Shopify Websites | 21 June, 2022

Custom Theme or Shopify Theme: What’s best for your business?

You go into a business with the expectation that it would be tidy, well-organized, and visually beautiful. This is because shopping in a store that has been thoughtfully designed makes for a more enjoyable experience overall. If your e-commerce store is the main place where your customers shop, or if it’s just a “digital” version of a real, shouldn’t it also be clean, easy to use, and look nice? Yes, it should be, because these things have a direct effect on your store’s return on investment (ROI). When building your store on Shopify, you have three main choices: a prebuilt Shopify theme, which is like a template, a modified Shopify theme, or a completely custom Shopify theme. Our Shopify development company Delhi is here to help you to create best Shopify theme.

Shopify themes

Shopify themes are pre-made templates that you can buy from the Shopify theme store. They serve as your website’s “presentation layer.” The “front end” of a Shopify store comprises the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Liquid, and image files that make up the theme. Shopify has more than 70 themes to choose from. They range in price from free to about $180.00. Once you’ve selected a template, you can install it in just a few minutes and start making changes to your theme. The theme editor has a preview of the theme and a toolbar that lets you add and remove content and change settings. You’ll be able to add pages, start a blog, set up your site’s navigation, and more.

Advantages of a Shopify Theme

• Use-friendly
  A Shopify theme’s editing procedure is as straightforward as it can be because of the absence of any coding requirements. At first, it might be hard to figure out how to organize and change the content on your site, but Shopify has a lot of free tutorials that can help you get started.
• Affordable
  The cheapest way to build your store is to use a Shopify theme that is already made. If you want to use a free theme, the only cost you’ll have is the monthly Shopify fee, and you won’t have to pay for any development.
• Easy to sell
  Before a Shopify theme is ready to go live, it only needs to install and set up. Depending on how familiar you are with the platform editor and how much configuration needs to do. You could have a store ready for customers in less than a week.

Limitations of a Shopify Theme

• Generic
  There are no certain verticals in mind when it comes to the prebuilt Shopify themes. Your business will likely appear like other stores if you choose to choose one of these themes.
• Functions are severely restricted
  Shopify themes can limit their scalability and function. If you’re a small or new business, this is a great option. However, if you need more advanced features (like the ability to buy online and pick up in person), you’ll need to work with a Shopify Partner (like Diff!) with the skills and time to build it for you. Using a Shopify theme is an excellent idea whether you’re launching a new, unproven product or want to keep your startup expenses as low as possible. It’s allowed to use a Shopify theme if less than 20% of the theme has to alter.

Shopify themes are best for businesses that are new or small. Several free and low-cost themes are available, making them an excellent choice for start-up ecommerce website a wide variety of sectors.

Modified Shopify themes

Depending on the size of your business, you may be able to customize your Shopify theme to better suit your needs. With the suggestion of a designer and developer, you can change your theme’s design and the code that runs it to add new features. You can also use third-party apps to add features that your theme doesn’t already have.

Advantages of a Modified Shopify themes

• Apps for customization
  There are a lot of third-party apps that you can add to Shopify themes to make them do what you need or want them to do. You can get these apps by signing up for a subscription, and it’s pretty easy to add them to your store. For example, Gift Reggie is an app that makes it easy to add gift registry functionality to your store.
• CSS/ HTML / Liquid altered
  Because HTML, CSS, and Liquid are all standard web development languages, you may easily modify your theme’s code to get the results you need. You can also hire a Shopify Partner to make changes to the code for you.

Limitations of a Modified Shopify themes

• No changes from the person who made the theme
  Like the apps on your phone, your theme will have software updates every so often to add or fix things. Once a Shopify theme changes, it can no longer get updates, which usually fix bugs or add new features. This means that if the developer of your theme makes a change, you won’t be able to use it. This also means that you will need to know how to code or hire a Shopify Partner to keep your site running.
• Site that loads slowly
  Adding code to your Shopify theme may slow down your site because it will have more code. This adds to the “code bloat” we talked about before. The back end of your site is full of unused code, which makes loading times longer than they need to be. Remember that apps also add code to your site, so every app you add will make it take longer for your site to load. Google Think says that slow load times frustrate users, so it’s better for your business to avoid having too much code.
• Buy vs. build
  Even though third-party apps that let you customize your store aren’t very expensive, the monthly fees can add up quickly, and the changes you make will slow down your site. Changing your existing Shopify theme might seem like a good idea for businesses whose needs are always changing, but there are risks to this. At first glance, it seems like saving money to buy a theme and then change it to fit your needs. But ultimately, the effort to implement customizations and modifications in a store-bought theme is equal to or greater than the cost of developing the few features in a custom theme. In fact, the cost of keeping an off-the-shelf theme updated and changing it may end up costing you more in the long run.

Customized theme: Best for brands that are growing
As your business grows, a custom Shopify theme gives you more ways to make it your own and more ways to use it without breaking the bank.

Custom Shopify theme

A fully customized Shopify site gives you a user interface that makes to fit the needs of your users and the goals of your business. Everything about your website, from the way it looks to how it works, reflects your business’s brand. This means that your store is really different from the others and stands out. Most of the problems with a prebuilt theme that fixed with a custom theme because the site built from scratch.

Advantages of Custom Shopify theme

• Clean code
  Only the code that your site needs to work put into place. This makes sure that your site loads quickly and keeps your code from getting too big. This is important for the long-term maintenance and scalability of your site. The new features won’t slow things down on the front end if you have a stable code base in the back end.
• Unique design
  With a custom build, you can make a design that is unique to your industry and fits with your brand. These little things set your business apart. A fully custom theme starts with some prep work that makes it possible to build a theme from scratch. The key steps to making a website that reflects your business, brand, and values are a focused discovery session. A systematic approach to mapping your user’s journey and a detailed wireframe and design phase.
• Functionality
  With a custom build, the most important features for your business and industry put front and center. Diff has made it possible for some of our merchants’ customers to buy a product online and then pick it up in-store. This customization is great for merchants who have both a physical store and an online store, which can’t do with a Shopify Theme.

Limitations of a Custom Shopify theme

• Cost
  A fully customized Shopify site will always cost more. It takes at least a team of specialized user experience designers and developers to create and implement a unique theme. Whether you hire freelancers or go with a Shopify Partner will change how much money you have to spend. But no matter which way you go, you can expect the price to be more than a pre-built theme. You’ll also need to plan for future costs like maintenance and scaling. Shopify does recommend that Shopify Plus users make more than $1 million a year.
• Time
  Putting together a store with a custom design takes time. When you work with an agency like Diff, quality is the main focus, so important parts of the building process, like the development phase, are not rushed. If you come to Diff with a design that is ready for development, your store can be up and running in 10 weeks or more. If we have to start from scratch, however, it will take 4 to 5 months. A custom Shopify website will always cost more money and time up front, but for established businesses that are growing; this is a very wise investment. When your site makes from scratch, the focus is solely on how well it converts, how easy it is to use, and how it looks and feels like your brand. This will lead to a better return on investment (ROI).

Conclusions

Every time a new web design trend for e-commerce websites design comes out, we get excited. In 2022, e-commerce will be fast, easy to use, and nice to look at. Keep up with website design trends for e-commerce to make sure your online business does well. If you are looking for Shopify developer Delhi trends for 2022, you’ll find that most of them are good and trendy ideas that will help your customers trust you and lead them to make purchases.