Shopify offers many paid and free themes that perfectly accommodate all the requirements of a successful Shopify store. But choosing a theme is more challenging than it sounds, and with too many options, Shopify merchants like you are bound to get confused. But we are sure that you must have had your eyes on a few popular Shopify themes and are assessing their features, prices, pros, and cons. In this article, we are going to talk about one such theme, and that is the Empire theme Shopify.
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This theme is the result of stunning aesthetics blending seamlessly with powerful functionality, captivating visitors and converting them into loyal customers. But is the theme for your store? We'll find out in this ultimate guide, where we'll unveil the Empire Shopify theme’s remarkable features, weigh its pros and cons, and much more.
Diving Deep into the Empire Theme by Shopify
Choosing a theme is not only about the aesthetic look and feel it brings to the table. While that is important, there are many other critical factors you need to consider while choosing a theme.
Mobile commerce is growing at a much faster rate than ever before. And it is not right to ignore the need for a mobile-friendly and mobile-responsive e-commerce website. Retail m-commerce sales are expected to hit a whopping 43.4% of the total retail e-commerce sales this year. That’s almost half! Taking all this into account, you need a theme that helps your store run smoothly and efficiently in all screen sizes.
And there’s definitely more to this. When choosing a theme, you need something that catches the eye of your site visitors and keeps them hooked. This means enticing color shades, high-quality imagery, stunning typography, and of course, great product offerings. With the Empire theme of Shopify, you get all this and more. With 4+ styles that suit a wide range of niches, this theme is an all-rounder. But we don’t want to take the suspense away, so let’s begin zooming into the essentials of this theme.
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A Closer Look at the Creator of Empire Shopify theme
The Empire theme Shopify is Pixel Union’s work of art. They are a popular Shopify themes developer who has helped numerous Shopify merchants realize the full potential of their business with outstanding theme collections. Their product offerings, such as the themes, are designed to evoke an emotional connection between the brand and the customer.
Pixel Union has created 8 themes, including the Startup and the Editions themes. Each theme by Pixel Union has a focus feature to satisfy Shopify merchants who are looking for specificity. When it comes to the Empire theme, the aim was to create a theme that is marketplace inspired, catering to large product catalogs. Hence, most of the features of the Empire theme are tailored to meet the needs of a high-volume store.
If you are wondering where you can find the link, then simply follow this link here → Empire theme Shopify.
Empire Theme's Distinctive Layouts: A Visual Journey
The Empire theme by Shopify offers 4 different stylish layouts that cover a wide range of industries and markets. Let’s take a look at each of them.
Supply
The Supply layout offered by the Empire Shopify theme features a clean and minimalist design with a focus on showcasing products effectively. It utilizes a grid-based layout with large product images, allowing for easy browsing and navigation.
The layout focuses on promoting the prominent product collections, right from the homepage, along with a customizable slideshow on the homepage. This layout is well-suited for a variety of product-based online stores, including fashion, accessories, home goods, or any store that wants to prioritize visual appeal and simplicity.
Graphic
The Graphic layout has a bold and modern design with a focus on visual storytelling. It incorporates large, attention-grabbing imagery, eye-catching typography, and creative visual elements. This layout is ideal for stores that aim to showcase their products in a visually striking way, such as art galleries, design-oriented stores, creative agencies, or any business that wants to make a strong visual impact on their customers.
Industrial
The Industrial layout comes with a rugged and edgy design inspired by industrial aesthetics. A perfect theme for an electronics store, it combines white backgrounds with bright-colored headers and footers (in the demo theme, it is blue), textured elements, and bold typography to create a distinct and immersive shopping experience. This layout would also be suitable for stores selling products related to machinery, tools, automotive accessories, and outdoor equipment or stores that want to convey a sense of strength and durability.
Depot
The Depot layout is similar to the Industrial layout, with dark colors and bold design that evokes a sense of craftsmanship. It incorporates rustic textures, worn-out elements, and classic bold typography. This layout is well-suited for stores selling machinery, tools, and hardware or any business that wants to create a reminiscent of a traditional brick-and-mortar store.
Overall, the Empire Shopify theme offers a range of layouts that cater to different aesthetics and target audiences, allowing businesses to choose the one that aligns best with their products and brand identity.
Who Can Benefit From the Empire Theme?
The Empire theme by Shopify is designed to cater to a wide range of online businesses, making it suitable for various industries and target audiences. Its versatility and customizable features make it a valuable option for anyone looking to create an appealing and functional online store.
The Empire theme is suitable for e-commerce businesses in industries such as fashion, accessories, home goods, art, design, machinery, automotive, antiques, and more. The theme's different layouts, Supply, Graphic, Industrial, and Depot, offer distinct aesthetics that can be tailored to match the brand identity of these businesses.
