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Reviewed: The 5 Best WooCommerce Themes of 2018

Reviewed: The 5 Best WooCommerce Themes of 2018

The most robust, pretty, and speedy themes for your buck

We've rated this ultra-curated list of themes by 5 specific criteria to give you the most in depth review of the best WooCommerce themes of the year.

The most important part in getting to "add to cart"

If you're running your store on Wordpress, many agree WooCommerce is one of the strongest, easiest, and most well-supported platforms that enable you to sell. According to Builtwith, WooCommerce is the most-used single eCommerce platform, running 28% of all online stores. And with WooCommerce comes the opportunity to design and customize your store with thousands of themes built specifically for the online store.  

Picking the right theme for your shop is a big decision, and once you've got your theme in place, it's lots of work if you want to change it. There are many free themes available (and some of them are quite fine), but in almost every case we'd argue spending 40 to 70 dollars on your WooCommerce theme is worth it.

Choosing the right WooCommerce theme

So, how to choose? There are a few important things to consider when selecting. The most important are: does this theme's functionality work for my needs? Is it quick? Does it have a mobile site / responsive design for my mobile customers? Is there help for me if something goes wrong? And is it pretty enough to keep my customers from bouncing away / well organized enough to keep my customers from getting frustrated?

We've taken these questions into account, and have got you covered! Here is a very curated list of the top 5 best WooCommerce themes of 2018. 

Quick Overview:

Here are our five theme picks rated by five criteria. Honestly, these are all "A's," but since we're comparing them, we're going to get a little more detailed and nitpicky. So TL;DR:

  Claue Shopkeeper H-Code Xstore Bronx

Price

B- C B A B

Appearance

C+ A C C- A+

Speed

B- A+ C- C B-

Versatility / Customizability

A- B- C A+ B+

Updates and Support

A+ B+ A- B B+

OVERALL

B+ A- B- C+ A-


Our top 5 WooCommerce themes:

We've taken into account 5 variables, and awarded scores to each. Our grading criteria, out of 100. Each item is worth 20 points:

  • Price - usually in the range of $50 - $60, and well worth it. (The higher the price, the lower the score.)
  • Appearance - a theme's overall design, including layout, default colors and fonts, and content organization. Also including responsive / mobile sites.
  • Speed - how heavy is the load, and how quickly does the page respond. How does it work on mobile.
  • Versatility / Customizability - How well does the theme lend itself to different use cases. 
  • Updates and Support - Good themes come with developer support, and are regularly updated.

Claue

 

Price: $59. In the middle of the pack, but this theme is anything but mediocre. 
17/20

Appearance: This is a very straightforward grid-aligned product site, with simple box layouts and bubble callouts. The hero header is nicely sparse, and the rest of the site is easy to use, if not groundbreaking in its designs. The mobile site is a slightly slower load but laid out nicely for the smaller screen.
16/20

Speed: It's a pretty speedy load, with minimal drag. Adding to the swift feel are fast-twitch hover states that make the site feel super-responsive. And they save on heavy loads by adding a "load more" option at the bottom of the product list page.  17/20

Versatility / Customizability: Excellent. With 8 different homepage theme options and 5 header layout versions, you'll be very likely to find the shop that is as close to plug-and-play with your content as you can get.  18/20

Updates and Support: Very good. Developer usually responds within a business day to support requests, and has a support portal available to all. There's a great breadth of documentation, and a Claue-dedicated forum, as well.   19/20

Overall Score: 87 out of 100

Shopkeeper

Price: $69. The most expensive of our themes listed, but with good reason. It's a robust, nicely designed theme that is one of the most popular on Envato.
16/20

Appearance: This is a gorgeously designed site, with an emphasis on product photography. There are some lovely, interesting design choices including an interlocking masonry grid layout, and the design fills up the space with images without feeling cluttered. The mobile site works just as well.
19/20

Speed: At under 100 requests per load, Shopkeeper is designed to be a sleek and super quick load. It's one of the fastest on our list. 
19/20

Versatility / Customizability: This is designed first and foremost as a shop for multiple products divided into categories. With lots of little widgets and 6 different grid layout options for your main product gallery, it's customizable for most products. If you've got a very special use case / are doing outside of the ordinary dollars in, goods out, sales, you may find yourself constrained. 
17/20

Updates and Support: Very regular updates. The support is pretty good, but with strict limits. This is one of the most popular ThemeForest products, and the author does not let it languish. It's regularly updated and comes with good documentation. There's also "contact the author" type support, but only for six months after purchase. If you want further support, you'll need to re-up / pay. 
18/20

Overall Score: 88 out of 100

H / Code

Price: $60. Right in range with many other themes.  
17/20

Appearance: Nice big splash hero headers, and simple, white-space heavy layout make this a clean, strong design. A little slow on mobile, but the design translates nicely to the smaller screen. 
16/20

Speed: The site doesn't put too much of a burden on servers, and pops up snappily. Sometimes the order is a bit choppy, and some individual products chug to load.  
14/20

Versatility / Customizability: There's one store theme, so if it works for your standard products, it's perfect. If you need options, there isn't much wiggle room.  
15/20

Updates and Support: Updated at least monthly. Ongoing support with their own portal. They usually respond within a business day.  
18/20

Overall Score: 80 out of 100

XStore

Price: $49. The most affordable of the pack! 
19/20

Appearance: The design here is fine, but clearly secondary to the robustness of the functionality. Mobile is a bit cluttered. 
13/20

Speed: A little bumpy, but fast enough for most users' demands. Middle of the pack in terms of load. This is very chuggy and bumpy on mobile, however.
14/20

Versatility / Customizability: Excellent. There are so many specific product type demos to choose from, from electronics to hardware, to cocktails. 
18/20

Updates and Support: Regularly updated. Their support forum is login only, and they have a contact form for questions prior. English is clearly not (most of these folks') main language, but everyone gets by.
15/20

Overall Score: 79 out of 100

Bronx

Price: $61. Very typical price for this amount of theme.   16/20

Appearance: Lovely. It's great for showcasing beautiful products, with a nicely laid out grid style that stll feels fresh. Their mobile and smaller screen responsive design is top-notch as well.  19/20

Speed: It's a little heavy, and loaders pop up here and there. Still fast enough for general users.   16/20

Versatility / Customizability: This is a "I have beautiful products to sell" theme, fairly strictly. But the products themselves are nicely customizable, with subscriptions, multi variables, and groupings, etc. Normally you'd need to buy a plugin or add on for these, so having them built in is clutch.  17/20

Updates and Support: Regularly updated. Another popular ThemeForest product, it comes with good documentation and a forum. There's also "contact the author" type support, but with restrictions.  17/20

Overall Score: 85 out of 100





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