEO tools to grow your store organically

• Top-notch inventory management

• Supports various languages

• More than 100 payment gateways

• Set up discount codes on your products to increase conversions

Big Cartel vs Shopify Comparison

Benefits of Shopify

1. Shopify offers a rapid and easy setup that’s no more a treat for many users. It further includes: 

• Drag and drop builder

• Commendable mobile compatibility

2. Nothing can be greater than building an easy to manage online store. Here Shopify has got your back with the most advanced manageability. More importantly, it allows: 

• Shipping charges to be calculated automatically

• Sends exclusive reminders to customers

• Calculate the taxes efficiently

3. The templates enriched in a Shopify store use marketing along with SEO to boost their conversion ratio. It works to:

• Provide social media association

• Sell exclusively on Facebook

• Support SEO to grow your store organically

4. Security: The exceptional security also counts to be a great benefit we get for using Shopify and there is no doubt about it. Safety is the foremost parameter that would drive your customer’s buying decision. Shopify, with its free SSL and great payment encryption method, has got you covered.

5. Customer service: The customer care service is diverse. You can get 24/7 support, emailing their elite technical team anytime. Furthermore, the help center available on the Shopify website contains multiple tutorials and guides to make it easy for you.

Benefits of Big Cartel

1. User-friendly platform: The setup of Big Cartel is pretty easy and reliable. All you wanna do is select a theme, pick a product to sell, and fill in the information for the product. Yes, that’s all we need to sell products on Big Cartel. 

2. Inventory Management: Big Cartel is specially designed to enhance small businesses that work to deal with various single products. That’s why the free plan can deal only with five products and the most advanced program goes with up to 300 products. The nutshell of management includes benefits like:

• All-time inventory tracking

• Selling the products digitally

• Automatic emails for order confirmation

• Facebook integration

• Order tracking 

3. App Integrations: Big Cartel is well-known to support multiple app integrations and the most common among them is Facebook. You can integrate your store’s inventory with your Facebook business page and start selling on Facebook right away!

4. Affordability: When it comes to pricing, Big Cartel is quite affordable. It also includes a free plan that makes it a choice for lots of users, especially small businesses. 

5. Versatility: It offers some versatile-looking reliable and eye-catching templates that can be tweaked as per your preference. 

Shopify Advantages Over Big Cartel

Payment Options

Compared to Big Cartel, Shopify undoubtedly has more payment options. It offers more than 100 different payment gateways allowing you to go with the one that suits you perfectly. They include world-renowned gateways like PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon, etc. 

Despite having multiple payment choices, Shopify comes with an inbuilt payment option called Shopify Payment Options. And you know what? It’s the only platform where you pay 0% transaction fees.

Note: Big Cartel users are limited to Square, PayPal, and Stripe. There is no other payment gateway available. Along with this, a credit card fee is also charged with Big Cartel.

Cart Abandonment Recovery

Have you ever wondered how abandoned cart recovery works? It will save a lot of bucks for real. 

Whenever the customer leaves a product abandoned in the cart while checking out, you can easily send automatic emails to engage with them again. Sending them an email triggers their emotion to complete the checkout process.

Shopify comes with this in-built feature that allows you to grab such customers efficiently. On the other hand, Big Cartel doesn’t offer cart recovery features, which gives Shopify an edge over Big Cartel.

Shipping Choices

There’s no exaggeration in saying that Shopify is the clear winner in terms of shipping options. 

Shopify comes with the exclusive top-notch shipping suite that helps the users manage the labels and rates quickly. Besides, it also provides discounts on the rates when products are being shipped through DHL, USPS, and UPS express. 

Not only this,  it includes automatic and calculated rates on its advanced plans. 

Although Big Cartel doesn’t handle shipping itself, it’s not as poor as you think. The app integration available here lets you integrate various third-party services like ShipStation.

Social Media Integration

Shopify thrashes Big Cartel here as well because it offers users more than 80 app integrations for lots of social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, etc. 

