Shopify

Aug 30, 2024

How to get an efficient Shopify store design for your eCommerce website

a shop setup for high conversion - Shopify Store Design

Instant Team

How to get an efficient Shopify store design for your eCommerce website

No matter how much traffic your Shopify store gets, you'll struggle to make sales if it’s not designed for conversions. Picture this: You’ve created an attractive offer to entice your visitors. But when they click to learn more, they’re met with a dull, lifeless page that lacks clear direction. There are no visuals, no product descriptions, no customer reviews, nothing to get them engaged and interested in your product. Do you think they’ll stick around to figure it out? Of course not. They’ll bounce, and you’ve lost a potential customer that could have helped improve your Shopify conversion rate. Store design is critical for Shopify conversion rate optimization, and this blog will explain why. You’ll learn what makes a good Shopify store design and how to create an attractive landing page with Instant’s Shopify landing page builder.

What is the Shopify design system?

a shopify landing page - Shopify Store Design

The Shopify Polaris design system is a set of comprehensive guidelines and principles designers can use while building apps and channels for Shopify. It offers a range of resources and building elements like patterns and is available to all Shopify partners. Instead of creating existing elements and mimicking design patterns, Shopify designers can now focus on what matters: providing solutions that blend in with Shopify seamlessly. This gives a better user experience and keeps everything uniform and consistent.

What are the benefits of using the Shopify design system?

Shallow learning curve

The Polaris Shopify design system comprises the complete set of building blocks requisite to create apps that will feel familiar to merchants.

It does not require a learning curve
Partners can download a style guide
Library of components and patterns
UI kit to use

Saves time

Even though working within a fixed design framework initially feels constrained, it can save time and effort.

Clear direction

Shopify Polaris provides simple and detailed design guidelines for color use and content writing. Clear directions and guidelines help your team consistently design and apply the standard. When an update is made, you want to apply a component to all previous designs.

Open-source project

Polaris is one of Shopify's open-source projects. This certainly gives designers the confidence that it will also work with other eCommerce platforms when applied to a product. Therefore, the designs are not limited to Shopify.

Frequent updates and maintenance

These ensure that you are included and have the latest and greatest.

Maintain your brand identity

The Shopify design system does not allow you to control all the design elements. However, you can boost your brand identity by adding a logo to the navigation bar and designing your illustrations.

The Shopify design system fastens and improves the quality of front-end development.

Can you customize your Shopify store?

person discussing ideas - Shopify Store Design

One of the most significant advantages of using Shopify to power your online store is the ability to fully customize your store’s design. A completely customizable store allows you to create an online store unique to your brand and business. With Shopify, you can select a theme from the Shopify theme store or upload a third-party theme to your store.

Customizing your Shopify theme with the theme editor

You can edit your theme to customize your online store's content, layout, typography, and colors.

Each theme provides sections and settings that allow you to change the look and feel of your store without editing any code.
The theme editor displays a tree view of all the content for the template that you're currently viewing in the sidebar.
Expand a section node using the expand icon ▸ to view its blocks, or collapse it using the collapse icon ▾ to hide the blocks. You can click any section or block to view its settings.
Access the theme editor from your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes. Next to the theme that you want to edit, click Customize. Click Sections.

Instant: Your no-code solution for high-converting landing pages

Instant is a user-friendly Shopify landing page builder that allows eCommerce teams and agencies to create fully customizable and advanced pages without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can quickly design and publish:

High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design

Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.

Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!

How To get an efficient Shopify store design for your eCommerce website

an online ecommerce store - Shopify Store Design

Use Instant for an outclass landing page

High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design

Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.

Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!

Plan your store design

Designing any experience can be a never-ending circle of ideas and tasks. Without structure, creating your online store can feel stuck in the most complicated maze with no exit signs. That’s why it’s essential to design your MVP first. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, MVP stands for minimal viable product.

To break that down further, it is the least amount of work needed to launch your store, collect feedback, and then iterate to improve your online store based on that feedback. Don’t feel discouraged about launching your first store with the bare minimum. For example, if you look at a store like Nike.com, Nike had a bare-bones store and slowly made improvements based on customer feedback, resulting in an industry-leading brand and shopping experience.

Now that you’re familiar with the concept of an MVP site, let’s go over six principles of modern eCommerce design you'll need to plan for:

Customer trust
Visual appeal
Color scheme
Typography
Mobile optimization
Product collections

Those principles will guide your design as you develop your store's design. The last part of planning your store will be choosing the right Shopify plan for your business's needs. Shopify offers several plans to help your business grow at each stage:

Basic: offers everything you need to create a store, ship orders, and process payments.
Shopify: for businesses that require professional reporting and more staff accounts.
Advanced: for veteran stores that require custom reporting and lower transaction fees.
Shopify Plus: for enterprise stores that do high-volume sales.

