September 7, 2023

Best WordPress Theme for eCommerce Websites

4 min read
best wordpress theme

 

With so many tools available online, starting a business online has never been easier. First and foremost, it all starts with figuring out how to create a website. There are several services such as Wix or Volusion that offers to do it all for you, from domain acquirement to hosting and service it regularly. However, even if they offer many free services there are quite a few downturns and, from my experience is better to handle these parts of your business, or at least in part, all by yourself. This way, on the long run you will have better control over the technical aspects of your site.

Purchasing a domain and a hosting service can take you literally minutes and you will be in no time owner of a website that will need content but also an appealing look with easy navigation for your visitors; you will need a great theme to work with.

In my experience of opening an ecommerce store using WordPress themes I came across many hurdles, especially in finding the best WordPress theme that would help me do all I had in mind. I installed many, many themes and spent quite a few dollars to get where I wanted them to be. Like many others I went to Google and searched “Best WordPress ecommerce theme “ and I found many sites that are offering the best 20,30,40 themes etc , all competing for place on top of Google search. All these websites list these themes mainly because they get a commission from the creators (and they list the features provided by them). The pictures are from the vendors selling these themes and almost all are based on dashing pictures of models or items to sell taken by professional photographers. They are very good looking and they are certainly attractive for anyone looking to start their own ecommerce website. However, you must remember that is this just the “packaging” that needs to sell the product.

So how to find the best WordPress theme for an ecommerce website?

Start looking at the features they offer, such as the ones I describe below.



Functionality

First and foremost you must make sure that the template will help you achieve your ultimate goal, running your own website where to sell products. Starting with the front-page options you want to know if buyers can have a streamlined process from choosing a product to adding it to the cart, create an account and login and finally be able to make the payment and receive a confirmation. This process should be very easy to navigate thru; buyers don’t have much patience these days. Most eCommerce themes should be made to easily do just that but many fall short and focus only on the appearance.

Easy to customize

While thinking about how to create a website you will certainly have a vision on how things should look and work like once it’s live. While most themes seem to have what is needed once you purchase them you’ll start wanting to make changes; the width of your website, move the search bar from one place to another, have an advertising space where there isn’t one to begin with or most importantly – changing the position of the sidebars to better fit the functionality of your pages. Most themes offer technical support and they will do some of the above for you but these will eat a lot of your time- at least 24 hours in many cases for a response that does not guarantee your issue will be solved.

Mobile responsive

With more and more consumers using smartphones and tablets to make their purchases online, having a theme that works well both on these devices with a flexibility of the screen resolution is essential for any eCommerce website. While many themes offer this feature many fail to offer flexibility in changing the navigation buttons in a case-to-case basis, from a device to another.

Blog option

Google loves original content so you will want to run a blog on your ecommerce site; you may not be tempted to do that from the start but, along the way, you want to have this option. The best WordPress theme for an ecommerce website must have a blog.

So what is the best WordPress theme for an eCommerce website?

When you started reading this article I am sure you expected a bunch of themes listed as many other sites offer. I will save you some money and time and recommend you Avada from Theme Forest, the most complete and flexible theme I came across. This is the best selling theme online at this point with over 100 000 sales. And guess why? It has all the features I mentioned above and a lot more. Do not be turned off by the large number of other people who run this theme; to make your unique is very simple, easier than any other theme on the market. The main feature I love is the Fusion builder, which enables you to built pages with any layout you have in mind and add all sorts of content from your site. I used Avada to build my first ecommerce website. For $58 per license, this theme is cheaper than most of the other that don’t offer half as much (besides maybe looking flashier to make you buy them). The support is also top notch; they resolve all issues within 24 hours.

At this point you should be all set to have your ecommerce website started. Enjoy the ride!