First appeared in 2016 as a revolution in Shopify themes, up till now section structure has been applied to all themes on the Theme Store have already followed the section structure. This article will compare 10 top Shopify section themes that you should consider for your new store in 2017. Besides, I'll help you analyze the uniqueness of each theme, why you should choose that theme for your online store.

 

1. Shopify section - an overview
2. Top Shopify section themes

You may be interested in:

3 best Shopify themes for clothing store 2018. Free download

SalesHunter - best converting Shopify theme. Free download

Best Shopify themes for jewelry store 2018. Free download

Shopify section - an overview

This new feature allows new merchants like you have more flexibility in store customizations. While the old editor requires coding skills, this new theme editor only takes few minutes to finish the initial store setup. You can easily get familiar with sections without any documentation or difficulties. Store configuration now becomes super easy and fast than before: drag and drop to arrange, edit, or add elements to your store.

This new feature adheres to the mission of Shopify - make selling easier for everyone.

Themes that apply sections have pre-made sections in the package for you to use. You can follow the demo if you love to make your store as the demo. You can even remove some unnecessary ones or add any other sections to make your store look unique and relevant.

Top Shopify section themes

Shopify theme comparison

The below table shortlists 10 best Shopify themes with sections by various criteria: price, the number of styles, most suitable for.

Theme	Price	Number of styles	Most suitable for
SalesHunter	$180	3	Increase sales and conversion rate
Debut	Free	1	product branding showcase
Brooklyn	Free	1	mobile apparel stores
Baby Store	Free	1	kids clothing/accessories stores
District	$180	3	showcase multiple collections
Mobilia	$160	4	branding content integration
Electronics Store	Free	1	digital/electronic store with multiple collections
Atlantic	$180	4	vast amount of products/collections
Mr Parker	$140	4	multiple-collection showcase
Simple	Free	2	starter store with big product display area
Palo Alto	$180	3	small amount of products with storytelling

Detailed theme review

Shopify SalesHunter

The Shopify SalesHunter theme is the best theme that is optimized to get the highest sales for your Shopify store. First of all, its homepage is designed with lastest drag and drop section, which allows you to customize the homepage easily. Besides, there are many sales-boosting elements that are integrated into product page without using 3rd-party apps such as countdown clock, top announcement bar, upsell popup... which help you intensively increase sales rate. Last but not least, you can even customize the cart page to avoid abandoned cart and up-sell when customers enter the cart page.

Shopify premium theme from SalesHunter team is a good choice and good ROI when you when leveling up your sales rate as it is completely free without any extra cost.

Debut (free)

I’m sure that every Shopify merchants know about Debut. This well-known Shopify theme is the best companion for a branded store. With some built-in Shopify theme sections like logo list, video slideshow, you can easily add visual contents to tell your brand story. Debut is now available for download on the official Shopify Theme Store for free. This Shopify theme looks awesome for nearly all kinds of store, regardless the inventory size. This theme is distributed and supported by the official Shopify Staff.

Downside: Debut has only one default style. So you have to manually change the style via the “General settings tab with Color and Typography.

Explore Debut theme demo

Brooklyn (free)

Brooklyn is another section theme made by Shopify staff. This theme follows the mobile-first responsive design philosophy, which means it is carefully crafted to boost mobile purchase. The top fullscreen slideshow is an eye-catching area for you to show the product introduction images. Brooklyn best fit for mobile apparel stores with at least 5 products

Downside: The product image display area of Brooklyn is limited. So if you want to have bigger product images, you should better choose other themes.

Explore Brooklyn theme demo

Baby Store (free)

 

Baby Store is a mobile-first responsive theme for any kid clothing or accessories store. Unlike other free themes on the Theme Store, Baby Store offers a wide range of customizations for all sections. With this theme, there is no limitation in doing marketing and sales activities. Baby Store is a great long-term investigation for you both in the first stage and in the business growth stage. For a detailed look, I have also written a comprehensive review of this Shopify theme before.

Downside: Baby Store only has 1 default style, so the only way to change the look of your store is via sections and “General settings.

