The 30 best free Shopify themes for 2024
We've compiled a list of the 30 best free Shopify themes in 2024 to suit any online business.
Picking the right platform to sell your print-on-demand goods can be tricky. They all offer similar services, while each has something unique, as well. With eCommerce thriving, it’s important to choose the right marketplace for your brand, business, and future.
If you’re having a hard time deciding between these two brilliant platforms, our Wix vs Shopify comparison will help answer all the right questions. We’ll look at the ease of use of each platform, design, eCommerce features, customer support, SEO tools, and everything else concerning selling on Wix vs Shopify.
Learn more about print on demand and starting a print-on-demand business.
Wix made its debut in 2006 as a drag-and-drop website builder. What started as a small company is now the all-in-one solution of choice for more than 220 million users from bloggers to eCommerce.
The Wix dashboard provides effective eCommerce power for small businesses and creators. The platform offers shopping and payment optimization, business and finance management tools, and print-on-demand and dropshipping integration.
Shopify is a renowned and reliable online store builder, created in 2004 as a suitable solution for businesses and entrepreneurs’ online stores. Now Shopify fulfills the needs of merchants worldwide.
Quick tip
Browse for more Shopify store examples and inspiration on our blog.
There are hundreds of apps and tools that greatly simplify the work and offer the opportunity to start a business with minimum or no investments, such as a Shopify print-on-demand store. Even if you’re not tech-savvy, you can design an attractive and engaging Shopify site with the platform’s built-in tools.
Shopify is a dedicated, robust, and comprehensive eCommerce platform with over 1.75 million merchants. Businesses in 175 countries worldwide have made over $200 billion in sales using Shopify.
Wix | Shopify | |
---|---|---|
Ease of use | Beginner-friendly platform, does not require tech knowledge. | Easy-to-use platform in all areas. |
Store management | Main features for inventory management, cart maintenance, and payment options. | Extra business name generation, stock photos, and more. |
Pricing | Build a store for free or opt for paid plans starting at $17/month. | Advanced plans starting from $29/month. |
Technical features | Supports 100+ languages, good speed, doesn’t support multiple currencies. | Fast platform with a multicurrency and multilingual feature. |
Analytics | Basic in-house analytics with traffic report, visitor behavior report, and sales report. | In-depth review of store activity, visitors, store speed, transactions, and more. |
Design features | A selection of beautiful, free, easy-to-customize templates. | Many templates, only a couple of free ones. |
Marketing and sales features | Outstanding email marketing and blogging features, as well as integrations. | Good email marketing and blogging features and integrations, no autosave. |
SEO | Great set of all the basic SEO tools and features. | Better SEO functionality with all the best tools and features. |
Apps market | Huge app store with 250+ apps for all the basic necessities. | Excellent app store with 7000+ apps. |
Customer support | Great customer support and helpful tutorial videos. | Excellent customer service 24/7 with a live chat. |
Choosing the most suitable backbone for your new online store will likely affect your success, so you shouldn’t take this decision lightly. Let’s look at some of the key differences between Wix and Shopify.
Both Shopify and Wix claim to be very beginner-friendly, they are quite different in building an online presence.
Wix is an all-in-one website builder perfect for those who need a professional-looking store but have little to no design and coding skills. Wix eCommerce features help you create blogs, articles, store descriptions, and About Us pages, with top-notch tutorials and helpful step-by-step guides.
The Wix editor allows merchants to create and manage content by simply clicking on a feature, such as an image, logo, or title, and dragging it wherever needed. Wix ADI artificial intelligence helps create a template in seconds.
Shopify eCommerce capabilities are perfect for larger stores and businesses emphasizing product management and selling. Features such as blogs and content management are available but are not the platform’s main focus.
Shopify has separate dashboard and editing systems, making you move back and forth between the preview mode and the final store face. Plenty of free templates make optimization and personalization easier.
