do you have to buy theme when creating a site on shopify

so far on this channel we've continued,to go deeper and deeper into shopify,theme development but today i want to,zoom out and talk more broadly about the,need for theme development to begin with,if you're new here i'm chris and i,currently specialize as a front-end web,developer for the shopify platform i.e i,do shopify theme development but if,you've clicked on this video i'm going,to take a guess and say that you don't,actually need my services let me explain,so given that i've built a bit of a,reputation for this kind of work i get a,range of people reach out to me some of,which are just starting out in,e-commerce and to virtually all of these,people i tell them to start with a,pre-built theme and focus on customizing,their theme later,why because as a new store owner your,primary goal should be on sales and,marketing not on getting your theme,perfectly customized i'll be honest a,custom site for me is typically going to,come with a five figure price tag and if,you don't have a ton of traffic on the,site yet that budget is probably better,spent on generating traffic instead,pre-built themes whether free or paid,will do the trick for the majority of,sellers and with premium themes starting,at a price tag of just around 220 usd,it's an easy investment to justify that,is until you reach a certain level,that level is typically when you start,to turn over more than a million dollars,in revenue at this point you have a real,business and with around 40 profit,margin you're making around 400k which,you can start to split up between,marketing and website improvements,people often ask me do i build websites,to which i answer no i customize,existing ones regardless of whether,you're just starting out or a few years,into your business,very rarely is it the case that i as a,developer need to create a brand new,theme for a client,most e-commerce sites have similar,features almost every product page has a,set of product images a product title,description price product form,and the add to cart button so there's no,need to reinvent the wheel but with a,bit of theme development we can add,extra features to the product page make,unlimited changes to the styling of this,page and this is where theme development,comes in,while the theme might come with some,customization options the only way to,achieve full control is enlisting the,help of someone who understands,front-end web development on the shopify,platform so with this in mind let me,directly answer the question in the,title of this video,the first decision you need to make is,free or paid theme as i mentioned,earlier this is going to be a question,you need to answer no matter whether you,plan to create a custom site or not as,it's almost always more cost efficient,to start with a pre-built theme and this,decision i would recommend you make,based purely on your budget if you can,afford the two to three hundred dollars,required to buy a premium theme then i,definitely recommend you do it,at the time of recording each theme that,you see available for purchase on the,shopify theme store has had to pass a,stringent 22 point checklist in order to,get the mark of approval from shopify as,someone who works with themes on a,regular basis i can testify that the,amount of work required to make a theme,that is quality enough to be advertised,by shopify is generally worth it for the,small two to three hundred dollar price,tag that being said if for whatever,reason you can't afford a premium theme,at this time a free theme should suffice,especially if it has been developed by,shopify themselves,alright so now that you've made the,decision on which theme you're going to,start with the next decision to make is,around customization first of all you,should dive into the customizer and,explore the options already available,within the theme i can't tell you the,amount of times a client has asked me to,change something that they could have,changed themselves by finding the,appropriate setting within the theme,customizer then if you can't find a,setting for making that required change,you can look at hiring a developer to,make that change for you notice how i,haven't yet mentioned anything about,building a completely custom site yet,and that is because it's most often the,case that a custom site is not required,heading back to the diagram here for,those clients with a big enough budget,who are already generating good traffic,on their store this is where you can,start to refactor the entire website to,look exactly how you desire it and add,in any additional features you might,require if you're in any doubt of,whether creating a custom site is worth,it for your business then chances are,you're not ready so here's the tltr,if you have very little money to spend,use a free theme if your store already,has traction and is ready for a more,unique shop front create a custom site,otherwise buy a premium theme that my,friends is what i would recommend from,my years of experience working with,shopify all right guys thanks for,watching if you've made it this far in,the video maybe you'd be interested in,learning how to develop and customize,themes yourself using front-end web,development if so i encourage you to,check out some of the other videos on,this channel make sure you subscribe if,you're interested in learning more about,this stuff and i will catch you in the,next video

Congratulation! You bave finally finished reading do you have to buy theme when creating a site on shopify and believe you bave enougb understending do you have to buy theme when creating a site on shopify

Come on and read the rest of the article!