Shopify Free Theme customization to stand out from the crowd

For new businesses, the online store has to break through the competitive crowd, and the identity it needs to bring the differentiation and the user friendly UI/UX with design elements that make them unique. There are a lot of new Shopify features that have been developed in the last 2year, and for this first quarter of the year 2023, we should consider what tools are available in the website builder and other areas to help you make a strong statement in the market. Improvements in the non-coded areas such as the website builder has accelerated the ability to have custom options, SEO tools for search engines, and while the theme editor continues to be upgraded, we will touch on its capabilities.

Theme Editor and creating a website

Aside from the drag and drop with ease of configuring your theme with the website builder functions, there are apps and developer tooling to explore further on customizations. In today's eCommerce it requires merchants to have a unique online presence. It is varied by social media, photography, all driving to engagement with products and the services you might be offering. Building stories requires to sell products with visuals and influence - making themes complex yet clean in their delivery. Theme architecture has been upgraded to add section on every page so that you can custom elements, such as app blocks and app embeds. Before these capabilities, merchants were restricted to having front-end developers having to code their requirements into a theme, and while evolving over the past 2 years the home page was introduced as an editable feature, now capable to do the full site.

Updating Theme Editor

Adding metafields and properties without using APIs or code has been a significant. Merchants can add custom content to the product page, with the ability to add a "Size chart" or "ingredient list". When Shopify Theme 2.0 was launched last year, a new Default Theme called "Dawn" was also made available to include all the new features. This gives merchants a way to see how the features are used, as well as front-end developers getting the guidance on implementing withing the new structure. With "Dawn" being the first source reference theme, with OS2.0 flexibility, and with speed optimization. The availability of "Dawn" makes it a great way to take an existing older theme and build your website with it, customizing it with the source reference at your fingertips.

Feature enhancements

Since the introduction of sections that support App blocks, Embeds, Dynamic sources that support metafields the Shopify store team has been working on additional feature improvements. Unlike a Wordpress website where upgrading the site enhances your underlying code, to customize your Wordpress theme takes on an additional effort. With Theme 2.0, the upgrades will show up as features within your theme to take advantage of right away. Merchants are now able to do the following with this new Shopify features:

• Add metafields on collections, order or customers - wishlists, shipping address, favorite products with customers.
• Add bar codes, order IDs, Serial No. and give an indication if the order is a gift.
• Create storefront filters, choice lists for metafields such country and region for origination.
• You get 1000 templates per storefront so you are no longer limiting.

Shopify Free Themes

There are now 3 more themes and now Dawn is aimed as an apparel theme. So when it comes to editing your theme, you can pick out a pre-styled to your industry Shopify theme. The following 4 themes are now broken up as follows:

• Apparel (was Dawn)
• Health and beauty
• Home and decor
• Food and beverage

The new theme settings can make the buying experience with lower friction, adding your marketing tools from the Shopify Apps store can enhance the themes further. You can stand out from the crowd with less effort, and might not require a front-end developer to do this with. The new themes have global settings, and can be personalized with ease.

Conclusion

With four key industry targetted themes, we can probably expect more from the Shopify Theme team to cover additional large demographics. This is a powerful evolution of the Shopify Platform for merchants to take advantage of, and drive further into their markets. With the additional capabilities of Apps and embeds, integrations with social media, reviews and rewards and customizations that are engaging. Having worked with Dawn and the new Shopify themes the complexities on thinking though your content has leveled up, but also gives you much more to work with when it comes search engine optimization and being part of the popular search engines. This helps with your business being found on google searches, and by bringing an amazing experience through your new theme, your conversions will improve further. If you have an questions, feel free to reach out at wish@thegenielab.com