Based on years of building and customizing stores for different businesses, our Shopify experts selected the best Shopify themes suitable for small stores. All these themes allow for easy management of their code and integrations with apps. They differ in the technology they’re built on and the level of control that merchants can have without any developer involvement.
Note that we’re going to cover mostly paid Shopify themes. The free theme can also be a great fit for many stores, but a lot of additional functionality you might benefit from comes with paid templates. They require a one-time payment and support free updates: compared to monthly fees charged by apps and external tools, this investment can be very cost-effective.
Let’s explore the best-converting Shopify themes we’ve chosen in closer detail.
1. Dawn (free)
Dawn is a free theme perfect for quick set-up. Essentially, all 11 free themes offered by Shopify are variations of Dawn with different layout settings. It’s regularly updated and makes it easy to customize. So, if you have developers on your team or can do some coding yourself, this might be a good option to go with.
Dawn offers plenty of sections in its drag-and-drop editor, as well as additional features like cart notes, promo banners, quick buy, image zoom, product filters, etc.
Even though Dawn is completely free and lacks additional functionality, it still is one of the best Shopify themes for e-commerce businesses, especially small stores.
2. Impulse ($350)
The Impulse theme is available on Shopify Theme Store at $350. It offers 20+ customizable sections, a custom promotion designer, and additional features like sidebar filters or product tabs.
The theme has 3 presets, each suitable for different types of stores. It supports animations, video integration, and a lot of options for how images are displayed (image zoom, rollover, etc.), which makes Impulse great for visual brand storytelling.
This Shopify template might not be as rich in features as the previous two, but it stands out by having clean, well-managed code and being built with the latest technologies. It also offers a localized theme editor, which makes the process easier for merchants preferring a non-English language.
3. Be Yours ($250)
Our last pick is Be Yours that will cost you $250. You can choose among 5 presets designed for different products, as well as multiple templates for collection and product pages.
The theme offers 30+ sections to customize and some helpful additional features: a sticky cart, a recently viewed products section, various promotions (in the menu, pop-ups, and banners), product reviews, lookbooks, etc.
Overall, Be Yours is a simple yet feature-rich solution. It works well with single-product stores, as well as shops with larger inventories. The theme’s developers also meant it to be among the best Shopify themes for dropshipping businesses.
4. Optimal ($79)
The Optimal theme costs $79 for a regular license. It gives maximum flexibility, as you can control all the functionality without coding or external help.
Optimal is a mobile-optimized and fast-loading theme that has everything you need to keep up with SEO requirements. Although its tech stack can be considered outdated, it’s still easily maintainable. The theme offers a drag-and-drop editor for any page so you can change the layout, header and footer elements, and any other section.
Optimal has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality you can make good use of: wishlists, quick add-to-carts, countdowns, product labels, low-stock notifications, etc. When having these features built into the theme, you won’t need to pay for additional Shopify apps and worry about them slowing down your store.
As a multi-purpose theme with plenty of design and feature options, Optimal can suit any e-commerce niche. Plus, it offers 6 months of extensive support if you experience any issues.
5. Minimog ($88)
The Minimog theme costs $88 for a regular license. It has its custom app FoxKit for managing the store’s design and functionality. With the app, you can easily get through with setting different sections and components you want to have. However, it also makes you dependent on the theme’s own tools if you need some extra customizations.
The theme includes a range of additional features that will help you drive conversions: product bundle builder, free shipping goals shown in the cart, in-cart recommendations, size charts, smart search, quick view, etc.
On top of that, Minimog employs speed and performance optimization techniques such as selective loading of content and image optimization. Plus, it is designed with the latest technologies, which is an advantage over many other Shopify templates. The only drawback is that it doesn’t share the code build so you’ll face difficulties if you need some modifications of the core features.
6. Symmetry ($320)
The Symmetry template costs $320 on the official Shopify Theme Store. It offers 4 presets mostly tailored to fashion stores but also fitting to other niches.
Like other themes, this one features a drag-and-drop editor with highly customizable sections for any store page. You can also take advantage of additional features that include cart notes, quick buy options, cross-selling blocks, product badges, color swatches, etc. Symmetry provides you with a wide range of filtering options to improve navigation and shopping experience.
The technology behind Symmetry can be considered outdated, however, the code is clean, which makes it easy to make fixes and customizations to the template. Another advantage the theme offers is a localized editor. It’s a good fit if you’re looking for the best Shopify 2.0 themes to run and easily manage a store.
Build the store you love
While there are a lot of aspects you need to control when building a store, powerful Shopify templates can do the major heavy lifting for you. When choosing the best Shopify theme, think of all the features you want to have and check which templates support them. Besides that, consider what Shopify theme will be the best for SEO in terms of speed and performance parameters. Last but not least, learn what technologies the theme is built on and if they share their code tooling (this might come in handy if you hire developers for more complex customizations than you can do with out-of-the-box options).
If you need help with selecting the right theme, customizing it, or adding integrations, we can build your store according to your design and feature preferences. Drop us a line, and we’ll discuss your project.
In the meantime, you can also check out our guides for new stores:
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