Shopify offers a variety of paid and free themes that are designed to meet the requirements of a successful Shopify store. However, choosing the ideal theme can be a complex process with numerous options available, leading to confusion for Shopify merchants.
If you are looking for one of the top Shopify themes for large-catalog shops, the Empire Shopify theme is worth considering. It offers a wide range of advanced features that can help your Shopify store grow. In this comprehensive review, BSS Commerce Shopify, the Shopify Development Services provider, will provide you with all the information you need to know about Shopify Empire theme.
Contents
- 1 Empire Shopify Theme: At a Glance
- 2 Empire Shopify Theme: Great for?
- 3 Theme Styles of Empire Shopify Theme
- 4 Key Features of Empire Shopify Theme
- 5 Example Stores Using Empire Shopify Theme
- 6 Best Alternative for Empire – Eurus Shopify Theme
- 7 Key Takeaways: Empire Shopify Theme
Empire Shopify Theme: At a Glance
- Developer: Pixel Union
- Latest Version: 11.0.0 (Feb 14, 2024)
- Pricing: $340/one-time payment
- Review: 80% positive
- Theme Styles: Supply, Industrial, Depot and Graphic
The Empire Shopify theme is a masterpiece crafted by Pixel Union. As a renowned developer of Shopify themes, Pixel Union has played a pivotal role in empowering Shopify merchants to unlock the true potential of their businesses through theme collections.
Pixel Union has developed a total of 8 themes; each theme created by Pixel Union focuses on specific features to cater to the unique requirements of Shopify merchants. With the Shopify Empire theme, the objective was to design a marketplace-inspired theme that caters to stores with extensive product catalogs. Empire is known as a top premium Shopify theme priced at $340 for a one-time payment. This theme offers a wide range of features tailored to meet the needs of high-volume stores.
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Empire Shopify Theme: Great for?
The Shopify Empire theme presents an ideal option for various types of merchants:
- Empire Shopify caters to those who engage in in-person selling.
- Suitable for high-volume Shopify merchants who possess large catalog sizes and conduct numerous transactions in both their online and physical stores.
- Empire Shopify theme is well-suited for Shopify store owners who desire a sleek, contemporary, and professional design that can effortlessly align with their brand and product offerings.
Theme Styles of Empire Shopify Theme
The Shopify Empire theme offers 4 main styles: Supply, Graphic, Industrial, and Depot. Each style highlights distinct energies, emotions, and atmospheres, catering to a wide range of industries and businesses. Below is a detailed review of each preset:
Supply
- Suitable for various online stores that revolve around product offerings, such as fashion, accessories, home goods, or any store that values visual allure and simplicity.
The Supply layout in the Empire Shopify theme presents a sleek and simplistic design that aims to effectively highlight products. It uses a grid-based layout that incorporates sizable product images, facilitating effortless browsing and navigation. This layout places emphasis on promoting prominent product collections directly from the homepage, accompanied by a customizable slideshow.
Industrial
- Suitable for online stores specializing in machinery, tools, automotive accessories, outdoor equipment, or those aiming to convey a strong and enduring impression.
The Industrial layout showcases a robust and sharp design that draws inspiration from industrial aesthetics. It presents an ideal theme for an electronics store, seamlessly blending white backgrounds with vibrant headers and footers (in the demo theme, it is blue), textured elements, and striking typography to establish a unique and engaging shopping experience.
Depot
- Suitable for Shopify businesses aiming to create a striking impact and leave a memorable impression on their target audience. Industries such as art and illustration, music, gaming, and entertainment are the ones that can truly harness the potential of this style.
The Depot layout shares similarities with the Industrial layout, with dark colors and bold designs that evoke a feeling of skilled artistry. It integrates rustic textures, elements, and classic, bold typography. The Depot layout presents a daring appearance for your digital shop, embracing a dark aesthetic that commands attention and leaves a powerful visual impression.
Graphic
- Suitable for stores that aim to present their merchandise in a visually captivating manner, such as art galleries, design-focused stores, creative agencies, or any enterprise seeking to leave a lasting impression on their customers.
The graphic layout is known as a striking and contemporary design that emphasizes the art of visual storytelling. Thanks to using a single background image, it enables the presentation of numerous products, resulting in a captivating exhibition that grabs the attention of customers. This style captures a vintage and nostalgic yet clean and professional atmosphere, making it particularly appealing to online stores seeking to leave a lasting impression on their customers.
It can be concluded that the Shopify Empire theme provides a variety of designs that accommodate various visual preferences and specific customer groups, enabling online businesses to select the most suitable option that aligns seamlessly with their merchandise and brand image. In the next section, we’ll discuss the features of this theme and its functions to boost conversion rates for your online store.
Key Features of Empire Shopify Theme
The Empire Shopify theme draws inspiration from the designs of top eCommerce platforms, enabling you to showcase and categorize your products on any page. Below are the detailed features of the Empire Shopify theme. This feature is particularly advantageous for Shopify merchants with large product catalogs to optimize their store.