In terms of cost, the Empire theme is a premium theme, which means it requires a one-time payment to access and use it on a Shopify store and is priced at $340. The theme also offers an unlimited free trial, which means you can try the theme and all its features and customize your store to your liking without paying a penny. You only need to pay the one-time fee of $340 when you publish your store using the theme.
While the price might seem unreasonable to some, it's important to consider the value the Empire theme offers. It provides a professionally designed and feature-rich layout that can enhance the visual appeal and functionality of an online store. The theme includes customizable elements, responsive design for mobile devices, integration with Shopify's platform, and continuous and free support and updates from Pixel Union.
Ultimately, the suitability and affordability of the Empire theme will depend on the specific needs and budget of each individual business. It's recommended to review the theme's features below and compare them with other available options to make an informed decision.
>>> Learn more how to choose the best Shopify theme
Top 8 Irresistible Features of the Empire Theme
Here are some of the best features of the Empire theme Shopify:
Enhanced Search
The enhanced search feature is necessary for any e-commerce store as it significantly improves the user experience by making product discovery quick and effortless. In the Empire theme, this feature provides auto-suggestions, predictive search results, and filtering options, ensuring that customers can find the products they are looking for with ease.
As the theme caters to high-volume stores, this feature is particularly helpful as it helps customers quickly navigate through numerous options. The theme incorporates this feature by integrating advanced search algorithms and user-friendly search interfaces, ensuring a seamless and efficient search experience.
Quick Buy
The Quick Buy option allows your customers to make a purchase directly from product listings or collections without having to visit the product detail page. This feature streamlines the buying process, providing a convenient shopping experience. Customers can simply click on a "Buy Now" or "Quick Shop" button associated with each product right from the collections.
When clicked, a modal window or pop-up appears, presenting the necessary options for the customer to select product variations, such as size or color, and add the item to their cart. The customer can then proceed to the checkout page or continue browsing without leaving the current page. This feature is especially beneficial for stores that want to provide their customers with a quick purchase option and reduce the steps required to add items to the cart and complete the purchase, potentially boosting conversion rates.
Pop-up Cart
With the pop-up cart feature, customers can view their cart contents without leaving the current page, eliminating the need for constant page reloads. This integration is smooth and visually appealing while displaying a summary of the cart, allowing customers to easily review their selections. This unique feature is also visually attractive.
Customers can not only review their selected items but go to their full and final cart, make modifications, and proceed to checkout. Additionally, the pop-up cart often includes a prominent "Checkout" button, enabling customers to proceed to the payment process swiftly. It streamlines the checkout process, reducing friction and enhancing the overall shopping experience.
Image Rollover
Image rollover provides customers with a dynamic and interactive browsing experience by allowing multiple product images or different angles to be displayed through hover effects. This feature enables merchants to showcase their products more effectively and customers to visualize products in greater detail without the need for additional clicks or page loads. The feature seamlessly switches between images when customers hover over a product, aiding customers in their purchase decisions.
Mega Menu
Mega menu improves website navigation and makes it easier for customers to explore different categories and collections. The Empire theme's mega menu allows merchants to create multi-column menus with images, featured collections, or promotional banners. This feature enables customers to quickly access various sections of the store directly from the menu, reducing the time and effort required to find specific products. The visually appealing and well-structured mega menu in the theme enhances the user experience and enables customers to understand all the offerings at a single glance.
In-menu Promos
This feature grabs the attention of a customer and increases visibility for promotions or special offers by displaying them in the navigation menu, making it in no way possible for your customers to miss them. By placing promotional banners or announcements within the menu navigation, merchants like you can ensure that customers are immediately aware of ongoing deals, increasing the chances of customer engagement and conversion. This feature also ensures that promotional content receives prime placement and maximizes its impact.
You can upload images, create eye-catching banners, and add compelling text to convey promotional messages effectively. The feature also supports customization options, enabling merchants to match the design and branding of their store.
Customizable Promotion Tiles
The customizable promotion tiles allow merchants to create visually appealing and attention-grabbing promotional banners or tiles that can be placed strategically throughout their stores. You have the flexibility to customize the design, layout, and messaging of each tile to align with your branding and marketing goals. You can choose from various pre-designed templates or create your own unique designs.
By leveraging these promo tiles for your homepage, collection pages, or other high-visibility areas, you can capture the attention of their visitors and entice them to explore the promotional offerings further. These tiles indeed serve as powerful marketing tools to highlight sales, discounts, new arrivals, or any other promotional content.
