How to use Components to streamline your Shopify store design

Designing and managing a Shopify store can be a balancing act between creativity and efficiency. With Instant’s new "Components" feature, that balance just got a whole lot easier. Components are set to transform how Shopify merchants approach design and store management, enabling you to build faster, maintain consistency, and scale effortlessly.

Components is a new feature that was recently announced at Instant's Canvas event and will launch soon!

To make sure you are prepared to use this feature when it’s released, this blog will explain what Instant Components are, how they compare to Shopify’s native components, and explore the practical use cases that make them essential for creating a more consistent, efficient, and scalable Shopify store design experience.

What are Instant Components?

Components are reusable building blocks inside of Instant that simplify the design process for your Shopify store.

Every component has two parts:

• Main component: The master version where you set the design and properties—your “source of truth.”
  
  

• Instances: These are reusable copies of the main component.

The real advantage of components is their dynamic nature.

Because instances are linked to the main component, any updates you make to the main component automatically apply to all instances. This ensures consistent design across your storefront, saving you hours of manual work.

Whether it’s a button, a product card, or even an entire section, you can turn any element into a component. Once saved, these components can be accessed from the Component view within the Instant builder, allowing for easy drag-and-drop functionality.

Key features of Components:

Curious about why Components are going to improve your Shopify design workflow? Here are a few key details about this new feature:

• Versatility: Turn anything—from small elements like buttons to full sections—into reusable components.
  
  

• Centralized management: Make updates to the main component, and changes will be reflected store-wide.
  
  

• Efficiency: Reduce repetitive tasks and streamline your design workflow.
  
  

• Scalability: Perfect for growing stores that need to maintain a cohesive brand identity across multiple pages.

To truly appreciate Components, you need to understand Instant. It’s the intuitive page builder that takes Shopify design and functionality to the next level.

What is Instant?

Instant is a Shopify store builder app designed to give merchants full control over their store’s design and functionality. Unlike traditional Shopify tools that often require coding expertise, Instant empowers store owners with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and advanced features to create high-converting pages effortlessly. From landing pages to dynamic sections, Instant makes building and managing your Shopify store simpler, faster, and more efficient.

Key highlights of Instant include:

• Flexibility: Design pages and sections exactly the way you want, with no coding required.
  
  

• Customizability: Adapt templates to fit your brand’s unique style and goals.
  
  

• Scalability: Perfect for growing stores, Instant ensures your pages evolve with your business needs.
  
  

• Advanced features: With tools like Components, you can streamline your workflow and maintain a cohesive store design.

Shopify Commerce Components vs. Instant Components

If you’re a Shopify merchant, you might already be familiar with Shopify’s Component feature. For clarity, here’s a quick breakdown of the differences between Shopify Components and Instant’s Components feature.

Shopify Commerce Components and Instant Components address different aspects of store design and functionality, catering to unique user needs. 

Shopify Commerce Components is a suite of more than 30 modular tools designed for developers and large-scale businesses looking to create a customized commerce stack. These components are flexible and can integrate with third-party services, allowing merchants to choose and configure the tools they need for their operations. 

Instant Components provide a more accessible solution for merchants without extensive technical expertise. While Shopify’s tools are developer-centric, Instant Components are designed for ease of use with a focus on streamlining the design process. Merchants can create, reuse, and update design elements like buttons, product cards, or full sections without any coding. Instant Components updates are instantly reflected store-wide, ensuring consistency and saving time.

Although Shopify Commerce Components offer robust customization and integration for developers, Instant Components bridge the gap for merchants seeking a user-friendly, scalable way to maintain a cohesive store design while reducing manual effort.

Why use Instant Components? Practical use-cases

Instant Components aren’t just a feature—they’re a solution to common pain points faced by Shopify merchants in their design workflow. Here are some scenarios where Components shine:

1. Universal “Add to Cart” buttons

Imagine you’ve designed a custom “Add to Cart” button with a unique style. Without Components, you’d need to manually replicate and adjust this button on every product page, collection page, and landing page. With Instant Components, you save the button as a component, and it’s ready to drag-and-drop wherever needed. Any updates to the button—color, text, or size—are applied store-wide.

2. Consistent product cards

Product cards are a staple of any eCommerce store. By saving your product card design as a component, you ensure consistency across your homepage, collections, and promotional pages. Update one element—such as the layout or typography—and every product card across your store is updated automatically.

3. Dynamic hero sections

Your hero section sets the tone for your store’s branding. Create a reusable hero section as a component that can be used across seasonal campaigns, product launches, and promotional pages. Need to swap out a background image or headline? Do it once, and it updates everywhere.

4. Reusable Call-to-Action blocks

CTAs are crucial for driving conversions. Save your most effective CTA blocks as components and use them across multiple landing pages. Consistent CTAs improve the user experience while making your workflow more efficient.

5. Scaling for multi-page campaigns

For merchants running multi-page campaigns (think Black Friday or product launches), Components allow you to replicate design elements effortlessly. Save your promotional banners, badges, and buttons as components and deploy them across all campaign pages for a unified look.

How Instant Components work:

Using Components is refreshingly simple. Here’s a step-by-step look at how you can create, manage, and implement them in your Shopify store.

1. Create a component: Design an element or section in the Instant builder and save it as a component.
   
   

2. Access from the Component View: Your saved Components are organized in a dedicated view within the builder.
   
   

3. Drag-and-drop: Place components wherever they’re needed across your store.
   
   

4. Edit once, update everywhere: Modify the main component, and the changes instantly propagate across all instances.

Benefits of Components for Shopify page building

Instant Components aren’t just about saving time—they’re about redefining how you approach store design. Here’s how they benefit your workflow.

1. Save time

Repetitive tasks are a thing of the past. With reusable components, you can focus on building your store rather than duplicating designs.

2. Ensure consistency

Maintaining a cohesive brand identity has never been easier. Components ensure that every instance of a design element looks and behaves the same.

3. Empower non-designers

You don’t need to be a designer or developer to use components effectively. Instant’s drag-and-drop functionality makes advanced design accessible to everyone.

4. Scale effortlessly

Whether you’re running a small store or scaling to multiple collections and campaigns, Components make growth manageable.

Get started with Components

Instant Components are more than a feature—they’re a smarter way to design for Shopify. By enabling reusable building blocks, Instant empowers merchants to save time, maintain consistency, and scale with ease. With the launch of Components, building and managing a Shopify store has never been more efficient.

Eager to see what Instant Components can do? They’ll officially launch this winter, but here’s how you can get Beta access and start transforming your design process.