6 Tips to Choose Your PrestaShop Theme

One of the many advantages of PrestaShop is the huge collection of themes. Online stores can pick the theme that best suits for their business and PrestaShop developers can implement it easily. But here’s the thing. There are many beautiful themes available, but are they all the right choice for your business? Perhaps not.

Here are a few tips to help you find the right PrestaShop theme for your eCommerce store.

1.      Authenticity

There are hundreds of free and paid PrestaShop themes available in the market. But not all are genuine. So the first and crucial step in finding the right theme is to check if the PrestaShop developer is reliable.

Learn about the company or the PrestaShop web developer who has developed the theme. It’s quite easy to research on the company through the Internet. Analyze their testimonials and reviews to understand if they are authentic.

2.      Design matters

There may be many themes that you might find pretty but it is crucial that it meets the latest design trends.

The design trends change every year and what seems trendy in the previous year can be totally outdated right now. So the basic rule is to stick to flat designs with the use of not more than 3 colors. In 2016, the emphasis is huge on high-resolution images and video content. Check if your theme allows you to add videos easily.

Also, some of the most modern design elements are: parallax scroll (elements and backgrounds appear in different speed plus the entire design comes in a single page), sticky menu (menu appears once you scroll down) and lazy load (elements occur once you scroll down). If your theme has such elements, PrestaShop developers can easily implement them in your store.

3.      Think about your users

It’s pretty clear that the e-Commerce market is going mobile and you need to reach your users. So it is crucial to select a theme that is responsive on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. You should also check that the theme works seamlessly across all the browsers such as Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Opera. 

4.      Features

Check for all the features available on the theme. Even if they aren’t available in the initial version, you can get the help of PrestaShop web developers to implement additional features that can boost your business.

Along with the features, ensure that your theme is SEO-friendly. To reach a larger audience, it is important that you rank higher on the search engine results. If your theme isn’t SEO-friendly, your search engine optimization strategies may not have its fullest effect.

5.      Creative Control over the template

To make the theme reflect your store, it is important that the theme is customizable. Only when you can change the design elements, it can feel as an extension of your business. PrestaShop themes are first designed in Photoshop and later programmed. If your theme developer provides you with the PSD file, it becomes easier to make changes to the theme.

Also, ensure that you can remove the copyright from the theme. It wouldn’t be professional if there’s another company’s name mentioned in your footer.  

6.      Support

Before you purchase your theme, check about the support provided by the developers whether it is 24/7, paid or free. Also find out the means of communication, whether it’s chat, phone or e-mail. Whenever you face difficulties with the theme you need someone for help, so make sure you understand their support system.

Also, ask for the theme documentation. This is basically an instruction manual on how to add elements from the theme and customize it easily. If you can access the documents before the purchase, it will give you a clear picture of how the theme works.

Another element you need to check is for updates. Find out if the theme has regular updates and will it require the assistance of a PrestaShop developer.

Validating the code is another crucial step in selecting the theme. You must ensure that the template is properly coded with valid HTML and CSS. You can easily check this by using any online validators.

So here goes. Follow these steps to pick the best theme suitable for your business. For any assistance with your PrestaShop online store, contact our certified PrestaShop developers.