Want to know what is the most amazing, eye-catching WooCommerce theme for your eCommerce site in 2021? Scroll and read, my friend. We’re about to deconstruct each of them and give you perspective!
When WooCommerce was brought to life, in 2011, nobody could predict how great it will be and how successful this plugin will turn out. But, after a decade we can say that this WordPress plugin is one of the most popular platforms of them all.
Not only WooCommerce has the extensions and design options an eCommerce site might need to be the best, but it is a growing community that only adds to the appeal to this platform.
The themes are optimized to make your online store amazing from the start. And it should be just like that because WooCommerce started as WooThemes so the people responsible for this success were already doing an amazing job at implementing great designs. In 2013, so just two years after launching, they achieved 1 million downloads and after one year they grew to 4 million.
2014 seemed to be a great year for WooCommerce because they also launched their first free theme: WooCommerce Storefront Theme.
Ever since, WooCommerce themes have always been on par with several criteria, because appearance and design are just some of the great features of a store.
Let’s see what other points you need to reach for your online store to be great.
According to Good Firms research, there are eight characteristics you need to consider when choosing the best theme there is and what influences the cost of the overall design.
61.5% Features and functionalities
46.1% UI/UX Design and Responsiveness to multiple devices
34.6% CMS (Content Management System) and Usability and navigation
30.7% Content list
19.2% SEO and Third-party integration
DESIGN
While other aspects of a theme are extremely important, design is the main feature of a great theme. It’s something everybody notices at first glance and if not up to standards you could easily lose clients.
Studies show that up to 38% of visitors tend to leave the site if the appearance is not to their liking.
So, whatever you’ll choose make sure that the best WooCommerce themes have amazing designs.
Tip. Don’t forget most of the clients check the online stores on mobile devices. Therefore, use the demo WooCommerce offers to see if the design is also mobile responsive. A study showed that 40% of the users will switch to another website if the one they are currently checking is not working properly on mobile.
FLEXIBILITY
Even if the theme has a lot of features you still need to consider how flexible it is and how it may grow over time.
Don’t forget that not all visitors are proficient in web navigation, so whatever WooCommerce theme you’ll put out there make sure it is easy to use.
The visitor should find their products easily and from there on to the checkout, it should only take a step. The process of navigating the store should be simple and clear so that the visitor will know what he has to do to complete an order.
SPEED OF LOADING
The slow loading speed will make the visitors abandon their need to enter the site. Fast loading eCommerce wp themes will always win in front of the customers.
So according to a survey made of Good Firms research, 40% of the users tend to leave the website if it doesn’t load in under 2 seconds.
SEO FRIENDLY
An eCommerce website with traffic means there will be more sales, so what to do to reach more traffic? You guessed it! SEO.
The WooCommerce themes that have built-in SEO optimization will get you better results and better sales.
PLUG-INS COMPATIBILITY
Even if WooCommerce is an independent plugin, whatever you choose to add will include features and build the store in ways you’ve always dreamt about.
So, needless to say, the theme you choose should be compatible with other WooCommerce plugins.
Now you know what to look for in a theme, which means we are ready to show you the free WooCommerce themes and not only.
Our list is compiled of both premium and free themes taking into account the criteria above and the popularity. So if you search under the tags WordPress WooCommerce themes free and premium you’ll get a nice list of themes to choose from.
Let’s see what we chose and if it matches your preferences.
Flatsome
This WordPress WooCommerce theme is a popular one mainly due to the fact it’s easy to use by shoppers and designers altogether. Although it is not a free theme it does come with a lot of great reviews.
Let’s see what makes it so special.
It was created to be integrated with the free WooCommerce plugin and will display a shopping cart right from the start. You could use it for other purposes and has an intuitive interface and a great loading speed.
Its 300 layouts for customization offer plenty of design options and make the site an easily maintain one.
It has a setup wizard to walk you through the installation and even has the option to create your own child theme so the modifications will be saved.
This theme has its own support Facebook group, and upon purchase, you will get 6 months of private support through email from the developer.
Great, right?
The only downside of this theme comes from the strongest point, ironic. Because of the features and customizations built into the theme, whenever you want to change it you’ll likely lose content. So keep that in mind.
Astra
This is one of the best free WooCommerce themes because it is lightweight and runs smoothly in a short amount of time. Based on the users’ review, Astra loads in under 37 milliseconds which is pretty impressive.
Let’s see what other things this theme can do.
Astra is one of the WooCommerce WordPress themes with a clean, modern design and multiple widgets area for great customization. It also has SEO optimization and will definitely help with your selling.
The speed of loading and creating the website, the simple yet compelling design could make Astra’s free version the top choice.
The downside of this theme is that WooCommerce integration support is a little lacking.
If you are not keen on writing code, Astra might just be the theme for your store.
Storefront
One of the most popular WooCommerce free themes is Storefront.
If you’re wondering why it has so many downloads, over 5 million is probably because it was developed by the same people who made WooCommerce. Storefront is somehow WooCommerces’ own theme.
But what makes it so popular?
For once, Storefront offers amazing integration with WooCommerce along with all the extensions. From all the WooCommerce themes, Storefront manages to be fully compatible with the plugin.
It is a fully responsive theme and includes a special template for the homepage.
The customization is not as spectacular as other free WooCommerce themes, but you can opt for the premium child theme of Storefront and gain more freedom in features.
The community for Storefront free WordPress WooCommerce themes is large and might help with the support needed and documentation if you cannot find it through the customer service system.
The plain-looking theme is what makes Storefront WooCommerce a lightweight one and easily extendable and flexible.
We conclude that WooCommerce Storefronts’ to be one of the best themes you could find for your online store.
PopularFX
Another WooCommerce free theme with good integration and increasing demand, PopularFx is getting better and better reviews.
