3 Things To Consider When Picking Your BigCommerce Theme

Maybe your company is in the midst of replatforming and this is your chance to bring a fresh look and feel to what was a dated aesthetic. Or maybe you’re about to launch your first ecommerce site and are starting from a blank slate. Either way, picking your BigCommerce theme from their Theme Store is the first, exciting step to designing your new site. Here are 3 things to consider as you go through this process.

1. What type of devices are your customers primarily shopping your store on?

Are they using desktop, mobile…tablet? This can be a driving factor in the design you choose for your site.

For desktop users, large imagery, content blocks and videos are all excellent additions to your homepage or product list pages. For mobile or tablet users, those items may get in the way of their shopping experience. Think about the layout and prioritize ease of navigation over imagery in this case.

Pro Tip: Insider Intelligence projects mobile sales to account for 43.4% of total retail ecommerce in 2023. So even if your current traffic is leaning towards desktop users, don’t ignore the mobile experience.

2. How many categories do you have?

Having a site that is easy to navigate and quickly find what you are looking for is a key component to ensuring repeat customers. How many categories you have should play a direct role in determining what themes to even consider based on their navigation features.

Dropdown, hamburger and mega menus all have their own unique benefits to weigh before selecting your theme. Dropdowns may be a good option if you have limited categories, hamburger menus give unity between your desktop and mobile experience and mega menus are great for a site with many categories that you want users to be able to peruse all at once before beginning their search.

3. Are you selling products or are you selling a lifestyle?

Your industry and how people buy your product plays a huge roll in the theme you will want to choose.
If you are selling necessities or convenience items, then you will want to focus on themes that are product forward. Clean design with excellent navigation that let’s you quickly find the category or product you are looking for. Focus on the product cards to ensure they include all pieces of information your customer may need to make their buying decision without having to click down into the product details page.
But maybe you are selling goods for hiking, camping, fitness, off-roading or other hobbyist niche markets. In this case, you are often selling more than just a product. You are selling a lifestyle. Make use of lifestyle photography throughout your site, bring attention to testimonials or reviews and highlight your blog. You still need excellent navigation, but consider different ways you can feature these other areas of importance while users are searching the site.

Once you have your theme picked, consider how you can optimize your site for responsiveness. Strabo Partner Frontend Developer, Tiffany Hindman, goes into those details on her recent blog post, “Site Speed and Why It Matters”.