Quite simply, it provides something for every person who desires to connect with the customers using social platforms. 

Although Big Cartel integrations are limited, it takes care of the requirements and allows you to build a strong social presence.

Furthermore, some additional apps connect Big Cartel to other apps like WordPress, Twitter, etc.

Big Cartel Advantages Over Shopify

Pricing 

Big Cartel is more affordable than Shopify. Both are enriched with great features and are no more an exception, trust me. 

But Shopify is way more costly than Big Cartel and it’s because of the quality features it ensures. 

The plus point is – Big Cartel offers a free plan along with budget-friendly prices, making it a more appealing choice for your small businesses. 

Well, there are no more advantages of Big Cartel, just the pricing. Everything else is just meh with Big Cartel.

Big Cartel vs Shopify Pricing Comparison

How Much Does Shopify Cost?

So far we have addressed the fact that Shopify is a bit more pricey than Big Cartel. Along with this, we also know that Shopify is better. So let’s see what betterment we get. 

Shopify comes up with three different pricing plans: Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify. The ranges are diverse, allowing you to choose from $29 up to $299 per month. 

What’s the catch here? It provides you with plenty of areas to grow your business to a much greater extent as there is an option to unlock modern and innovative features.

The cheapest plan that you can see is the basic one that starts just at $29 per month. It offers even more than the most expensive pricing plan provided by Big Cartel. See the difference now? 

The most significant features include:

• Unlimited products
• Shopify app
• Multifunctional integration
• Discount codes

That is the basic; it has much more to offer. Its essential feature is specially designed to help you set up the store. And guess what? , it includes the full features you need to build the foundation of your store. With time you can upgrade the package as the business grows. 

However, the Shopify plan that costs $79 per month is an excellent value for money, making it ideal for some growing businesses. Despite having all the basic program features, it also offers additional features like professional reports and other gift cards. 

How Much Does Big Cartel Cost? 

When you start an eCommerce business as a side-hustle, you won’t have thousands of dollars to put in at once. So with Big Cartel, you can start with the free plan, grow your business, and keep upgrading the plan.

Quite simply, Big Cartel comes with four different paid plans featuring a free plan too. Sounds impressive, isn’t it?

However, the three pain plans are not as costly as Shopify plans because they lack advanced features. 

The prices range from $9.99 up to $29.99 a month. But the downside to this is – there’s a limit to the number of products you sell.

Setting Up Shopify

Step 1: Go to the Shopify website and start a free trial for 14 days. The site you need to work on is  www.shopify.com/signup. 

Step 2: Enter the necessary information like your name and email. Don’t forget to mention the store name. The plus point is you can change the store name whenever you want. 

Step 3: Once you have created the store, you will see a tag labeling that tells a little about yourself. 

Step 4: Here, you need to be a bit careful! Enter name and mailing address. Make sure the mailing address is right. It’s beneficial if you have a business address. But if you don’t, don’t worry! Use your home address in this slot.

Step 5: The basic setup is done. Now, you can customize and select a theme for your store. Basically, here you have to consider something that’s essential. That’s the store’s theme. 

Why is a theme necessary? It is a pre-created design that is well-known for adding prettiness to the store. 

Step 6: Optimize the settings! Shopify has excellent settings that makes it easy for you to change and add the most to your new store. 

Setting Up Big Cartel 

1. Go to the Big Cartel website and select sign up. 

2. After selecting sign-up, you can choose the pricing method that suits you perfectly. 

3. Fill in the name using your email address. Add a strong password and select a shop name. By the way, you will get a URL for your shop as well. 

4. And Boom! Your store’s ready to use.

5. Go to complete your site and fill up in all the shop essentials. 

Big Cartel vs Shopify – Winner! 

Both platforms come with some significant differences but they target quite different target audiences. Big Cartel is specially designed for small businesses that only require some basic features and they have a small number of products.  

Big Cartel shops are not ideal for scalability. Besides, its interface is not as great as Shopify. 

In a nutshell, Shopify is the clear winner.