Cart and Checkout Section
The Cart and Checkout features in a Shopify theme are absolutely crucial for your store’s success. They are the final steps where customers turn browsing into buying, and any friction in these sections can lead to abandoned carts and lost sales.
Quick buy
The Quick Buy feature enables customers to purchase products directly from listings or collections without the need to navigate to the product detail page. This functionality simplifies the purchasing process, enhancing the overall shopping experience. By clicking on a “Buy Now” or “Quick Shop” button next to each product in the collections, a window or pop-up will appear, allowing customers to choose product variations like size or color and add the item to their cart.
Subsequently, customers can proceed to checkout or continue browsing without leaving the current page. This feature is particularly advantageous for businesses aiming to offer a swift purchasing option to customers, reducing the steps involved in adding items to the cart and finalizing the transaction, potentially increasing conversion rates.
In-store pickup
High-volume retailers often face the difficulty of effectively managing order fulfillment. The Shopify Empire theme tackles this issue by providing a feature known as in-store pickup.
Shopify merchants can seamlessly merge their online and physical operations, giving customers the choice to collect their purchases in-store. This not only helps store owners efficiently manage a large number of orders but also reduces shipping expenses and delivery times.
Through the convenience of in-store pickup, high-volume retailers can boost customer satisfaction, streamline order processing, and deliver a seamless omnichannel experience. The in-store pickup functionality offered by the Shopify Empire theme serves as a valuable asset for retailers looking to streamline their order fulfillment processes and cater to the needs of their expanding customer base.
Product Discovery Section
Product Discovery features allow your customers to find what they need, discover new favorites, and have a more enjoyable and successful shopping experience in your store:
Enhanced search
Enhanced search feature is essential for eCommerce platforms, as it plays a crucial role in enhancing user satisfaction by simplifying the process of product exploration. This feature proves to be extremely beneficial for high-volume stores, as it enables customers to swiftly navigate through a wide range of options.
Within the Empire Shopify theme, this functionality offers auto-complete suggestions, predictive search outcomes, and various filtering capabilities, all of which contribute to a more convenient product discovery journey for customers.
The mega menu feature in the Empire Shopify theme improves the user experience by enabling customers to see all offerings at a glance, reducing the time and effort needed to find specific products and explore various categories and collections. With multi-column menus, images, featured collections, and promotional banners, merchants can create visually appealing menus that allow customers to quickly access different sections of the store.
Product filtering and sorting
The Empire Shopify theme offers a unique advantage over physical stores by providing a sophisticated product filtering feature. Empire provides you with an advanced sorting and filtering system on your catalog pages. This feature streamlines the shopping experience for your customers, allowing them to easily refine their search and locate precisely what they desire. Customers can easily navigate through a wide range of products based on their preferences, such as colors, sizes, and prices.
Pop-up Cart
The pop-up cart feature enables customers to conveniently view their cart contents without having to navigate away from the current page, thus eliminating the need for constant page reloads. This seamless integration not only provides a visually appealing summary of the cart but also allows customers to easily review their selections.
Furthermore, customers can access their full cart, make any necessary modifications, and proceed to checkout with the help of a prominent “Checkout” button within the pop-up cart. This pop-up cart feature simplifies the checkout process, minimizing friction and enhancing the overall shopping experience.
Marketing and Conversion Section
Thanks to effectively using the marketing and conversion features offered in the Empire Shopify theme, you can attract new customers, engage your existing audience, and convert more visitors into paying customers.
In-menu promos feature is designed to capture the attention of customers and enhance the visibility of promotions or special offers by showcasing them in the navigation menu. By integrating promotional banners or announcements into the menu navigation, businesses can guarantee that customers are promptly informed about current deals, thereby boosting customer interaction and sales conversion rates.
Merchants can upload images, create attractive banners, and include compelling text to effectively communicate promotional messages. Furthermore, the feature offers customization capabilities, allowing businesses to align the design and branding of their store with the promotional content.
Promotion tiles
The promotion tiles can be customized by merchants to create visually appealing banners or tiles that can be strategically placed throughout their stores. You can customize the design, layout, and messaging of each tile to match your branding and marketing objectives. There is an option to select from a variety of pre-designed templates or craft your own unique designs.
Using these promo tiles on your homepage, collection pages, or other prominent areas can attract visitors’ attention and encourage them to delve deeper into the promotional offerings. These tiles function as effective marketing tools to showcase sales, discounts, new arrivals, or any other promotional content.
Trust badges
Trust badges serve as symbols of security and reliability for online stores, assuring customers that their information is safe. With the Empire Shopify theme, merchants can effortlessly add trust badges into their store design, ensuring they are visible across the website.
These badges may feature secure payment icons like credit card logos and PayPal, money-back guarantees, SSL certificates, and other relevant symbols of trust. The presence of these badges enhances the credibility and professionalism of the store, instilling confidence in customers and prompting them to shop without any doubts.