Trust Badges
Trust badges are icons or symbols that indicate the security and reliability of the store, providing assurance to customers that their information is safe and that they can shop with confidence. The Empire theme Shopify allows merchants to easily add trust badges to their store, prominently displaying them throughout the website. These badges can include symbols such as secure payment icons (e.g., credit card logos, PayPal), money-back guarantees, SSL certificates, or any other relevant trust symbols.
These badges contribute to the overall professionalism and legitimacy of the store. By prominently displaying trust badges, the Empire theme helps merchants instill confidence in their customers, encouraging them to make purchases without hesitation.
Pros & Cons of Empire Shopify Theme
Now that we have learned most about the Empire Shopify theme, let’s start assessing its pros and cons for better clarity.
Pros
- The Empire theme offers a range of customizable layouts, and all these layouts are aimed at bigger businesses with larger inventories. Without compromising on aesthetics, this theme offers robust features for product discovery, comparison, and conversion. This makes it a perfect choice for anyone who is looking for a conversion-focused yet visually appealing theme.
- We loved the functionalities of this theme, including the image hotspot, advanced product filtering, Instagram-inspired shoppable images, and many more. These functionalities help you get more out of every order. You can effortlessly upsell and cross-sell products and increase your average order value.
- The theme's flexible layouts, fonts, and colors are another highlight. You can create the look that works best for your brand with various mobile-optimized layout options.
- The theme is mobile responsive, and all the features and functionalities work well on the mobile screen, providing a positive shopping experience for customers who access the store from smartphones or tablets.
- Pixel Union offers impeccable support and help to its users. Right from a dedicated Help Center with theme guides, theme topics covering theme features, theme repair, theme updates, and other popular articles to a Priority Support subscription for priority support from Merchant Success Team, you can get it all with the Empire theme.
>>> You can also custom Shopify product page
Cons
- While the theme comes with a fairly easy-to-use interface, we realized that there could be a small learning curve, especially with the customizing and configuring part. If you are new to Shopify with limited technical knowledge, then you might need to hire a Shopify expert or a developer to get the best out of the theme.
- The Empire theme belongs to the costlier and premium themes in Shopify and is not the ideal choice for smaller businesses or businesses with a small budget.
- The free trial, like all Shopify themes, lasts only until you want to publish the theme to your store. Which means you cannot make your store live with the theme.
- The Priority Support subscription is not free and comes at an additional price of $99. Not all merchants would be able to avail of this service, and this might lead to a slow and extended timeline for customer support.
Empire Theme Shopify’s Page Speed
This might be one of the most important factors to look at while choosing a theme, as a slow-loading website is a hub for lost customers and sales. So, to not let that happen to you, we ran the theme's demo store through Google Pagespeed Insights, and this is what we have got:
The Supply demo store showed below-average performance on mobile devices but did great on the SEO aspects. Even while browsing through the mobile display of the demo store, we witnessed a slight delay in the loading of the pages and images.
On the flip side, the desktop performance of the theme was excellent, with good performance and quick loading. To ensure this is consistent, we also ran the Industrial demo store and got the following results:
Both the demo stores showed decent to good performance on the desktop to mediocre performance on mobile devices.We also ran our store with the Empire theme to see if there were any changes in the performance, and we got more or less the same result as the demo stores. The desktop speed was around 2.9 seconds, which was significantly faster than the mobile one, and at the same time, the desktop performance was much better than the mobile performance.
You might want to consider this while choosing the theme, especially if most of your customers shop from mobile.
If you are looking for more high-volume or high-inventory store themes in Shopify as an alternative to the Empire theme, you can consider the Blum theme or Responsive theme. Both are great options!
Empire Shopify Theme’s Customer Reviews
Here are some insightful customer reviews on the Empire theme that we found helpful:
Empire Theme Success Stories: 2 Stores That Dominate With It
Here are two stores succeeding with the Empire theme of Shopify:
MUJI (Canada)
MUJI is a Shopify-powered renowned Japanese retailer known for its minimalist designs and high-quality products. Their online store offers a wide range of lifestyle products, including clothing, furniture, home goods, and stationery. With a focus on simplicity and functionality, MUJI's website reflects its brand aesthetic and provides a seamless shopping experience.
The Modern Shop
The Modern Shop is an online store specializing in modern and contemporary furniture, lighting, and home accessories. Their curated selection showcases innovative designs from renowned international brands. The website features a sleek and intuitive interface with the Empire theme, allowing customers to effortlessly explore and discover stylish products for their modern living spaces.
Final Verdict: Is It Really Worth It?
The Empire theme offers visually stunning designs, enhanced functionality, and extensive customization options, making it a compelling choice for businesses looking to create an engaging and unique online store. While it comes at a premium price and may have a learning curve, its features make it worth considering for those seeking a high-quality and customizable Shopify theme.
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