[MUSIC PLAYING] Now it's time to work on the look and feel of your store by choosing a theme and customizing it. A theme is a template that controls all aspects of your online store's appearance and layout. Once you're logged into your Shopify account, you can access your theme store straight from the admin. So on the main menu on the left, go to Online Store, and then click on Themes.
At this time, all stores come with Debut as the default theme. For Jaswant's Kitchen, we use a paid theme called Retina. When I first created the store, I started out with a free theme. And then as the vision for our business grew, I found that we needed to redesign our store. I had an idea of the content I wanted our site to include, and so I looked at live examples of other people using different themes, and I thought retina was the closest to the vision that I had for our site.
So you can scroll down and explore and add free themes without leaving the admin, right here. Or you can click Visit Theme Store where you'll see the full catalog of themes. Let's head to the theme store now where I'll show you how to navigate themes and filter base on the vision for your store. Welcome to the Shopify Theme Store. You can browse by collection, industry, or you can view all of the themes at once, or you can use the search function right here.
So for example, I have a food and drink business, so I'm going to click on that. You can choose a free theme made by Shopify, or you can choose a paid theme made by third-party designers. You can also filter by a number of products and layout and more. Let me show you how quick and easy it is to add a theme to your store.
I'm going to focus on free themes, and I'm going to start with this theme right here called Brooklyn. So Brooklyn has two different styles with minor design variations. I prefer the playful style, so I'm going to stick with that. Then I'll click on View Demo to see what it would actually look like if I customized it. I like the way this looks.
I like the Navigation menu. So I'm going to go ahead and click on Add Theme to add this to my store. I'll choose Publish As My Store's Theme, and this will make Brooklyn my live theme. If you wanted to customize Brooklyn without making it live, you can click Add As An Unpublished Theme. Now click Go To Your Theme Manager.
And you'll see that Brooklyn is now the main published theme on your store. And now you can customize it. When you use a Shopify theme like I did, you don't need to be a designer or know how to code. Each theme gives you everything you need to make a beautiful store. Also note that if you choose to purchase a paid theme, it's non-refundable, so I'd suggest downloading the theme as unpublished by clicking Preview In My Store, so you'll be able to completely customize it before paying for it.
Also, Shopify recommends that you only purchase themes from the theme store as their team reviews all themes submitted by theme designers for quality and functionality before approving them to be listed. Now we'll show you the basics for editing your store. Click on this purple Customize button. I recommend starting at the top, clicking on each section, and working your way down so that you don't miss anything.
Features you'll see in each section will vary from theme to theme. First, let's click on the side bar menu. So here you can see the Navigation menu that I set up earlier has already been preloaded in here, so it makes it really easy for me to see the Navigation menu. In the Header section, that's where I'm going to add my logo. If you haven't created a logo yet, check out the Resources section below.
Brooklyn actually has two spots where you need to add a logo. The first is for your home page, and then the second is for all other pages of your site. If you click on Select Image, you can upload an image by clicking on this button. I've already uploaded my logo here, so I'm going to click on it and then click Select. And then do the same in the second box.
I'm going to make my logo a little bit bigger, and then hit Save. In this section, you can also change what your search bar here looks like with this dropdown menu. And you can add an announcement bar at the top if you have something new that you want to announce to people come into your site.
Now I'm going to add my main image using the Slideshow section. This is the first impression that customers are going to get off your store, so make sure you choose a great high-resolution image that really represents your brand. So I'll click on Slide and then select the image that I'd like to add. So I click on the Upload button, find my image, then click Select.
In Brooklyn, your slideshow show is a static section. In other themes, you can hover the slide show up or down on your home page. You can add additional slides if you like. In this case, I like to keep my home page pretty simple, so I'm actually going to delete the second slide and just leave it to one slide.
But if you have more images, beautiful images that you'd like to show that represent your brand, feel free to add more slides. In this section, you can change the overlay color and then also change the opacity of it. I'm going to leave it at 25%. And then you can also modify the text on this page. You want the text to be something that really evokes a feeling towards your brand or promotes specific collection or sale that you're having.
Don't be afraid to get creative here. And I'm going to leave the button text as "shop now" because I want to point that to my collection of products. And that's the main action that I want customers to take when they come to my page. In the last field, this is where you indicate where you want this button to link to.
So I want the button to link to my collection of products. And that's it, and then I click on Save. Now on to our featured collection. You'll need to have a collection already created to use this section. I'll change the header to "seasoning kits." And then you can choose if you want to display the products in a grid or a collage.
I prefer the grid. Under the Collection dropdown, this is we're going to select the collection that you'd like to display. So here I'm displaying my seasoning kit, so that's what I'm going to click on. You can also edit this collection right from this page by clicking on Edit Collection. This will open up a new tab where you can add new products to this collection. Once you're happy with the way that it looks, just click on Save.
Now I'll continue to modify the rest of the sections to customize the look and feel to the way that I wanted it to be. Next, I'm going to click on Newsletter. This is where customers can sign up to get on your email newsletter, so you'll want to modify it here to let the customer know what they're going to get by subscribing. Once you're happy with the way that it looks, click Save and head back to the previous page.
So once you're happy with all of the sections that are here, you'll probably also want to click on General Settings. This is where you can really make your site feel like your own by changing the colors and the font. So if I click on Colors, you'll see that it's preloaded with colors. For this theme, you will want to change these to match more with your brand.
For now, I'm just going to change the button color to give you an idea of how it works. So you click on a button, and then you can drag this round circle to modify the color. There's also this bar on the side where you can choose different colors. Once you're satisfied, just click outside, and the button color has changed.
Next, I want to change the typography. Next, I'll add my social media information. You can add an image.
I'm going to add my logo. And this is what I'll be showed on social media whenever a link is shared. So here you can add your Facebook account information, your Twitter account, your Pinterest account, your Instagram, Snapchat, and so on.
Once you've added all of the main social media that you use, click on Save. Now the first version of my online store is almost done.
Let's take a look at what my store looks like right now. So I go back to the Themes page, click on this dropdown, and click on Preview. This is what my store currently looks like. Now if you're not happy with how some of the things look, if you want to make, for example, this font bigger or change the color of this button, you would just go back into the Theme section and customize it further.
Let's say, for example, I wanted to move the featured collection below the Newsletter section. I drag and drop it from the left side of the editor like this. The edit will immediately be reflected on the right hand side of the page. I was happy with the layout the way that it was before, so I'm just going to move it back.
I like having the newsletter at the bottom. And remember that you can use these back and forward buttons to the left of the Save button to undo and redo edits that you're working on. And that's it. That's how you edit your store. You can continue to modify it until you're happy with the way that it looks. Be sure to share it with friends and family members so that you can get their feedback.
Always good to get some extra eyes on it. [MUSIC PLAYING]