Themes can cost you hundreds of dollars. You have to pay for them because someone took the time to code the themes. The thing is, a hundred dollars is better used for marketing expenses than paying for a theme if you are just starting out in your online business.
Did you know that there are free themes you can use on your Shopify store? These themes are functional and are not on trial versions. You can use them for free for as long as your store is active.
Here, we will be taking a look at the 13 best free Shopify themes you can use, and also look at their key features.
1. Venture
Venture is a theme made for stores that have huge inventories. It offers a bold design, and it is primarily designed for those who are selling outdoor gears or sportswear.
Features:
- End-to-end-slide show – the slides will occupy the entire width of the website. Most themes do not do this, and they leave blank spaces on the left and right sides of the slides. A large slideshow helps capture attention, so use this to highlight your best products or offers.
- Multiple designs – with a single theme, you can choose the kind of color palette that will fit your shop. You can choose a light theme or a dark theme, depending on your brand’s personality.
- Multi-column menu with photo – if a customer hovers his mouse in a category or menu link, some photos in that category will pop up.
- The Venture theme is rich with photos, and you must use this if you want to focus your marketing campaigns on pictures that invite people to make a purchase.
2. Brooklyn
This theme has two designs, and like the Venture theme, it has a slider that occupies that whole page. The two designs are Classic and Playful. In Classic mode on Brooklyn, you can have two feature collections with photos of the same sizes on the home page, but Playful has featured collections where the photos are of different sizes.
Features:
- Home page video – you can embed a video on your store’s home page. You can use YouTube or Vimeo to embed the link. If you do, the video thumbnail or screen will show on the home page, not the link.
- Dynamic Product Display – the theme was designed to adjust the spacing of the photos equally. If you have only two photos for five slots of pictures, the other three slots will not remain empty, they will disappear, and the two photos you uploaded will be spaced equally.
- Slide-out cart – this allows a customer to add products to his cart, and then go back to the previous page without clicking the back button. The cart will slide out, and he can make a change, and then push it back to disappear without leaving the current page he is on.
This is a great theme if you have no more than 50 products to upload, as that is the theme’s capacity.
3. Supply
This is a minimalist theme, which means less is good. It has two designs, called Blue and Light. Blue lets you add up to six collections, but Light has a maximum of four.
Features:
- Large inventory – both designs will let you upload up to 50 products. It is great for businesses that have so many variants like wristwatches, cameras, and gadgets.
- Collection Filter – if you activate the filter, a customer can use the filter option to choose which products he wants to appear. You set these filter options, so if you want a filter for brand names or memory capacity, you can do that, and your customers will find it easier to browse your store.
The supply theme is a great choice if you think you need up to 50 slots for your products. It is also a good option if you need six collections, plus if you want a filtering option.
4. Minimal
There are three styles that you can choose from if you select this theme. These are called Vintage, Fashion, and Modern.
Vintage offers sliders that occupy about 60% of the home page, while Fashion has a larger slider. Modern has a small slider, but it has collections right after the sliders.
Features:
- Home page video – you can embed a video on your home page if you have a link from Vimeo or YouTube. This is best used for product demonstrations.
- Product Image Zoom – like Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba, the customer can zoom in on the product photo by simply putting the mouse on a part of the photo.
- Product Filtering – you can set up filtering options for your consumers to make it easier for them to drill down the product specifications of the items they are looking for.
This theme will work best for products that do not need a lot of noise, like herbal teas or single-product stores where you want a customer to see the value of your product and not lots of ads or marketing photos.
5. Debut
Debut comes in two styles called Default and Light. The only difference between the two is that for Light, there are two sets of sliders. The first one is on the top, and the other one is below the first set of product photos.
Features:
- Product Filtering – like the other themes mentioned earlier, you can set filtering options for your customers. This is best used if you are selling gadgets or items from many brands.
- Multi-menu – in this theme, you can build a menu within a menu. For example, let us say that you have a category called Pants; under that, you can create another set of menu like Formal Pants or Jeans. This makes it easy for your customers to navigate your site and explore specific product categories.
- Customer testimonials – the theme is built with a customer testimonials page. However, it is you who has to upload the testimonial. This works great if you have positive feedback from your customers, and you want to showcase them on your website.
- Promotional banners – you can add a small line of text to grab the attention of your site visitors. This promotional banner must be short and sweet and must be direct to the point like free shipping or a specific amount of discount.
The theme is great because there is a map, so it is great for businesses that have a physical location. The theme looks best on a desktop because there are many things you can put here like magnifiers, social media icons, and blog entries.
6. Jumpstart
This is a theme built for start-up companies. There is only one product you can display, and it offers you a lot of places to highlight photos of your product.
Features:
- Crowdfunding tracker – this is a part of the website where you can show people how much money you have already raised for your start-up. This will also show your goal, and you can use this feature to convince site visitors to donate.
- Video – you can put a video on the page, which you can use to explain what your product is about, and why people should support your start-up.
- Email Subscription – you can place this on the site so you can ask your site visitors to subscribe to your product or start-up updates. Those who donated money to your cause are likely to subscribe, so they know the progress of your product development.
- Sliders – you can put sliders after the section where you describe the features and benefits of your product. It was designed this way, so the photos on your sliders will show the visitors what you have just explained in your product benefits.
- FAQ – this is a built-in section, so you no longer have to use another app. In the FAQ, you will write the most common questions that people may ask about your product, and then provide answers to help them get clarity.
