So in the last lecture in this section, I want to introduce you to a feature that could really transform
your store, but it's probably something you don't want to consider right now, because what I'm about
to show you is a paying service.
Now, on the subject of paying services throughout the course, you're going to see that I only recommend
spending money with money that you've actually made from your business.
So in other words, if you make $500 in sales, then you could consider reinvesting some of that back
into your business.
But what I don't want you to do is to take $500 from elsewhere that didn't come from sales generated
from your business, and use that to so-called invest in your store.
Because if you start doing that kind of thing, then you risk losing money.
And I certainly don't want you to do that.
So please, whenever you buy something for your business, make sure you already have the sales to justify
the purchase.
Okay, so what am I talking about here?
Well, what I'm talking about is paying for a theme.
Now, up to this point, of course, we've been using the Dawn theme, which of course is completely
free.
And it really is the perfect start for building your store.
But as your business develops and you start making sales and further developing your niche, you might
want to consider other themes.
Now, I'm sure you remember many lectures ago.
I also introduced you to other free themes that you might want to play with.
And just to remind you where those are, if I scroll down towards the bottom here, this is where you're
going to find the popular free themes that you can very easily add to your store.
But that said, at the end of the day, it's quite limited.
As you can see, there are only five of them.
And so in this lecture, what I want to introduce you to is the concept of paying for a theme.
And just to reiterate, I would only consider this if you have sales to justify the purchase.
So where can we find these paying themes?
Well, they live in the theme library and to access the theme library we go over here to add theme.
Click on this little arrow and click on Visit Theme Store.
So clicking on this, it takes me to the Shopify Theme store, which as you can see, actually lives
at themes dot Shopify.com.
And then in order to find a theme which might interest you, I suggest you come up here where it says
All Themes.
Click on this and the first thing you'll notice, I'm sure, is that we have 13 free themes, but over
180 paid themes.
And so now using this industry filter, I can go down here and find the industry that best suits my
niche, which I would suggest is pet supplies.
So I'm going to click on Pet Supplies.
Scroll up just a tiny bit and it's here that you can see I have potentially 87 themes to choose from.
And straight away you're going to notice the price $300 $330.
Yes, there's a free one here, but if I scroll down a bit further, this next one is 360, etc. now
that without question is a decent level of investment.
So what exactly are we getting for this money?
Well, essentially you're getting a uniquely designed theme that could really make your store stand
out.
And the way to think of this is as an investment.
So if I were to spend $300 on this theme, I would want to get at least an extra $300 in sales.
Now, that's not always easy to measure.
So to a certain extent you're going with your gut feel.
In other words, if you like the look and feel of the theme, you might want to go for it.
Now just to emphasize, this fee is a one off fee.
This isn't a monthly fee or an annual fee or anything like that.
This is a one off fee, and typically included within the theme is a period of support, which is often
six months.
So let's imagine that I was interested in this vision theme.
If I click into it, the first thing I'd want to do to help me decide is to have a look at all the features
and those you'll find, typically below the theme itself, a little bit further down.
So you've got here the features, the reviews and support and documentation.
And you can see for this first feature it says this theme is great for and then high volume stores designed
for stores that process a large number of transactions in a given period.
And this really emphasizes my point, because as I said at the beginning of the lecture, this is something
you probably want to consider later on.
In other words, in this case, when you are processing a large number of transactions, but at least
at this stage, I just want you to start thinking about what paid themes could bring to your store.
Now, of course, you want to scan down through these other features and inevitably check out the reviews,
and in this case, they are largely positive.
Another great feature is to actually check out how this theme looks by clicking on the View Demo Store
link, which brings up a fully functioning demo store using this theme so that you can very quickly
get an idea of how your store might look, and therefore whether you might want to go ahead and buy
it.
Now.
On the subject of purchasing, there is another great feature that I would strongly encourage you to
use.
So just coming out of here for the moment, I draw your attention to this part here.
Unlimited free trial pay if you publish.
In other words, you can add this theme.
To your store and use it for an unlimited period of time before you decide if you really want to buy
it.
Now, of course, the theme is only for internal use.
Your customers aren't going to see it, but it does give you a great opportunity to really take your
time before deciding whether you want to go ahead or not.
And so if I wanted to make use of the unlimited free trial, all I would need to do is to click on try
theme.
So let me click on try theme and I'll show you how it's actually added to your store.
So clicking on the button.
It's going to add my theme to my store and when the page refreshes, if I scroll down a bit, you will
probably remember that previously under the theme library, nothing was showing.
Well, now the vision theme is showing, which of course is the theme that I just added.
Now just to reemphasize, this theme is not yet being used on my store.
You can see that the Dawn theme is still the current theme, but if I click on the customize button
associated with the vision theme, it opens up the theme editor specifically for this theme, allowing
me to use it for an unlimited period of time until I decide whether or not I want to buy it.
And if I do want to buy it.
Of course, just coming out of the theme editor and scrolling down a little bit, I'm sure you noticed
the buy button.
And if you didn't want to buy it and you just wanted to remove it, then click on these three little
dots here and just click on remove.
Now of course, for the purposes of this lecture, I took the vision theme.
And that really was only because it was the first one in the list.
I don't have any particular affinity to this theme, but you're going to see that on the theme store.
The way that you check out the features, view the demo store, or try the theme for free are all more
or less the same.
And that means that you can start to get a really nice feel for what themes could do for your store
without spending any money.
And then later on, as I emphasized before in this lecture, when you do have money from your store,
when you do have money from sales, at that point you might want to consider actually going ahead and
making the purchase.