Choose the perfect theme

Now, we will choose the “bones” of our online store by selecting a Shopify theme. Luckily, with Shopify, you can find many unique themes (both free and paid) on the Shopify themes store. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to sign up for a free trial with Shopify. There’s no credit card required. This will let you follow this tutorial and give you two weeks to build your online store. Before choosing a theme, ask yourself the following few questions:

What's your web design budget?
How many products do you plan on selling?
What industry are you in?

Add your products

Now that you have your theme, it’s time to add products to your store. Go to Products > Add product to your new Shopify store to create your first listing. There are several decisions to make on this page.

Write your product title: Your product title identifies the product. Customers will see it when browsing your store. Keep titles short, between 20 and 70 characters.
Add a description: Describe and sell your product. Highlight incentives, address common questions and objections, and help customers envision themselves using your product.
Upload product photos: Include high-quality photos that show your products in their best light. Action shots can help shoppers imagine using your product.
Set your price: Add the price customers will pay to purchase the product.

Several variables influence how you price your products, such as:

Shipping costs
Raw materials
Product’s perceived value

Set up your plug-ins and preferences

Another way to make your Shopify store successful is by adding Shopify apps. These plug-in programs provide additional functionality to your store, which helps you create better shopping experiences and earn more sales. The Shopify App Store offers more than 8,000 apps for you. You can find apps to help you:

Look for products to sell
Bring in customers
Deliver products
Master SEO
Customize your store
Scale your business

Your options are endless. Installing a Shopify app is incredibly easy. Most apps also offer free trials, so you don’t have to worry about spending money upfront.

Add your own personal touches

Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can start customizing the look and feel of your store's pages. You’ll notice theme settings below your homepage options in the customizer tool. When you select that option, you’ll notice you can update your color scheme based on your chosen color palette and your heading and body typography based on your chosen font choices.

Note: Every theme will have configurable options, but color and typography will typically be the same.

12 Best tools to get a fast and responsive Shopify store

woman sitting alone in meeting - Shopify Store Design

1. Instant: A landing page builder that does it all

Instant is a seamless Shopify landing page builder, allowing eCommerce teams to create advanced pages without coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can quickly design and publish:

High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages and sections

Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.

2. Printful: Custom products made easy

Printful is a print-on-demand service that allows Shopify users to design custom products like clothing, mugs, pet products, and more. The app handles order fulfillment and shipping, saving you time and resources so you can focus on growing your business.

3. Shopify Email: Easy email marketing for Shopify stores

Shopify Email is a great marketing app for building an email list and managing your campaigns. The app lets you send branded emails to subscribers from your Shopify admin dashboard in just a few clicks. Shopify Email has a variety of pre-made templates that pull your:

Logo
Product images
Descriptions
More from your store

You can also customize the text and buttons in minutes.

Simply import your contact lists into Shopify.
Create and send your campaigns.
Track results like opens, clicks, add to carts, and purchases to further optimize your customer acquisition and retention campaigns.

You get 10,000 emails for free each month then pay only $1 for every 1,000 emails you send after that.

4. Klaviyo: targeted email and SMS campaigns

Klaviyo is a robust marketing platform that integrates seamlessly with Shopify, allowing merchants to leverage customer data for highly personalized email and SMS campaigns. Klaviyo enables businesses to automate communications, such as abandoned cart reminders, and send tailored messages based on customer behavior and preferences. This targeted approach not only enhances customer engagement but also drives conversions and boosts sales.

5. Matrixify: Effortless store management

Matrixify lets you bulk import, export, and update your Shopify store data using Excel and CSV files. If you’re migrating to Shopify from another platform, this app lets you quickly move all your products, customers, and orders to Shopify, streamlining the migration process.

6. Peek: Improve your store based on real user data

Peek! Better replay & survey provides live recordings of shoppers’ sessions to see how people interact with your Shopify store. With this information, you can see and fix where shoppers get stuck and evaluate new ideas to improve conversions and lower abandoned carts in your store.

7. Spocket: A dropshipping marketplace

Spocket is a dropshipping marketplace offering thousands of products from global suppliers. Simplify your dropshipping business with:

One-click purchase options
Order fulfillment
Real-time order tracking
Flat-rate shipping

Cross-sell new products to increase average order value.

