#tech-talk
Thread
Website redesign question 💻
> Did you build your own shopify theme from scratch or customized an existing one?
We're doing a redesign and exploring both options. Thanks!!
What do you mean from scratch? Using a free theme like Dawn?
Meaning, we build our own theme. It acts like any other theme but it's built from scratch by our devs.
100% customize an existing one. You’d save so much time. Can’t think of any other reason for building a. theme from scratch other than publishing it on the theme store.
Thanks! I'm hearing that existing themes can start breaking at scale as we customize it. But I'm leaning towards your recommendation.
If you go with a theme made by a reputed developer like Maestroo, Archetype or Brickspace, it will not break at scale.
If you’re starting with a free theme like Dawn, which is already very robust, it will depend on your devs how well they build on top of it.
Thanks super helpful!
Purchase a theme from the Shopify Theme Store and customize it. This approach helps you avoid the risk of having your shop shut down by Shopify.
❤️
Yes I would say 90% of the time customizing a theme is the best bet. I think the only exception is a crazy unique design or hard custom features that most themes don’t have like tons of product options for furniture or custom bundles, etc.
I’ve ran into way too many startup brands that got a custom theme done which was overkill and they are trapped into what was only built for them at the time since they don’t work with the dev anymore. Benefits of a established theme is that you also have a ton of new sections built in that you can utilize later on.
@Alex Schinasi There are 3 ways of approaching us at our agency. It totally depends on the merchant requirement. Option 1 (Custom Design & Development): If the merchant wants an in-depth customer experience and personalised journey for their user, then we do a complete custom design (UX, UI) first, then we go ahead with our own base , which we built internally also for shopify theme store. Then we convert the design into a customised dynamic experience.
Option 2: We choose the best theme from the Shopify theme store, customise the theme based on the brand guidelines, and add wherever it requires a bit of custom design and development. If I talk ratio: It’s like theme customisation is 70%, 30% custom design and development.
Option 3: Only theme customisation, no custom design or development.
Thanks that's helpful!