Product reviews
Were you aware that user-generated content is trusted by customers three times more than branded content? Therefore, if you are new to the business and aim to increase sales, it is essential to include product reviews, not just as an extra feature.
Fortunately, Shopify Empire theme offers a pre-built product review section. Although Empire’s product review section might seem a bit basic, Empire’s product review widgets are more visually appealing compared to similar features found in other themes.
Merchandising Section
The merchandise feature is a secret sauce to showcasing your products in a way that entices customers and boosts sales.
Image rollover
Image rollover enhances the browsing experience for customers by offering dynamic and interactive features. It allows the display of multiple product images or different angles through hover effects. This functionality allows merchants to effectively showcase their products and enables customers to visualize them in greater detail, eliminating the need for extra clicks or page loads. Thanks to seamlessly switching between images when customers hover over a product, the image rollover feature assists customers in making informed purchase decisions.
Example Stores Using Empire Shopify Theme
When considering examples of Shopify stores using the Shopify Empire theme, it is crucial to acknowledge that identifying specific stores without direct disclosure can pose a challenge. Nevertheless, take into account some Shopify online stores that generally reap advantages from the Empire theme owing to its distinctive attributes, provided below.
The Modern Shop
The Modern Shop is a Shopify store that focuses on offering a wide range of modern and contemporary furniture, lighting fixtures, and home accessories. Their carefully curated collection highlights cutting-edge designs from well-known global brands. Thanks to using the Empire Shopify theme, their website boasts a streamlined and user-friendly interface, which enables customers to effortlessly navigate and uncover trendy products that perfectly complement their modern living spaces.
Muji (Canada)
Muji, a well-known fashion brand from Japan, has gained recognition for its minimalist designs and emphasis on simplicity. Their online store, which uses the Empire Shopify theme, perfectly showcases their aesthetic and brand principles. The website’s design is sleek and free from unnecessary elements, allowing the products to be the main focus.
Thanks to integrating whitespace and subtle animations, the website exudes an elegant touch and elevates the overall browsing experience. The navigation is user-friendly, featuring a well-structured mega menu that enables customers to effortlessly explore the wide range of products available.
Lanoguard
Lanoguard UK specializes in providing rust protection products for vehicles, boats, and machinery. They offer effective solutions that protect against corrosion caused by weather, water, and salt. Their range of products includes user-friendly DIY kits that are designed to provide long-lasting protection.
By taking inspiration from the Empire Shopify theme, the website Lanoguard UK focuses on features a simple and informative design that focuses on showcasing the effectiveness and ease of use of their rust protection products. It offers comprehensive information and testimonials from satisfied customers, highlighting the various benefits and applications of their products in a concise and easily understandable manner.
Best Alternative for Empire – Eurus Shopify Theme
If you’re looking for a theme that delivers speed, mobile responsiveness, extensive customization options, and conversion-boosting features, all at a competitive price point, then the Eurus Shopify theme is the perfect alternative to the Empire theme. Eurus offers a powerful foundation to build a thriving online store that keeps your customers engaged and coming back for more.
- Pricing: $230 USD/one-time payment
- Developer: BSS Commerce
- Current version: Version 6.5.1 (Apr 16, 2024)
- Theme styles: Breeze, Puff, Breath, Swirl and Whiff
- Review: 98% positive
Why Eurus shines:
- Speed demon: Eurus prioritizes blazing-fast loading times. This translates to a smoother user experience for your customers on all devices, keeping them engaged and more likely to convert.
- Mobile-first focus: In today’s mobile-driven world, Eurus prioritizes mobile responsiveness. Your store will look stunning and function flawlessly on any smartphone or tablet, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for your on-the-go audience.
- Highly customizable: Eurus Shopify theme offers a vast array of drag-and-drop sections and 5 pre-built templates (Breeze, Puff, Breath, Swirl and Whiff), allowing you to craft a unique and captivating online store that reflects your brand identity.
In addition, Eurus goes beyond the standard theme features. It boasts functionalities like:
- Automatic light/dark mode: Cater to user preferences with a built-in light or dark mode that automatically adjusts based on the user’s device settings.
- Create your ideal store using over 40 powerful sections and more than 80 templates, providing you with complete authority to craft a visually stunning impact.
- Remove costly applications such as the Advanced 4-level Mega Menu, unlimited Product labels, Pop-ups, Flash Sale, Custom Option, Cross-sell, Upsell, etc.
Therefore, if you are considering the best alternative for the Empire Shopify theme, Eurus Theme is an ideal option.
Key Takeaways: Empire Shopify Theme
Empire Shopify is a powerful theme for eCommerce success, especially for stores with large product catalogs. This blog post, “Empire Shopify Theme: Detailed Review for Features, Styles, and More,” has been thoroughly reviewed by BSS Commerce Shopify, offering a comprehensive evaluation for anyone considering choosing this theme.
To sum up, for those aiming to establish a professional online store with a focus on customer engagement and seamless navigation, the Empire theme is a worthy option.
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