Shopify themes FAQs answered
Table of Contents
Intro
There are a lot of people who are curious about Shopify Themes and how they can work best for their eCommerce businesses. You might find the following Shopify Themes FAQ useful if you are just starting. This article will answer questions that our customers have asked us over the years.
Here are the most common questions they have:
What is a theme on Shopify?
A Shopify theme is a tool to change the layout and design of your website, it determines the way that your online store looks and feels. Shopify themes customize the appearance of your site, including layout, typography, colors, and other design elements.
A Shopify theme is a folder of files that work together to create the design of your site. A theme includes template files, stylesheets, images, and JavaScript files. All of those files affect how clients see your product pages, blog posts, and pages.
How do I find out what theme someone is using on Shopify?
You can use our Shopify theme detector, it’ll help you find what Shopify theme your competitors are using by simply entering their web store URL.
Are themes on Shopify free?
Shopify offers some free themes. At the moment only 12 unique Shopify themes are available for free installation.
What is the difference between free theme and premium theme?
The difference between a free and a premium theme is its options, features, support and quality. Due to their lack of cost, free themes’ quality and customization options can vary greatly, and they rarely reach the benchmark set by premium themes.
Should you choose a free or premium Shopify theme?
Price is an obvious difference when choosing a free or premium Shopify theme. Many people just starting out are wary of paying for a new theme when they don’t know if their new business will actually work out.
Although a free theme is initially ‘free’, the reality is that if you want to create a sharp, professional or lucrative eCommerce business, you will probably have to make an initial investment.
Most free themes don’t come with all the features you need for a professional website. You’ll have to pay for the features and updates that your free theme doesn’t provide.
Premium themes also often come with numerous hidden extras, making them great value for money.
For the most part, premium theme providers offer superior support than free theme providers.
Usability is an extremely important factor to consider when selecting a new theme for your Shopify store. Unfortunately, the usability, can be some-what lacking with a free theme.
How do I get themes on Shopify?
You can either buy a Shopify theme from the official Shopify theme store, directly via a theme third party developer, or a third-party marketplace. Usually theme bought from the Shopify theme store are of a greater quality because they need to meet certain requirements and are approved by Shopify.
How much are premium themes on Shopify?
It depends on the theme and who’s selling it. Prices can vary from $150 up to $500. For instance our premium Shopify themes cost $320.
Are paid Shopify themes worth it?
That depends on your needs. Your budget and your goal. Premium themes typically have a distinct style, are feature-rich, have more options and features, and have better support and code.
Should I pay for a Shopify theme?
Premium is always better. But if you’re just starting and your budget is limited, you can start with a free one and upgrade later when your business takes off.
On the other hand if you want to give your website a more specific and professional look you could take in consideration from the beginning a paid theme.
Are Shopify themes a one time purchase?
Yes, Shopify themes are a one time purchase. Once paid, you own the theme and will not have to make any additional payments.
The only exception to this is if you want to use the theme on multiple stores; if you were to open a second store and want to use the same theme, you would then need to purchase a second license for that store.
How often do you pay for Shopify themes?
Another case could be with some developers who offer a limited period of support and theme updates, usually 1 year, after said period you’ve to pay again in order to keep your theme up to date and get support from them.
Other themes, like all OpenThinking themes, come with free life time support and updates.
Can I return a Shopify theme?
It depends where you bought your theme. Check with the Developer and what their terms state about refunds.
However, You cannot return a theme if you bought it from Shopify theme store.
What’s the different between Shopify theme store & third party developers?
Themes provided via Shopify Theme store are developed by Shopify as well as third party developers. Before being published on Shopify’s theme marketplace, themes have to be approved by Shopify and should meet Shopify theme standards. Shopify charges developers a 30% fee on every theme sold.
Some developers chose not to sell their themes via Shopify theme store for different reasons. Themes sold by third-party developers outside of the Shopify theme store are typically of lower quality than those sold on the official Shopify marketplace.
Themes sold outside Shopify marketplace have some limitation when it comes to “Theme trials”. The Shopify Theme store allows you install themes in a “theme trial” mode, which allows you to see how the theme looks like on your store. The only limitation is that you do not have access to edit the template files directly until the theme is purchased. You can’t do this with third party themes sold outside Shopify Theme store.
Can I customise Shopify themes?
Yes, you can customise Shopify themes. Shopify themes have been built to be easily customisable and come with plenty of customization options.
You can customize your theme content and settings from your Shopify admin by using the theme editor. You can choose your own color palette, fonts, logo and customise the layout by adding and removing content.
How much can you customize a Shopify theme?
A part from the customizations cited in the answer above you can also customize your Shopify theme by altering its code. If you’re familiar with the Liquid (Shopify templating language), CSS and JavaScript: the options are endless, you can built any type of eCommerce store.
