Elegant Themes StyleShop Ecommerce WordPress Theme
ElegantThemes’ latest WordPress theme is a long-awaited one. With only 3 existing eCommerce themes in their portfolio, I did wonder when their CEO, Nick Roach, was going to design another eCommerce theme. I mean, eCommerce is all set to become the next big thing now and there is an increasing demand for good eCommerce themes.
So, when Nick announced that he was working on StyleShop, an eCommerce based theme, I was elated. What a great way to start 2013!
Introducing the StyleShop Theme
At first glance, StyleShop is a clean theme that is designed to fulfill an online store’s needs. The design has a modern and stylish feel to it, from the color used to the fonts and the layout. StyleShop is a very presentable theme that current and potential customers will want to check out. There was lots of attention to details and all design elements bind seamlessly together.
StyleShop comes with lots of features and flexibility (more on this shortly). But what’s really exciting about this particular theme is that it is built on WooCommerce.
What Is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a powerful and extendable WordPress eCommerce plugin. It was initially designed by the team behind WooThemes, but has now enjoyed wider attention from other theme designers, personal and professional alike.
There are quite a number of eCommerce applications around like OpenCart and PrestaShop but WooCommerce is fast becoming THE eCommerce plugin that most webmasters and store owners prefer. Why is this so? Have a look at some features of WooCommerce.
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Easy To Use
It is very intuitive WordPress eCommerce plugin, allowing easy and efficient usage and management of the plugin.
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Flexible
WooCommerce can be easily integrated with most WordPress themes, without losing its functions. And the result is the unique StyleShop.
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Payment Gateway
Includes various payment methods like credit cards, PayPal as well as other online and traditional payment gateways.
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Shipping
Allows you to customize your shipping rate i.e. flat rate or even free shipping.
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Sharing
Incorporates sharing functions for your customers to share your products with their friends.
StyleShop Features
It’s really awesome that StyleShop has WooCommerce integrated to take care of the whole checkout process. But having a great eCommerce plugin is only part of what makes a powerful theme. Now, let’s take a look at the StyleShop theme and how it fair.
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Responsive Layout
StyleShop is the only (for the time being) responsive ElegantThemes’ eCommerce theme. It will automatically scale to fit the readers’ browser, thus enabling customers to comfortably view your store from their computers and mobile devices at the best possible layout.
You must really take a look at StyleShop’s mobile layout. It looks absolutely amazing on smartphones and tablets, in particular the menu bar which is specifically designed for mobile devices. Beautifully viewed in both portrait and landscape modes. Truly makes a faster and more wonderful shopping experience.
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7 Page Templates
StyleShop comes with 7 page templates for you to modify i.e. contact form, full width, portfolio, sitemap, image gallery, advanced search and login page. The portfolio templates have a range of thumbnail formats to choose from while the contact form has Captcha incorporated.
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WordPress Theme Customizer
The WordPress Theme Customizer integration allows you to easily change your website’s font colors, background colors, upload your background images and make adjustments to other design elements. There are 4 color schemes to choose from i.e. black, purple, green and blue.
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Perpetual Updates
ElegantThemes’ themes are frequently updated to ensure compatibility with the latest WordPress version as well as other plugins. This is evident in the case of StyleShop. Within weeks of StyleShop’s release, WooCommerce 2.0 was released. The team at ElegantThemes immediately set to work and shortly, released a newer version of StyleShop that is fully compatible with WooCommerce 2.0, so you don’t have any worries about having incompatibility problems.
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Amazing Product Layout
The first thing that you see is the spacious product showcase areas. The main slider draws attention and can be used to highlight your best selling or latest products. There’s also a smaller slider beneath the main where you can use to highlight product categories.
Then there is the grid-like featured products area where you can use as a mini gallery. When your customers click on these products, it will bring them to the product’s individual description page where they can see more details, and eventually proceed to make a purchase.
StyleShop costs less than $1
Yes, it’s true.
ElegantTheme’s Personal membership costs $69 per year. This membership allows you access to all themes, including those that has yet to be released. They currently have 87 themes, so that makes each theme $0.79 only per year. On top of this, you will get updates and full support for as long as you are a member!
There’s also the Developer Plan where for $89 per year, you get what the Personal Plan members get as well as complete access to all plugins and Layered Photoshop Files (PSD) for all the themes’ designs. The PSD is useful if you are planning to make lots of customization to a theme’s individual elements.
Recently, ElegantThemes introduced a new plan called Lifetime Access. And as the name suggest, there’s no yearly fees. You pay a one-time fee of $249 and you get access to all the themes, plugins, support, updates, PSD and etc.
With StyleShop, Nick has once again, convinced us that ElegantThemes is well worth its yearly membership renewals. With increasing themes and reliable service plus tons of features, it’s little wonder why ElegantThemes is one of the most popular premium WordPress theme providers today. Have a go at StyleShop’s live demo and let us know what you think of it.