Minimal Shopify Theme Review (2021)

Find out if the Minimal Shopify Theme is any good or not Below!

[featured-image]

Sometimes less is more. This is especially true when it comes to Webdesign and User Experience. Having a website and especially an e-commerce shop that is too cluttered will do nothing but distract your users and shift their attention away from what’s important.

Enter the Shopify Minimal Theme. As a free-to-use theme in Shopify’s Webstore it is enjoying immense popularity, and rightfully so. It focuses on providing your users a streamlined shopping experience free from unnecessary distractions.

Choosing a theme is an important step in setting up your Shopify website. Should you want to change your theme retrospectively you will lose all the work that you put into your shop up until this point. So, spend some time to inform yourself and make the right decision from the get go.

The Shopify minimal theme comes with three different predetermined styles, namely Fashion, Vintage, and Modern.

The Vintage style comes with bold color palette and font style reminiscing of advertising in the later half of the 19th century. Under the slider it displays blog content instead of featured collections or products. Below that the Vintage theme allows you to display two rows of products and a featured highlight, usually your bestseller. This theme is especially useful if you are planning on selling products that speak for themselves.

The Fashion style puts more emphasis on visual content. It uses a lighter color scheme and elegant font style, making it ideal for… you guessed it; fashion and apparel. The slider is much wider than in the Vintage theme and below it you are given the option to display different collections. It also allows you to provide information about your business and even include a map to show off your physical location (should you have one). This helps users understand your business and builds trust.

Last but not least, the Modern style incorporates features from both the vintage and the fashion style. It comes with an earthy color scheme and bold font style and allows you to display up to eight collections below the slider.

Theme Frontend Features

The Minimal Theme comes with the following features:

Slideshow

Allows you to display different products or special promotions you feel are worth pointing out. It is even possible to add a button straight to the slideshow so you can lead your users right into the shop.

Home Page Video

Video is the content of the future. The Minimal Theme allows you to have one run on your homepage. This captures attention and draws your users into your shop experience.

Product Image Zoom

Especially important if you’re selling goods where details matter. Long a standard in e-commerce shops such as Amazon or eBay, the Minimal Theme allows your users to zoom into pictures and get a full view of the product.

Product Filtering

Filtering options allow your users to find products much much quicker. This is especially useful if you plan on setting up a shop with many different product categories. Historically, such features improve conversion rate drastically as the user finds the product they’re looking for much quicker.

Related Products

This feature displays related products in a side panel on your website. The Minimal Theme does this automatically, which is good practice as it generally increases the Average Order Value by influencing users to make more spontaneous buying decisions. 

Home Page Customization

The Minimal Theme allows you to easily add or remove elements to your homepage. Add or remove the map or display seasonal collections to increase conversions.

Color Palettes

Easily customize your entire shop by setting up your color palettes. If you are not happy with the predetermined colors this allows you to easily add your personal flair to your webshop.

SEO

Easily editable page and product titles & descriptions. This feature makes it easier for your website to rank on Google etc. for the desired terms and helps drive organic traffic your way.

Footer

The footer of your website is a great place to place trust signals such as social media links, terms & conditions, or contact options.

Theme Backend Features

The Minimal Theme also allows you to customise multiple backend features, giving you even more control and creative freedom when it comes to designing your online shop. You can add Header Images and even place messages in the header to lead customers to seasonal collections or special temporary promotions.

Additionally, you can add or remove features from the product listing pages, add video content, or display featured collections.

Benefits of the Minimal Theme

Besides the obvious benefit of it being a free, highly customizable Shopify theme the Minimal Theme also comes with additional pros that separate it from other free themes. 

The Newsletter option allows you to set up a lead generation tool on your very own Shopify website. Once users opt in and provide their email address you can send out updates, promotions, or even personalized coupons. You can also offer rewards such as a free e-book or coupon codes to incentivize users to sign up.

The theme also comes with a blog feature that lets you set up your own blog right in your Shopify. In the age of content marketing this is a very important and useful feature no shop should be missing out on.

What does the community say?

Combing through the reviews of the Minimal Theme you will see that most are positive. The only complaints come from the occasional technological hiccup like social media icons not being displayed correctly or issues adjusting the theme colors. These issues are usually quickly resolved though and hardly influence user experience. Should you ever run into a significant issue with the Minimal Theme the Shopify support will be more than happy to help you solve it.

Conclusion

Everything considered, we rate the Minimal Theme with a solid 4 out of 5 stars. It is very easy to use and can be utilized for a wide range of different stores. Furthermore, you don’t need any coding knowledge to use it, making it very beginner friendly. It is lacking the visual impact other themes such as Brooklyn or Supply have, but the fact that it’s free more than makes up for that.

We highly recommend the Minimal Theme, especially for beginners that are setting up their first Shopify shop.