When it comes to ease of use, Wix takes the cake. Wix stores might be more basic and simple than Shopify’s, but you can get them up and running in no time without the additional headache that comes with a complex eCommerce functionality.
Wix sites come equipped with the necessities.
Shopify store owners get access to important features
While most basic features are similar, Shopify wins for its focus on eCommerce. An extended toolkit offers a more diverse, professional look.
Wix and Shopify both offer multiple monthly plans for different size stores and purposes. Let’s see which platform gives you the best offer for the right price.
Wix offers three eCommerce-friendly business plans from $27 to $159. Their pricing structure was updated in 2023 to include most of the Wix Ascend business suite functions after the suite was discontinued as a separate product.
There are three conventional Shopify plans, ranging from $39 to $399.
Wix and Shopify offer additional options for requirements not met by conventional plans.
Wix pricing is more affordable but Shopify’s eCommerce features are more refined.
Wix | Shopify | |
---|---|---|
Currencies | You can’t offer multiple currencies on your Wix store page. | Set up Shopify Payment for the multicurrency feature and offer prices in different currencies around the world. |
Multilingual capabilities | Wix will be your best friend for additional languages. This platform supports 100+ languages. | Every Shopify standard plan comes with a multilingual selling option. Display your store in up to five different languages on separate URLs. |
Loading speed | Wix is slower but suggests guidelines for website optimization, providing the possibility to maintain 85% to 90% speed. | According to research, Shopify is one of the fastest eCommerce sites in terms of loading time, which is an average of 1.3 seconds. |
Shopify offers more currency features and creates faster websites than Wix, but Wix has better multilingual capabilities.
Wix analytics allows you to customize your reports and focus on data that interests you. Get reports on website traffic, buyer behavior, and conversion rates. Access data analysis to make business decisions.
Depending on your plan, Shopify offers a selection of reporting features, from basic analysis to deep reviews on store activity, visitors, store speed, transactions, and more.
Both platforms offer useful data reports to help decision-making and business development. For a more detailed analysis, Shopify analytics is the better option.
Both Wix and Shopify are well known for their themes and templates. Let’s look at their prices, options, customization, and more.
Wix provides busy store owners with AI-powered, built-in designer tools to help design the storefront – the Wix Editor and Wix ADI.
There are more than 880 free designer-made Wix templates to use with the Wix Editor, plus a growing number of themes for Wix ADI.
Personalize to your liking, drag and drop, customize, add advanced features, and spruce it up to match your brand.
The Shopify Theme Store includes over 156 professionally designed eCommerce templates for your online store. 12 of Shopify’s themes are free, while premium options range from $170-380.
While they may seem quite pricey, the premium Shopify themes are artistically and functionally cost-effective, modern, customizable, and responsive on desktops, tablets, and phones.
Unlike Wix and most other website builders, you can switch your Shopify themes after you have built the website.
Quick tip
Filter Shopify themes by Industry (i.e., Clothing and Accessories, Pet Supplies) to quickly find the perfect fit.
Both Wix and Shopify offer quality themes. Wix’s templates are free and have an edge, but you can’t change them later. Shopify is more pricey and limited, but flexible.
Wix | Shopify | |
---|---|---|
Email campaigns | High-quality email marketing tool with pre-made templates. Send three newsletters for free to 5000 subscribers or upgrade your plan for the email marketing tool Wix Ascend. | Recently introduced marketing tool Shopify Email for promoting updates, products, and campaigns. Send 10,000 emails per month for free. |
Integrations | When it comes to social media, Wix offers integrations to top platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and more. | Shopify offers a greater list of sales channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, Messenger, Handshake, and more. |
Content marketing | Blogging is an easy and simple option for Wix users. Wix also has the upper hand with the autosave feature that prevents you from losing content if the site or computer crashes. | Shopify also has the blogging feature, but no autosave. While Wix allows you to use tags and categories in blog posts, Shopify only has tags. |
Wix takes the lead regarding email marketing and posting content. Shopify recently introduced its email marketing tool but Wix is friendlier in marketing content.