7. Narrative
This theme has three designs called Warm, Light, and Cold. These three designs allow you to put your brand name and logo on the top middle of the page. The menu is on the left, and the shopping cart is on the right. The Warm design has no video functionality, but the other two lets you embed a video.
Features:
- Hero Video – this is a video that you have to embed. It will play consistently for as long as the customer is on that page.
- Visual Storytelling – the theme was built to help you create a demonstration of your product. On each part of the page, you can upload different photos that will show the different parts of your products. Use different zoomed parts of your product, and then add text on each photo section to explain what that feature does.
- Fixed Navigation – on this theme, the menu button is on the left, and you cannot move them to the top or to the right.
The store is great for those who want minimal designs, and those who only have one product to sell. The theme can't be used for stores that have large inventories.
8. Boundless
This theme was created to showcase photos. It has a lot of areas to fill up with pictures, so it is best used for products that use models, such as shoes and clothes.
It has two designs called Black & White and Vibrant. For Black & White, the full screen is occupied by the slider. Below that are large product photos. For Vibrant, the set-up is similar, but there is a menu right below the slider.
Features:
- Fading Slideshow – the photos on your slideshow will not just slide out. They will fade before they get replaced with a new slider.
- Full-width collection images – usually, the collection images are just square or a vertical rectangle. Here, you can take advantage of the screen’s full width. This will take the collection phot really bold.
- Home page video – you can embed a video on the home page right where the sliders are. A customer can click on the Play or Pause buttons to watch your video.
This theme is great for those who can sell product by showcasing photos with less text.
9. Simple
This theme has a very simple design. On the left is the menu, and the product photos are in the top product photos are immediately shown on the site. It has no sliders, but you can add a banner photo if you want.
The page is focused on the Featured Collection list, and your site visitor will see immediately what products are up for grabs from your website.
Features:
- Product image zoom – if a customer goes on the product page, he can click on the photo once again, and it will expand to occupy the entire screen. There are navigation arrows to help him move from one picture to another.
- Image animations – you can create animation for your brand photos and product photos, not as videos, but as transitions like as if it is a slideshow.
- Related products – the store will automatically show similar products that a customer may like. The system will choose this depending on what specific product your customer is viewing.
This is a good them choice if you want your online store to be direct and simple, with little effects or add-ons that can distract customers.
10. Pop
The Pop theme has two designs called Bone and Toy. Both of the designs have the menu placed on the left, and they sport a large slider that occupies about 70% of the page’s width. There is not a lot of differences between the two, except that the menu of the Toy design has a different color palette.
Features:
- Slide-out cart – customers can add products to the cart and make adjustments, like changing the quantity of the order, but they do not have to leave the current page where they are at.
- SideBar Menu – the menus are conveniently placed in the sidebar, and it is a sticky menu. As the customer scrolls down, the menu will still be there.
- Product Image Zoom – customers have the option to enlarge the photos of your products if they hover their mouse on it, so make sure you use photos taken with high resolution.
Slide Show – you can put several photos on the slideshow section, and the site will transition from one photo to another.
The Pop theme is simple, and it is great for products like make-up kits or jewellery. The background is white, and it is best used for photos that do not have dark tones.
11. Star
This theme comes from a developer and not from Shopify. It has two designs called Polaris and Sirius. Both themes have the menu on top, and the sliders occupy the entire width of the screen. There is also a clickable button inside the slider, and you can choose which page will open if a customer clicks this.
Features:
- Double Sliders – apart from the slide on top, you can add another one right below the product categories of collections.
- Blog – you can put your blog at the bottom of the page, and there are three blog articles that you can highlight there. Each article can be shown with a photo to help you engage your customers and make them stay on your site.
Star is great for stores that have multiple and yet similar products, like skateboards of mountain bikes. You can put their photos side by side and make it easy for the customer to choose one that he might buy.
12. Fashe
This theme is a bold one that was designed for fashion. It has a large slider that takes the entire width of the screen, and these sliders have clickable buttons inside them.
Features:
- Account creation – you can ask your customers to create an account.
Multiple Collections – you can put up to six collections on the home page, and each of the photos you put in there can have a clickable button. - Varied Photo sizes – the pictures for the collection do not have the same dimensions, and this provides a modern style with how you present your collections pages.
- Filters – you can set filters, so customers only have to check and uncheck boxes to drill down on the products they want to see while searching.
13. Annabelle
This theme is bold. The home page lets you display a huge photo with text and clickable buttons. Below that are your collections, and you can showcase huge product photos below that, including the product description and the price.
Features:
- Hidden Menu – at the home page, the menu will not show unless the site visitor hovers his mouse on the menu icon.
- Account creation – you can ask your customers to create an account and log in so they can have a faster shopping experience.
- Multiple collections – you can add many collections pages on the home page. By default, the sire will only show three, but if a customer clicks on Load More, he will see more photos of different product categories.
This is a great theme for fashion-oriented websites because the photos of the collection are large and uniform in sizes.
Summary
When choosing a theme, always think of the customer experience, and make sure that you choose one that fits your niche. For fashion stores, you want bold themes with huge sliders. For single-product stores or start-up, you need to use the Jumpstart theme.
Overall, it is up to you to select which of these 13 will work best for your business. Review the functionalities carefully, and then choose one that you find easy to use.