Design your way

The number of online shoppers grows steadily each year. At the same time, WordPress has become an increasingly popular platform for creating eCommerce websites, due in part to its ease of use. Multipurpose eCommerce WordPress themes have recently entered the picture in response to the growing need to make eCommerce websites flexible in an increasingly competitive environment.

Applying these eCommerce multipurpose themes has consequently become the latest trend in creating online business and shopping websites. This trend is expected to continue, and it shows little sign of abating.

The Advantages of using an eCommerce multipurpose WordPress theme

The introduction of a growing number of eCommerce-oriented, multipurpose WordPress themes have significantly increased the number of design options available. You now have the ability to display your client’s products in a huge variety of ways: from 2 to 6 columns in Standard, Gallery, Gallery Border or Multi-masonry.

The latest eCommerce multipurpose WordPress themes also give you the ability to choose between different cart styles and icon fonts and have Advanced Admin panel options.

Finally, the availability of a wide variety of pre-made layouts which allow a design effort to get off to a rapid start is another major advantage of using this type of themes.

In short, multipurpose eCommerce WordPress themes make ideal platforms for creating online stores and business and corporate-oriented websites. They have made the design and development processes much easier for the web designer.

As a web designer, you can profit from the unprecedented flexibility these WordPress themes have to offer.

What to look for when choosing an eCommerce Multipurpose Theme

Source: Pre-made layout – Atelier eCommerce Multipurpose Theme

If there is a problem facing web designers who wish to take advantage of the features multipurpose WordPress themes have to offer, it has to do with the large number of themes that are currently being marketed.

Searching for the best possible theme to serve your needs can quickly lead to a case of information overload.

First, you have to look for a theme that will best fit the theme of your website. Then, you have to scan the reviews to find a theme that has a reputation for outstanding quality.

At the same time, you want a WordPress theme that is flexible, powerful, fast, and extremely user friendly. The availability of 24/7 customer support has to be taken into account as well. When all of these important criteria have been satisfied, the number of remaining choices to consider can still be too large to manage.

An excellent solution to this dilemma is to select a theme created by a ThemeForest Power Elite Author. By taking this approach, you will gain access to the features you are looking for, they will be well supported by a foundation of clean, high-quality code, and you get all the support you are likely to need. The list of Elite authors and their creations is still a rather large one, but by going this route, you will have placed yourself in a situation where any chance of making a poor decision is unlikely.

Case Study: Atelier

A multipurpose WordPress eCommerce theme well worth looking into is Atelier.

A relative newcomer, this extremely versatile creation by ThemeForest’s Power Elite Author Swift Ideas is taking the eCommerce theme world by storm. While much of Atelier’s success lies in its combination of superior flexibility and versatility, its popularity is also due to its ability not only to create extremely flexible and user-friendly eCommerce websites, but to give them a streamlined and elegant appearance as well.

Atelier’s initial launch was impressive enough, but with the V 1.10 release, it added even more stunning demos, along with a number of improvements.

` The design quality is what you would expect from a ThemeForest Power Elite Author that has sold more than 20,000 ThemeForest items. The small number of design glitches that appeared in the initial launch appears to have been adequately addressed in V 1.10.

80 layout variations and 7 high-quality pre-made layouts

Examples of pre-made layouts found in Atelier

The flexibility of a theme is often expressed in terms of the number of features it offers. Atelier provides 40 different features, ranging from various cart icon styles, product page options, and shop styles, to header styles, icons and fonts. Altogether, the number of features, together with their available options, exceeds 2,000. Atelier’s versatility is also more than impressive.

There are too many elements to mention here, but a representative sampling includes Revolution, Testimonial, and Tweets sliders, a Portfolio Carousel galleries, provisions for Google maps, directories, a video player, and whatever buttons and social icons you are likely to need. An animation images option demo featuring Bounce, Flash, Pulse, Zoom, and 38 other options offers an excellent example of everything this multipurpose theme as to offer.

Not just responsive: Tailored for mobile experience

As you would expect, this theme features responsive visibility, and it has been especially tailored for the mobile experience. It would be an ideal choice for converting a PC-based shop into a shop that is equally accessible to the ever-growing number of mobile device users.

The shop styles and pages demos illustrate many of the more than 50 available design options, ranging from About Us templates to Sidebar choices, Blog formats including Masonry style, and Portfolio options. The Shop Styles demo is a slideshow featuring one option at a time, and shopping page styles you have been accustomed to viewing, including wishlists, shopping carts, My Account, and Checkout pages, are just a click away.

What is Atelier’s main strength? There may be more than a single answer, but if you go down the list of its available features, elements, and options, a good one may be it’s unbelievable versatility combined with the elegance of its presentations.

Why switching to an eCommerce multipurpose theme makes sense

While classic eCommerce themes may not as yet have become completely obsolete, the need for multipurpose themes has become overwhelming.

As noted earlier, the trend has definitely shifted from having to choose from a classic eCommerce theme to multipurpose eCommerce themes that are WooCommerce compatible, user friendly, flexible and versatile. If your goal is to reach the widest number of potential customers possible, you really have no choice.

By taking advantage of what multipurpose eCommerce WordPress themes have to offer, you can substantially widen your customer base, and adding a premium theme like Atelier to your development toolbox can substantially increase your conversion rates.

The price of this multipurpose WordPress theme is only slightly higher than average, but once you have reviewed its features, and viewed the pre-made layouts, the price will seem ridiculously low.