Shopify Debut Theme Review: Is This Theme Right For Your Store?

Written by Franklin Hatchett

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Our goal at EcomElites is to help readers get the information they need, we partner with companies to help bring you that information. If a purchase or signup is made through our partners, we receive compensation for the referral. Learn More

The best thing about Shopify is that there is a huge support for new dropshippers to build their store.

One of the most important things, when you are starting to sell online, is how to put up a website.

Shopify made it easy and cheap because there are dozens of free themes that you can use.

One of these is the Debut Theme, and we will take a look at what this theme can offer you, and what benefits are there in using this one over the other free ones.

In this Shopify Debut Theme Review, we will see if it's the right theme for you!

Is the Debut theme for Shopify right for you? Debut is simple yet elegant theme for Shopify. If you are just starting our with Shopify them Debut is a good start. It's clean and super simple to use while looking professional at the same time.

What Is The Shopify Debut Theme?

The Debut theme is a free theme that allows you to upload your products and their details in your store.

It's a theme that you can select after starting your store, and it is also available if you want to change your store’s theme in the future.

Just a word of caution before you proceed.

If you change your theme to a new one, you need to re-upload all your photos, logo, descriptions, and blogs once again.

They do not automatically transfer to a new theme.

There are two designs for this theme called Default and Light.

Both styles allow you to create a large slider that covers the entire width of an internet browser, and the difference in the presentation starts below that.

Related: 13 Best Free Shopify Themes For 2019 (The Ultimate Showdown)

Default Theme Style

The Default theme does not have a banner on the top of the page.

On the upper left side, you can put your brand name, and then the top middle of the screen is where you place links that will take your customers to your website’s different pages.

Below the sliders, you can place several product pictures with prices, or just regular photos that will let you highlight your brand.

Further down, you can add more photos that will cover the width of the screen, and then add a featured collection for your products.

Light Theme Style

The Light style lets you put a small banner or announcement on top. You can use this announce an offer like free shipping, or discounted prices for a certain period.

Right below this, you can add a section where you can showcase products that belong to a specific collection, or you can choose specific ones that you want to people to see.

Below that, you can put a new set of sliders, and this is best used for products where photography matters a lot.

Then, you can embed a video that will play on your website. This is great for how-to videos and guides.

Finally, you can add an area where you can place your different product collections.

Shopify Debut Theme Features

Apart from the format or the way the photos are arranged, there are several features in this theme that will help you make a professional store even if you do not know how to write computer code.

Product Filtering

This feature allows your customers to tick some boxes to filter their product search. For example, a customer may be looking for a smartphone.

In this case, you as the owner, you can program it in such a way that a customer will only do a search on Samsung, Apple, or other brands.

Multi-Level Menu

This theme allows you to create a menu below a menu. What this means is that you can easily categorize your products, and customers can easily find the category that they are looking for.

In this example, the customer can click on Furniture, and then select among chairs, sofas, or tables. Not all themes have this feature, so you can use this if you have a wide range of products.

Customer Testimonials

A customer testimonial is not written by the customer on your store.

There is a section where you manually type the customer feedback. This feedback may come from your social media channels.

Not all themes allow you to do this, and without it, the only way to do this is to use the photo feature with text to upload a customer testimonial.

Testimonials are like reviews. The only difference is that the testimonial appears on a specific page that you want to highlight, and not on the product pages.

 

Related: 71 Best Shopify Stores To Help You With Design Inspiration

Promotional Banner

A promotional banner is a small line where you can type a text about your promotion. It can be a discount, free shipping, lottery, or any prize or promotion that you want customers to take advantage of.

You can change the color of the line, and you can also change the font type of your banner text.

Why You Should Use The Theme

Shopify built this theme for individuals who want to sell right away.

The way it is designed, you can launch a store whether you have a huge inventory or just a small one.

Some themes that were made for large inventories will look empty if you have not filled up the product inventory.

This one, however, is flexible enough to make a store look great even if you upload only a few products.

Here are some of the advantages of using the Debut theme.

Magnifier

There is a section where you can upload a product that you are featuring, and customers can zoom in on this photo. This is an important feature if you are selling small items that have a lot of details, like arts and crafts.

Here is an example of a product if not magnified. It sits on the home page where you can add the price and the details.

And here it is after a customer hovers his mouse on top of it.

Mobile-Friendly

Navigating a store on a smartphone is not convenient. People will leave your store if they have to navigate it as they do on a browser.

The Debut theme switches to mobile mode once it detects that the site visitor is using a smartphone. It gives the customer a better experience and is, therefore, more likely to explore your store and buy.

Social Media Icon

In this theme, you can type the links to your social media accounts. Once you make your online store live, the social media icons will launch your social media page if the customer clicks them.

This is good if you want to have free advertisement and traffic. If your site visitors shared your products on social media, they might not have bought an item, but their friends might buy.

Blog

There is an area in the home page where you can put up to three featured stories or blog entries. This is not to say that there is a limit to what you can upload.

You can upload as many blog posts as you want, and this is helpful if you are giving your customers some tutorial or advice. However, you can only showcase three entries on the home page.

Map

Here, you can upload a map to show your customers where you are located if you have a physical store.

This is great for a brick-and-mortar business so customers can visit your physical store if they want to check your products in person before making a purchase.

You May Also Like: Click Here To See Our High Converting Theme

Final Thoughts On The Debut Theme

The rating of this theme is at 47%.

We will rate this at 3.9 stars out of five stars. The reason for this is that the theme still has some issues that can make a store problematic.

For one, some pictures do not adjust the sizes automatically on different phones. As a result, the customer is only looking at a portion of the picture and then has to scroll left to right, or up and down to see the whole photo.

Overall, this theme is great on the desktop, but the mobile view needs an update.

The mobile view is cluttered. While not all people are affected, there are some instances where some phones seem not to be supported.

I hope this review helped you!

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