Shopify has a vast array of theme options which offer varying levels of customizability. Despite this, many merchants choose to have a fully custom designed store. This might be because they want it to look or function in a very specific way. Or perhaps they want more control over how it performs.
The customization options are endless. They range from trying out different themes, to editing certain parts of your site such as the products, discounts, and checkout, to building a store from scratch.
Each business and brand has its own requirements. There are several reasons you may want to consider a fully customized store.
Your brand is unique and sometimes even the most daring changes to an existing theme won’t do it justice. If you have a very specific brand aesthetic, then a customized store may be the way to go. The ARgENTUM Apothecary asked ShopCreatify to build a customized store for this reason.
A custom designed store really pushes the limits in terms of how your store will look. You are able to do anything, be as creative as you want, and control even the smallest details.
The visual element of your website, as well as how polished it looks, is part of what garners trust in your customers. If they feel like the store tells a cohesive story, looks professional, and makes them feel connected to the brand, then they are more likely to make a purchase.
Depending on what your business entails, you might require certain features that aren’t offered by existing themes. For example, if you rent items rather than sell them, you will probably need customized features.
In a customized store, you have more say in the customer’s journey and in how you offer them customer support. But a custom design won’t only improve your customer’s experience. It should improve yours too. With a custom build, you can choose to prioritize how to handle admin and other tasks to minimize the amount of work you must do on the site. You may also experience a smoother product customization process.
In our experience, it’s usually easier and cheaper to customize a store from scratch than to customize a theme or to work on a theme that was previously customized.
A custom designed store gives you a blank canvas on which to build a lean, mean, converting machine. The way that the site performs is fully in your hands and you have a high level of control. You can make sure it’s designed for speed and efficiency.
Your custom build should create an effective sales funnel which directs customers along a clear path that ultimately leads to increased conversions on your site.
All aspects of Shopify and Shopify Plus can be customized depending on what your requirements are.
If you’re doing your own customizations, Shopify and Shopify Plus have themes off of which you can work. The themes contain templates with default settings which you can adjust to suit your needs.
Customizing your products serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it provides beautiful, easy-to-navigate product pages for your customer. But it also makes backend management easier for you and your team. Your developer should code the product pages in a way that makes adding and changing products, loading videos and images, and changing copy, simple.
Products that are fully custom-coded allow you to surpass Shopify’s 100 variant limit – should that be necessary. Customizing the metafields gives merchants the option to add product details beyond what is available in the default fields.
It goes without saying that you want to have a great checkout process. Your customers need to feel that your site is safe so that they trust you enough to enter their personal information. Having an intuitive checkout process that runs smoothly is essential for avoiding abandoned carts, ensuring conversions.
Shopify Plus merchants can completely customize their checkout. You can decide how the checkout page is displayed, offer incentives or even deals on shipping.
You can develop the store in a way such that payment options are personalized for each customer. Show, hide, or rename payment methods based on certain products, customer groups or tags, or a customer’s shipping address.
Another benefit to a custom designed store is that you can be very specific about the way you set up discounts. Automated discounts save the customer from having to manually enter a discount code.
Custom scripts can be coded to identify changes in the size or quantity of products being purchased and adjust the prices in real-time. They can be used to automatically display a percentage or amount being discounted from a product.
Doing this helps merchants to offer customers a completely personalized experience, rather than taking a one-size fits all approach.
A fully custom designed store takes a long time to develop. Consider how this will affect your business before making the decision, as it’s likely to take at least a few months before the new store goes live.
Your chosen team should work closely with you to decide how your store will look and function. The developers will need time to create custom code and run tests to make sure the store runs smoothly. Meanwhile, the designers will have to create a brand identity, which includes a color palette, font types and sizes, button sizes, and so on.
Be wary of developers who offer to custom build your store in a very short period of time. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Chances are that they’re going to do a rush job, which is likely to leave you with some unpleasant problems down the line.
In the same vein, all good things come with a price tag. Treat your custom build as an investment in your business and find highly skilled developers and designers to do the job. The very cheap options might not have the necessary web development or Shopify experience. You may be stuck with a glitchy, bug-filled store down the line, which is going to cost you even more to fix.
Remember that with a fully custom store, you may need the help of a developer at a later stage when it’s time to update your store. A good developer will build your store in such a way that you’re able to manage day-to-day changes yourself. However, bigger updates, which are needed as technology and software changes, will need to be done by an expert.
As we’ve already mentioned, choosing to fully customize your store is a big decision. But it’s a decision you don’t need to make alone. If you’re still unsure about whether or not customization is the way to go, feel free to get in touch with us!
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