This theme is 100% compatible with WooCommerce and has a good loading speed.
The design is simple but catchy and the elements can be added using either Elementor or Pagelayer- Builder.
If you want to access even more features, try PopularFx Pro one of many premium WooCommerce themes.
All in all, PopularFx is a good theme to start an online store using the WooCommerce plugin.
Ocean WP
As our last theme analyzed, we chose Ocean WP which is another free useful theme with surprising features.
It has what it takes to be a great alternative for glitzier themes. It is responsive and fast loading, integrates well with WooCommerce, and has built-in SEO, and if that is not enough it is translation-ready.
As you can see, this free theme has elements of a premium one without the cost.
What is great about Ocean WP is that the basic version comes with an innate shopping cart popup that increased conversion by 8%, according to Neil Pattel’s review of the theme.
Free rendition will give you a taste of what this theme can do for you and if you wish for more accessibility you are free to try the premium packages.
Divi
Divi is an easily customizable WordPress theme with over 1000 designs layouts and perfect integration with WooCommerce.
It is not a free theme, but this paid version allows you access to many great features like advanced code editing, animations and different styling elements, quick editing modes, and great ways to make your product stand out in an online store.
Besides the design tools, Divi has excellent marketing gadgets that will take your shop to the next level: a lead plugin, SEO optimization at its finest, and many more.
The Divi Theme Builder lets you apply the Divi Builder to your chosen theme template. How does that work? Well if you already used the builder to design a template for a single product page in your WooCommerce stores, then that design will apply to all of them without you needing to recreate each manually.
Admittedly it is not the fastest theme out there, but it’s not bad either, so its greatest design assets compensate for the not-so-great loading time.
Now you know what you pay for when deciding to get Divi as your eCommerce theme.
Neve
This theme is a freemium one, meaning it is free with premium options, therefore, making it perfect for those who are looking to extend long term.
Its base theme is lightweight, with a ton of options if you want it customized without affecting performance.
It is compatible with the most popular page builder and has great support for the ambitious AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages – a project meant to provide a faster experience on mobile). Although there seems to be a bit of a controversy regarding this feature, performance-oriented themes are trying to be AMP-friendly.
Is the free version enough or do you need to install the premium theme to get the most of Neve?
In most cases, it seems to be sufficient, but if you want to install it with a WooCommerce Booster then the premium is what you should strive for. What does it do for your WooCommerce store? You can add wishlists, quick view, advanced reviews, and many more features.
With lots of characteristics to consider, Neve might just be one of the best themes for 2021.
Shoptimizer
Optimized for conversions and speed, Shoptimizer is a great theme for little money. It is created by a small company that focuses on making WooCommerce optimized themes. What could be better? But let’s check if indeed this has all it takes to be the winner.
After installing it, Shoptimizer allows you to customize the theme with the help of a free plugin Kirki.
It is the most optimized theme since it was created according to the suggestions of Baymard Institute (an independent Web UX Research Institute with large-scale research studies in this area). It’s no wonder that you can easily control your WooCommerce shop within this theme.
Shoptimizer it’s amended for web and server performance on all accounts: speed, SEO friendly, amazing shopping experience for your users.
It works with most page builders and has support and documentation, but only on one site: the CommerceGurus website.
Hestia
The greatest thing about the Hestia theme is its revised compatibility with WooCommerce. Besides that characteristic, it is also compatible with many page builders and has hundreds of 5-star reviews.
Hestia has a free version and also a premium one with a great addition Hestia Pro Hooks – an addition that allows the user to insert custom content on certain theme parts, mainly on the front page.
When talking about performance, both Hestia free version and Hestia Pro manage to get good loading speed.
Another best part about this theme is that you can customize everything from one place, the Customizer.
We talked earlier about Hestia Pro Hooks, this is a feature that allows the developer to insert text, HTML, Java, and all sorts of code into different parts of the theme.
Hestia has good support, dedicated groups where you can get advice for free and well-written documentation.
The only downside would be the site-library which doesn’t have enough templates to choose from.
Hestia is a good option for an eCommerce site that needs a beautiful home page.
This is the end of our chosen list of themes compatible with WooCommerce and also popular.
When you hunt down the right theme don’t forget the main features a great one must have are all about great design, functionality, speed, customization, SEO.
They say it takes about 0.05 seconds for a stranger to make up his mind about your eCommerce store so, make sure your design is what it needs to be.
A good theme not only is functional but looks good and allows you to make customizations so that the clients stay on the site and also buy your product.
The professional design comes with amazing photographs, styles and specific templates to match your business. If you’re not sure what theme you should pick, test them. Most of the themes above offer a live demo so you can see it in action and scroll through it.
Besides design, check that the theme is mobile responsive. See how the theme feels on mobile, are the fonts too small, or are the images unclear, is everything set as it should be?
Tip. If you’re not sure, check the theme with Google’s mobile-friendly test.
Does the theme load quickly? Most of the users will leave your page if it doesn’t load in under 2 seconds.
Tip. You could test the speed with GTMetrix.
Check the updates of your chosen theme and see when was the last made. Updates protect the theme from hackers and other bugs so make sure the theme still gets updates made.
See if the theme has good reviews, is easy to use and you can find good support and documentation for it.
Remember that a good theme will allow your WooCommerce store to stand out and sell, but a great theme will attract clients and keep them engaged. If you’re looking for a more customized theme, you can hire a team to handle that for you.
Themes update and change every year so be sure to check each of those boxes before taking a decision.
Explore and be ready to be challenged, after reviewing several themes and browsing through the demos you’ll be ready to make your choice. Selling isn’t easy without the right elements so we’ve made choosing easier for you.
If you need more information about themes and other criteria regarding WooCommerce just search our blog and check all the other resources.