District ($180)

District by Style Hatch, Inc is a virtual product gallery to showcase your best product or product collections. This Shopify theme provides some essentials for your promotion activities like marketing popup, slideshow, collection gallery. You can promote your products not only via images but also via embed video area from Youtube or Vimeo. If you are running promotional content on Instagram, then why not integrate your Instagram feed into this store.  

There are 3 styles included in District. So you can instantly change the look of your store without wasting too much time for manual customizations. 100% positive customer feedback proves this theme's performance and support quality.

3 styles included:

• District
• Energy
• Coast

Explore District theme demo

 

Mobilia ($160)

 

If you are looking for a theme that supports brand storytelling, check out the best-selling Mobilia theme from Outofthesandbox team. This Shopify section theme focuses on content integration. Thus you have freedom to tell about your products (origin, reasons to buy them, uniqueness, features, look, etc.)  via both visual images and showcase videos. A unique selling point of Mobilia is that you can display and customize the sidebar menu on the collection page. Maximize the power of this sidebar by adding product filters, collection page links, product brand logos, or anything that are valuable to your brand storytelling strategy.

Downside: Mobilia is not a mobile-first theme, so it can't perform flawlessly on mobile devices.

4 styles included:

• Napa
• Sydney
• Tokyo
• Milan

Explore Mobilia theme demo

Electronics Store (free)

Electronics Store is one of the best free Shopify themes of SellerSmith team. This theme is well matched with digital or electronic stores with various product collections. The homepage is designed with various spaces for product item showcases (best-sellers, new arrivals. The navigation menu. Besides, supporting banner slots on the homepage can help you promote various campaigns for different products or product collections.
Downside: there is only one style, so you can't instantly switch to another style. You have to do that manually via sections and settings.

Explore Electronics demo

 

Atlantic ($180)

 

Atlantic by Pixel Union is truly your choice for business growth expand. This Shopify theme is designed for stores with an enormous amount of products. Besides product layouts, there are other supporting elements like multi-column navigation menu. Atlantic is based on the section structure, so there is no hurdle in store customization even when you have to manage a hundred products. Atlantic is best suitable for supermarket or grocery business model  

Downside: this theme is sometimes not easy to use for merchants since it requires coding skills in some parts. The font sizes are fixed, and you don't have access to change them. Only 96% customers are happy with Atlantic.

4 styles included:

• Modern
• Organic
• Chic
• Light

Explore Atlantic Demo

Mr Parker ($140)

 

Multiple-collection showcase is the unique selling point of Mr Parker. Almost all area on the homepage can be used to show your product collections or promotion campaigns. Moreover, you can also show collection banners on collection page (not many Shopify themes can do that!). This Shopify theme from Underground team strictly follows the section structure, so arranging or adding new promotion banners takes only a few minutes.

Downside: There is no area to showcase an overview about your store (like hero slideshow). So customers have to scroll down to view promotion banners for separate collections.

4 styles included:

• Wardrobe
• Sunset
• Apothecary
• Black  

Explore Mr Parker theme demo

 

Simple (free)

 

Simple as its name, this sectioned Shopify theme provides a huge area for product image display. All other elements have been minimized to gain the focus of your customers to your products. There are not many features or layouts on Simple, but every small detail of its looks perfectly on any stores. This theme works best for a new store with of small teams to take care of store update activities. Simple is developed and supported by Shopify staff; you always know for sure that you can reach the support team easily when in need.

Downside: both the 2 layouts sometimes look too simple and boring. There are not many promotional-supporting elements.

2 styles included:

• Light
• Beauty

Explore Simple demo

Palo Alto ($180)

 

If you are planning to run a micro-small shop, don't forget to check out Palo Alto. Built for small catalog, this Shopify theme gives you a huge space for brand storytelling. Since there are only a few products on the store, there are featured slots to showcase special products, as well as large product image optimization. The customer testimonial area is integrated on product detail page to show how good your products are from real experience. This Shopify section theme works best for fitness products, leather wallets for men, or any product kinds that need storytelling. With Palo Alto, you are always ready to get started building your branded store.

3 styles included:

• Palo Alto
• SoMa
• Stanford

Explore Palo Alto Demo

Conclusion

The above 10 Shopify section themes are just some top items in. In the upcoming articles, I'll update more section customization tips that you can use on your store.