While starting a BigCommerce store, most of us feel confused when it comes to selecting a suitable theme for our website. In this post, I will walk you through BigCommerce Stencil themes and frameworks, that can be tweaked to provide your customer with the greatest experience possible.
Table of Contents
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is an excellent option for eCommerce stores with comparable pricing. It’s simple to use and packed with features to help you showcase your products so you can sell more.
Furthermore, there is no shortage of trendy BigCommerce themes that may assist you in swiftly setting up your store so you can begin selling.
What to expect when choosing a BigCommerce theme?
There are numerous BigCommerce themes available on the market. Choosing a theme that is suitable for your store will help you save time and money from additional features and customization.
Mobile Friendly
It should be easy to navigate through your BigCommerce theme on both desktop and mobile. Your BigCommerce theme will deliver a better overall user experience for all of your website visitors if it is mobile-friendly. Before you open your store to the public, make sure to test the look of your BigCommerce theme on both your smartphone and tablet to ensure there are no issues when used on multiple devices.
Speed Optimization
People are quite impatient when it comes to online shopping. They want to purchase on a site that is quick to load and saves them time. As a result, if you want to boost your sales, use a theme that is super-fast and lightweight rather than one that is cluttered with fancy aspects.
SEO Features
A BigCommerce theme with built-in SEO tools will save you a lot in terms of marketing. These themes will ensure that your site is SEO-friendly and that it gets a larger audience via search engines.
Support and Updates
Choose a BigCommerce theme that is updated on a regular basis and provides support in the event that you get stuck. When looking for a BigCommerce theme, make sure to look for the required support and documentation that comes with each theme from the BigCommerce Theme Store or other third-party developers, as well as the fact that your theme is updated regularly and contains new features.
Checkout Process
Most of the buyers abandon their carts because of a long and complicated checkout procedure. Therefore, choose a theme with a straightforward but comprehensive checkout procedure that does not require customers to create a second account. Furthermore, if the theme allows you to display a progress bar, it will be quite beneficial in keeping your customers patient.
What is Stencil?
Stencil is a BigCommerce theme framework that allows you to build your own store based on premade templates.
The Page Builder tool included with Stencil themes allows merchants to alter the look and feel of their storefronts without having to know how to code, making customizations accessible to a wide range of users.
BigCommerce’s Stencil themes combine current best practices in technology, design standards, conversion, and SEO, and are designed to support businesses in various industries. You can choose from beautiful, fully responsive templates or build a completely custom storefront with Stencil.
Stencil Framework Features
The Stencil framework was not always used by BigCommerce. BigCommerce used to use a framework named Blueprint before switching to Stencil. There are probably still stores that are utilizing themes created using the original Blueprint framework, and they’re missing out on several important capabilities and benefits.
Overall, Stencil was created as a replacement for Blueprint. It provides a more solid base for eCommerce sites. It’s easier to work with, easier to update, and more efficient to construct with. Let’s take a look at the benefits of the BigCommerce Stencil themes.
- Fully responsive designs designed for mobile, tablet, and desktop browsers
- Themes optimized for varied catalog sizes, verticals, promotions, and content
- No coding is necessary to configure and manage storefront elements such as colors, typefaces, and the number of goods displayed with the Page Builder.
- Widgets allow you to drag and drop material such as text blocks, photos, videos, and items.
- Cart abandonment rates are reduced with a mobile-optimized checkout.
Theme vs Framework – What Should You Choose?
Why you should choose themes over the framework
- Quick start: You can install a theme right away without any additional settings.
- Cost-effective: A theme can be free or pricey depending on your purposes. However, it still costs less compared to the cost of hiring a team to develop your own theme.
- Features rich: A BigCommerce premium theme can offer a wide variety of features from sorting products to SEO support.
- Automatically update: Keep up with your competitors by applying the latest designs and technology.
Why you should choose framework over themes
- Unlimited customization: No matter which theme you choose out there, there’s also a chance that it has been used before. While framework lets you build your own theme with different designs and tastes.
- Coding skill: If you have in-depth knowledge of web development, why don’t take advantage of it and create unique designs?
- Business focus: Different businesses might require different strategies. Building your own themes means you can add features that most fit your business and attract customers.
Where to Find the Best BigCommerce Stencil Theme?
BigCommerce has its own marketplace with over 100 themes both free and paid. These themes are made possible by Stencil, which offers customers more freedom when it comes to design. They are also mobile responsive and easy-edited with a drag-and-drop interface.
ThemeForest is the place to go if you’re seeking the greatest BigCommerce themes for your store. Envato Market, which includes ThemeForest, is a collection of marketplaces that cater to a variety of creative requirements. Hundreds of trendy and appealing Stencil theme collections are available for purchase and customization to fit your needs.
Premium themes’ prices can range from $100 to $300 and not include customization. BigCommerce themes are fully supported 24/7, while others third-party marketplaces only support for the first 6 months. Other than that you have to pay an additional fee for support.
Automatically updates are available to most of the themes and templates on the marketplace. Besides, you should check on documentation how it will affect your site’s performance.
Recommended Stencil Themes for BigCommerce
Here below are few latest themes from the Themforest collection of Bigcommerce Stencil Themes which are trusted by many customers. They are available in the Envato market where you can view their demos and features.
- Beautica – Premium Responsive Bigcommerce Template
- Brooklynk – Premium Responsive Fashion Bigccommerce Template
- Revo – Multipurpose Stencil Responsive BigCommerce Theme & Google AMP Ready
- SarahMarket – Large Store Grocery Responsive BigCommerce Theme
- AP Alaska – Responsive Bigcommerce Theme Template
- LaParis – Simple Creative Responsive BigCommerce Theme – Stencil Based
- Paralbag – Parallax BigCommerce Bag Store Theme
- Razor – Electronics Store Bigcommerce Theme
- eMarket – Multipurpose StenCil BigCommerce Theme with Google AMP Ready
- CAROS – Cars & Auto Parts Automotive BigCommerce Theme
- Shop Town – Multipurpose Stencil BigCommerce Theme
- AP Strollik Responsive Bigcommerce Theme Template
- Minimal – Multipurpose Stencil BigCommerce Theme
- Branchy – Multipurpose Stencil BigCommerce Theme
- Febzy – Multipurpose Stencil BigCommerce Theme
- Electronics Supermarket Responsive BigCommerce Theme
- Polystar – Responsive BigCommerce Theme
Before Launching Your Store
By now, you’ve probably been able to distinguish between theme and framework. Still, there are plenty of things to consider before selecting the right theme for your online store.
Not every theme is created the same. You should view their demo version and read people’s reviews to make sure nothing could go wrong. Themes and templates are designed to save money, time, and effort while fostering creativity, flexibility, and engagement, and conversion. So go out there and choose a perfect theme of your own.
