Set Up an Online Store for Selling Apparels with Shopify
I am a Boutique owner. I have a physical store as well as a virtual store, that is, an online store. During the lockdown period in the uncertain time of COVID 19, when all the shops were closed. I was worried about my business. I had talked with my friend about the loss I was facing, she suggested me to have an online store. I started work towards having an online store to sell my product, and I noticed that after having an online store, my sales have increased by many folds.
What is eCommerce? Why is it beneficial?
E-Commerce is a way of selling and buying products and services with the help of the internet. Ecommerce is a very comfortable and convenient way not only for me but also for my customers. There are so many benefits I experienced from having an online store.
- My customers can find a complete range of the products I’m offering by sitting at home, working from the office, or doing some duty. That, too, in just a few clicks without disturbing their schedule.
- There is no time boundation for shopping, as my online store provides 24*7*365 services. My customers are free to shop at any time. Hence, it saves time for both of us.
- Another advantage of having an online store is I can have a huge stock of my products anywhere as there are space constraints in my physical store.
Economically convenient as my customer can now use credit cards, debit cards, cash, and many other payment methods. - I can have an attractive store by using a variety of themes and frameworks. I can decorate the store as per my needs and requirements, which is less expensive than decorating a physical store.
Ecommerce platforms and themes
Ecommerce platforms are the backbone of online stores, that provide us with software for the store on screen. Numerous platform options are available to set up an online store for selling apparel, like WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Ravendel and many more. Each has unique features. Some offer it for free, and some have paid plans with a certain free trial period. So that you can choose any platform according to your needs and budget. There are unique themes that each platform offer to make your store look more organized and beautiful.
The Personal touch can be added to your site by having control over its layout. The eCommerce platform provides its customers with some free themes, and some are chargeable. The default themes are the one that is already fed by the platforms. The customer can have it the way it is (or can update it with certain limitations) or buy the paid one with some extra features according to their essentials.
Shopify and the themes it offers
Amongst many eCommerce platform providers, Shopify is a well-known platform for developing an eCommerce store. It offers a wide range of themes and plugins. Shopify also provides a free trial of 14 days, and then we can continue with services by subscribing to their paid plan. The paid subscription starts from $29/month, and the charges may vary with your add-ons.
Shopify provides many themes, some are free, and some are paid. The charges may vary according to their features and services they provide us. We can also sort themes according to the number of products that we offer. It can be for a single product, small catalogs, medium catalogs, or large catalogs. Even we can sort themes by their layout style – wide, grid, collage, editorial, row, and one page.
DEBUT
I have used the Debut theme for my Shopify store. It includes two styles, the first one is dark, which is also the default, and another is light. You can also refer to this link to have a look and experience an online store style.
It consists of the features:
- There is a slideshow on the home page, which we can use to display multiple images of the best seller products.
- When a customer starts an investigation, a Predictive search gives out the search result, which may be possible, and provides quick links.
- We can add promotional banners that promote the latest products or products on sale or show the available discount at the top of my store’s home page.
- If a customer wants to give feedback, it accepts that too. With the help of comments and quotes from customers, my product gets promoted.
- It is suitable for my store as I have fewer products to offer to my customer.
- On the collection page, it allows the filter of a product by its type and sorts it by its price or best sellers like in Amazon, Flipkart, and others.
- As people nowadays feel comfortable surfing the internet on mobiles, the theme helps to modify the store’s appearance as per the device.
- The “Debut” theme comes up with free theme updates and free photos of Bust products, which gives an ensign about how the actual store will look like.
- The theme made it easy to change my home page’s content according to the products I offer.
- It has its own and unique built-in style and color palettes.
I felt it to be the best possible choice for my store. It is very user-friendly and can be easily modified, and can operate with just basic knowledge. The color and style are attractive and fit for my product.
There are certain limitations, as well. It is not suitable for the stores which have a large number of products to offer. If you go for more advanced themes, you need to pay more with the monthly subscription charges.
Shopify has many themes to offer. Let’s have a look at some more themes.
SIMPLE
Simple: As by its name, we can understand, it’s simple with minimal features. It is a good choice to showcase your product and is free of cost. It includes 3 styles: light, toy, and beauty. It is very comfortable for starters as it is easy to use. It has an accordion-style menu, a vertically stacked list that can expand and provide nested links related to the item. It provides zooming of the image by which the customer can have a closer look and extra detail of the product when they hover over it. To create a sleek, transition effect, it also provides animation of your product on the homepage. On the product page, it showcases recommended products that increase its discovery. You can have a look at this theme with this link.
NARRATIVE
Narrative This theme is an excellent free theme for startups with single products or small catalogs. It is simple, modern, and highlights your products. There are 4 styles available: earthly, warm, cold, and light. It provides a fullscreen video on the top of your homepage through which you can tell the story of your product. It helps describe your product in detail with customizable images, blocks, quote slides, and more. It consists of a sleek vertical slideshow that displays products’ information, photos, or blog posts. You can have a glimpse of this theme here.
BROADCAST
Broadcast : Another good theme suitable for the store with medium catalogs. This is a paid theme costing around $180. It includes 3 styles: clean, modern, and bold. To your homepage, it connects clear and detailed photographs of your product so that your customer has a proper view of it. It has a section with an auto-playing background video on the homepage, which gives life to your homepage. It also offers blog facilities with avatars and social sign-ins. When a customer views a product, it offers a popup window with details of the product so that the customer doesn’t have to leave the current page to have details. When a customer views a product there are color swatches, to show the available colors of the product. To view this theme.
These are some of the common features that Shopify offers to its all themes:
- Customizable content sections on home page
- Mobile-friendly design
- Search engine optimization
- Social media icons
- Drop-down navigation support
- Built-in styles and color palettes
- Free theme updates
- Free stock photos by Burst
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