8. Event Ticketing: Sell event tickets on Shopify

This app lets you easily design, sell, and scan event tickets. With Event Ticketing, you can:

Add your custom branding to tickets
Sell them directly through your online store
Scan them using your phone

Event ticketing also integrates with Apple Wallet, making it easy for customers to save their tickets on their mobile devices.

9. ESC: Size charts to the rescue

An easy-to-read size chart is a must-have for any fashion brand. Size guides empower customers to make purchase decisions confidently, helping to recover sales that may have otherwise been lost. They also help reduce the number of returns and refunds since sizing issues are less likely to occur when customers know exactly which size fits their needs. ESC’s size chart app helps merchants create size guides to match the look and feel of their store and easily paste them into any page on their website.

10. Warnify: Communicate important information to customers

Warnify makes communicating with your customers easily through fully customizable pre-checkout pop-ups.

Announce low inventory
Shipping delays
Upcoming store closure

Target certain countries, states, and provinces to choose which customers can view the pop-up.

11. Smile: Loyalty programs that boost sales

Smile is a loyalty program app that rewards customers for various actions. Turn shoppers into loyal customers by rewarding them for:

Purchases
Referrals
Account registrations
Social shares
Followers

Over ten engagement methods are available in the free plan.

12. CrowdFunder: Manage crowdfunding campaigns on Shopify

Crowdfunder is your one-stop shop for hosting and managing a crowdfunding campaign directly through your Shopify store. This app can manage:

Pre-orders
Product launches
Limited edition releases

Crowdfunder is also an excellent solution for nonprofits, making raising funds for causes and charities easy.

7 amazing Shopify store design ideas for your next website

business owners looking at options - Shopify Store Design

1. Minimalist design: Allbirds

Allbirds is known for its minimalist approach. Its website uses a clean design, focusing on product images and simple typography.

Features:

Large
High-quality images
Straightforward navigation
Clean, white background

2. Bold and colorful: Gymshark

Gymshark’s website uses bold colors, dynamic images, and large typography to create an energetic and engaging experience.

Features:

Bright color schemes
Interactive elements like hover effects
Focusing on user-generated content, such as customer photos and reviews.

3. Luxury & high-end: Beardbrand

Beardbrand’s design exudes luxury with a dark, sophisticated color palette and elegant typography.

Features:

High-quality product photography
Storytelling through video content
Emphasis on brand values and lifestyle

4. Eco-friendly & sustainable: Package Free Shop

Package Free Shop emphasizes sustainability with a design that reflects eco-friendly values using earthy tones and a clean, simple layout.

Features:

Educational content about sustainability
Product categorization based on eco-friendliness
Clear calls to action

5. Modern & edgy: MVMT

MVMT uses a modern, sleek design with a monochrome color scheme and bold, large images that give the site a contemporary and edgy feel.

Features:

Clean lines
Minimalistic navigation
Focus on lifestyle imagery that complements the product.

6. Artistic & creative: Frank Body

Frank Body’s website is playful and creative, with an artistic design, hand-drawn elements, and vibrant colors.

Features:

Interactive content
Creative product descriptions
Quirky and engaging tone that aligns with the brand’s personality

7. Health & wellness: Ora Organic

Ora Organic focuses on health and wellness, using a soft color palette and natural imagery to create a calming and trustworthy environment.

Features:

Educational content
Testimonials
Clear product benefits
Smooth and intuitive shopping experience

Instant: Your no-code solution for high-converting landing pages

High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design

Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.

Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!

How much does it cost for a Shopify designer?

Hiring a Shopify designer can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000. The final price will depend on the project's complexity and requirements. The cost of hiring a Shopify designer can vary widely depending on factors like:

Their level of expertise
The complexity of the project
Your geographic location

Hourly rates:

Beginner: $15 to $25 per hour.
Intermediate: $33 to $50 per hour.
Expert: $95 to $150 per hour.

Project costs:

Minor tweaks: $200 to $800.
Theme customization: $1,000 to $5,000.
Complete custom store build: $5,000 to $20,000+.

The overall cost can also vary based on whether you're hiring a freelancer or an agency, with freelancers generally being less expensive. Additionally, designers from regions with a lower cost of living, like Asia or Eastern Europe, may offer lower rates than those from North America or Western Europe.

Optimize your Shopify store for conversions without breaking the bank with Instant's Shopify landing page builder

Instant is a landing page builder for Shopify that can help optimize your store's design for conversions. With Instant, you can create high-converting pages without any coding knowledge. The user-friendly platform features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that lets you quickly design and publish customizable: