Choose a theme

Your theme decides what your storefront looks like: its fonts, its colours, its spacing, and which sections sit on each page. Picking one is on every plan, and so is previewing as many as you like before you commit.

1. Open Themes

Go to Online Store → Themes. If you have not picked one yet, the page says No active theme and lists what is available to you under Standard Themes.

A theme card may say 2 styles. A style is the same theme in a different mood: its own fonts and palette, and its own starting arrangement of sections. You pick the style when you apply, and you can flip between them in the preview first.

2. Preview before you commit

Hover the card and choose Preview. Your own store opens inside the dialog wearing that theme, and you can switch between Home, Products, Product and Collections, look at it on a desktop, tablet or phone width, and flip between the theme's styles from the row at the top. Nothing is saved by previewing.

Read the note across the top of the preview. It is doing real work: the preview is a showcase, with every section the theme ships and sample products filling them. Applying gives you the smaller set of sections that look right on a store with nothing in it yet, and the rest are one click away in the storefront editor. So a new store will look quieter than its preview, and that is deliberate rather than a failed apply.

3. Apply it

Choose Apply theme, on the card or from the preview. The confirmation is where the real decision is, because it names both halves of what applying does:

Kept, because these are yours rather than the theme's:

• your navigation menus,
• your brand colour,
• your privacy, terms and shipping pages,
• your About page's text, and your Contact page's words and details,
• your home page hero's words, image and buttons, when both themes open the home page on a hero, or both on a slideshow, where it is the first slide's,
• whether your storefront shows "Powered by Shoponent".

Replaced, because these are what a theme is:

• fonts, colours and spacing,
• the sections on each page,
• header and footer styling.

The same dialog carries two more controls:

• Style, when the theme ships more than one. The swatches beside each name show its background, its main colour and its accent.
• Brand colour (optional). Type a colour or pick one, and the theme is retinted around it: a full palette is generated from that one colour, so you do not have to choose a set. Leave it blank to keep the colour your store already uses, or the theme's own if you have never set one.

Choose Apply theme. Your storefront changes at once, with no separate publish step.

4. What you land on

The theme you are on now sits at the top of the page, marked Current theme, with a live picture of your own storefront in it.

From there, Preview reopens your real storefront in the dialog, and Customize opens the storefront editor to change sections and text. On Starter that button reads Unlock customizing, because editing sections needs Professional or above; picking a theme, previewing, styles and your brand colour are on every plan. See the pricing page for what each plan includes.

Changing your mind

Applying another theme is the same three steps, and the Kept list holds every time: your menus, your colour, your policy pages, your About page's text, your Contact page's words and details, your home page hero's words, image and buttons, and whether your storefront shows "Powered by Shoponent" all carry over. The hero moves into the new theme's own hero, and a slideshow's first slide into the new theme's first slide, so either takes that theme's design. When one theme opens its home page on a hero and the other on a slideshow, the new theme keeps its own opening instead. What does not carry over is other work you did in the storefront editor, because the sections on each page are exactly what a theme replaces. If you have a draft in the editor you care about, publish it or write down what it says before you apply something else.

If it does not work

• The theme you want is not listed. Only themes released to merchants appear here, and the list grows as more are released.
• Your storefront looks emptier than the preview. That is the showcase difference above. Add the sections you want in the storefront editor, or add products and collections so the sections that need them have something to show.
• Nothing changed after applying. Refresh your storefront once. The page a shopper sees is cached for a few seconds after a change.
• Apply theme does nothing and an error appears. Your subscription may have lapsed. Check your Billing page, then try again.

Email support@shoponent.com with your store name if anything here does not match what you see. We read and answer every message.