Can you edit Shopify code?
Yes, you can view and edit the code of any Shopify theme you’ve installed in your store. You can edit your theme code to make detailed changes to your online store, or even build your own theme if you’re familiar with HTML, Liquid (Shopify templating language), CSS and JavaScript.
What coding language does Shopify use?
Shopify uses a selection of different programming languages.
Themes use a mix of different programming languages. This include HTML, CSS, JavaScript & Liquid as its templating language.
You can even use Shopify as a headless CMS. So you can use different technologies and frameworks for the front-end such as VUE.js, React.js or Angular.js to pull data from Shopify API.
What is Shopify Liquid?
Liquid is a template language created by Shopify and written in Ruby. It’s similar to Twig templating language. Liquid is the backbone of Shopify themes and is used to load dynamic content on storefronts. Liquid has been in production use at Shopify since 2006.
Does Shopify use HTML?
Yes, Shopify uses HTML in combination with Liquid and CSS. If you’re looking to built a new theme from scratch then you’ll want to spend a fair amount of time reading over the information from the link above.
How many themes can I have in Shopify
You can install up to 20 themes on your Shopify account.
Can you have multiple themes in Shopify?
Yes, you can have up to 20 theme installed. You can work on, edit and preview all 20 themes installed separately at the same time, however, only 1 theme can be published and is visible at the time to your customers.
How do I upload a Shopify theme?
If your theme comes in the form of .zip file, before using it you’ve to upload it to Shopify.
Upload your theme by following these steps:
- Navigate to your Shopify admin area
- In left sidebar click Online Store > Themes
- Scroll down to “Theme library” and click the “Upload theme” button.
- Locate the theme on your computer then click “Upload theme”
Can I change themes on Shopify?
Yes, you can change themes on Shopify.
To change your current theme:
- Navigate to your Shopify admin area
- In left sidebar click Online Store > Themes
- Chose the theme you want to publish and click Actions > Publish
How do I customize my Shopify code?
In order to edit the source code of your Shopify theme you need to:
- Navigate to your Shopify admin area
- In the sidebar on the left click Online Store > Themes
- Find the theme you want to edit, and then click Actions > Edit code
- Shopify theme editor will open, from here you can edit the files you need.
How do I customize my Shopify store?
To customise your Shopify store you need to
- Navigate to your Shopify admin area
- In the sidebar on the left click Online Store > Themes
- Find the theme you want to customize, and then click the green Customize button
Should I update my Shopify theme?
Keeping the code in your Shopify theme up-to-date is very important. Theme updates a part from introducing new functions to your website, they also fix bugs and optimise your theme both in speed and usability as well as overall security.
Does changing Shopify theme affect SEO?
No, changing your theme doesn’t affect your url structure. Changing the theme will not change the settings in your Shopify Shop, so your sitemap, analytics, google results will not be affected.
However installing a SEO optimised theme could significantly improve your site ranking.
Can I change Shopify theme without losing content?
While you won’t lose your products, collections, pages, navigation, blog posts or payments, by changing your theme, you will lose customisations you’ve made to your theme therefore HTML/CSS and customized theme pages.
What happens if I change my Shopify theme?
When you change themes, some of the customizations and content won’t transfer to your new theme. You’ll have to re-define your menus, set logo image, and go through all customisations available in your new theme.
For instance if you’ve made structural changes to your old theme and switch to a new one these changes won’t be transferred. This applies also to code injected by some apps.
Some apps inject code in your theme.liquid in order to function properly, once you change theme this code won’t be transferred automagically to your new theme so the app chases to function. You’ve to either re-install the app or transfer manually this code.
What is Shopify Online Store 2.0
Online Store 2.0 is set of new features and improvements that significantly expand customization options of Shopify Themes and Apps.
With Online Store 2.0 sections and blocks, you can personalize your store by adding, rearranging, and removing content without the need of editing code. You can now Drag and drop entire sections of products, images, videos etc. in the theme editor, not only on the homepage but also on pages, product, and collection pages.
Shopify Online Store 2.0 metafields
With Online Store 2.0 metafields you’ll now be able to create and edit metafields directly in the admin, and connect metafields to apps or your theme.
You can now display and edit product and variant content directly from the admin without any apps or harcoding. If you want to store additional information about your product, you can use metafields to store and display these information on your store.
You can use metafields everywhere in your theme and even on the checkout page. You could use metafields to show additional information such as shipping timeframes, notices, backorders etc.
Shopify Online Store 2.0 App blocks
With App blocks you can easily install an app into your theme without touching code, you can manage the app directly from your theme editor. When you uninstall the app, you can remove it without it leaving any code behind and causing performance issues.
