Back to: BigCommerce 101
Picking the right design for your store can have a tremendous impact on customer behavior. So in this tutorial video, we’ll take a look at a few things you should keep in mind when choosing a WordPress theme for your BigCommerce store.
First, we recommend you look for themes that specifically mention support for BigCommerce, as they’ll likely provide the best experience for you and your customers.
That said, there are no special requirements for themes to work with BigCommerce and most themes will work beautifully. We recommend you avoid the ecommerce themes designed for WooCommerce, though, because they may incorporate features that break your site.
- Begin by looking for a theme that offers clean and obvious navigation. You want to make it as easy as possible for customers to find the products they need in your store.
- Next, pay attention to how quickly the theme loads in the demo. A fast load time is an important factor for both customer retention and search ranking.
- After this, the next most important consideration is responsive design. You want a theme that presents your content beautifully across all devices and screen sizes.
- Finally, the theme you select should support all the major features of WordPress itself, and especially the block editor. Don’t pick a theme that limits your capabilities.
Now, the easiest and fastest way to begin looking for a theme is directly within your WordPress dashboard. Go to Appearance > Themes and select “Add New” to get started.
You can search by popularity, release date, feature support, and more.
When you find an interesting theme, you can install it and enter a “Live Preview” to see exactly how it looks on your site with your content… without activating it and making it visible to the general public.
Once you’ve finished experimenting, we recommend deleting any themes you aren’t using to eliminate useless clutter.
Outside the official theme repository, there are many, many more free and commercial theme shops that offer great designs for your site. Don’t be surprised if you spend a lot of time poring over all the different options available.
If your store needs a greater level of customization than any stock theme can offer, you can create custom templates yourself or work with a trusted agency partner. We cover both of these options in other videos.
It’s important to select the right design for your store, so take your time on this step. When you’re ready, move on to the next video.