Wix has worked hard to up its SEO game. A Wix site has no problem ranking on top of search engine results..
Shopify SEO has some limitations regarding customization and duplicated product pages, but in general, it gives most of the same features and solutions as Wix.
Both platforms are well-equipped with SEO tools and boosters. Wix has an edge with features incorporated from the former Ascend suite, which allows more in-depth customization and better ranking compared to Shopify SEO features.
The Wix App Market offers a selection of over 300 apps and add-ons in six main categories:
While some apps are free, most are paid but affordable, ranging from $5 to $30.
The Shopify App Store allows you to browse through 8000+ third-party apps. These are divided into six categories.
Both Wix and Shopify provide useful tools and apps for the ultimate eCommerce growth and experience. But the Shopify App Store has a much larger selection.
The Wix support team provides professional service. Merchants can submit issue tickets for live support and request a callback on Wix. The support lines are available in English, French, German, and other languages.
Wix provides user-friendly and easy-to-understand instruction videos on various topics. These will provide quick answers to some of the most common FAQs.
Shopify merchants have help, guidance, or simple advice 24/7 by chat, email, or phone. With the live chat, there is no need to wait for a callback or email. Another great way to share experiences or get advice is by using the Shopify Forum. The Shopify community is, in their words, “Your place to connect with brands and makers, partners and commerce shakers.”
Both platforms provide great customer support for help and problem-solving. Shopify offers faster assistance via live chat and a sense of community through the forum.
Both Shopify and Wix offer Point-of-Sales (POS) functions with their basic plans.
The feature lets merchants accept payments through devices like smartphones, tablets, or barcode scanners while managing and updating inventory after a sale.
Wix POS is a recent feature connected to Wix Payments available only in Canada and the US.
It requires acquiring specific Wix hardware, which varies from Mobile Card Reader + Dock ($98.00) to Complete Retail POS Package ($1295.00).
Wix sellers can also use POS by using Square or SumUp as payment providers. The feature requires that the Wix store and the payment processor accounts match currencies. Otherwise, the transaction will be declined.
In contrast, POS is built-in to the Basic Shopify plan, although with restricted functionality. Advanced Shopify features such as omnichannel, staff roles, collecting in-store, printing receipts, and multiple selling points need an $60 (monthly) upgrade to the POS Pro option.
Shopify POS is integrated with Shopify Payments (more above).
Shopify hardware ranges from a $49 Tap & Chip Card Reader to the $399 POS Go – a dedicated mobile device. Tap to pay on iPhone is free.
Shopify has an edge both for casual and experienced sellers needing POS and a broader geographic range. Wix POS can be more affordable and benefit sellers living in specific countries who occasionally sell on-site.
Comparing Wix vs Shopify for eCommerce exclusively, Shopify will have the advantage of a dedicated platform. Depending on your online business needs, Wix may be the best choice – the all-in-one platform has better blog, content management, and SEO features than Shopify.
If you need a range of specialized eCommerce features, Shopify is better. Wix is more suitable for content creators, bloggers, and influencers with online stores.
Wix competes with and surpasses Shopify in content management, blogging, SEO, and marketing features.
Even though Wix has solid eCommerce features, there is stiff competition from dedicated platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce.
Wix eCommerce functions are available with the Core plan ($27 monthly).
When considering Wix and Shopify, remember that Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce platform and offers a wider range of functionality and flexibility for people with mid-to-large selling ambitions.
Both platforms have their pros and cons. Shopify is perfect for people serious about growing an online store, particularly those operating in the POD dropshipping niche.
Wix is more suitable for influencers and bloggers who like to sell a bit of everything now and then. It’s also an excellent choice for small business owners and beginners. While Wix has fewer customization features, it makes up for it with excellent SEO and marketing.
When choosing the right platform for your online business, consider everything mentioned above and pick the one that best suits your needs, plans, and goals. Grow your eCommerce business successfully.
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