In this article, we go over some of the must-have features to look for in a Shopify dropshipping theme and why they are a must-have.
So without further ado…
#1 Urgency With Countdown Timer
It’s a known psychological fact that the fear of losing something is far more motivating than the prospect of gaining something. If your product is only available for a limited time or you have a special offer that ends soon, it’s a fantastic leverage tool to get people to act now.
Get a theme that lets you simply add a tag to whichever products you want to display a countdown timer for. Choose the number of days or hours that the timer will count down from. It even automatically resets when it reaches zero. This means you can set it and forget it.
#2 Scarcity With Remaining Stock
This feature has a two-pronged effect. Firstly, it creates a sense of urgency that visitors will miss out when stocks run out. Secondly, it has a built-in social-proof element that others have previously bought the item.
Combining these two proven persuasion principals makes for increased conversions.
#3 GEO-IP Recognition
To better serve your international customers, recognize which country they are visiting from to personalize their shopping experience.
#4 Currency Switcher
It’s no secret that international customers are proven to convert better when they view your products in their own currency. Because of this, find a Shopify dropshipping theme that has currency conversion natively in the app. That way you could be saving at least $120 per year on an app subscription.
#5 Shipping Time Estimator
User-testing has proven that “When will I receive my order?” is one of the biggest questions a shopper has. Only one theme allows you to give estimated delivery dates (more info at the bottom).
#6 Email Pop-Up
Collecting emails is key to growing your business with email marketing. A pop-up helps you collect emails so you can build a relationship with your customers and make more sales.
#7 Sold in last 24-hours
Add another layer of social-proof, one of the 3 most powerful conversion boosters in e-commerce based on 6,700 split-tests analyzed by Qubit is showing visitors that other people have bought recently.
#8 Marketing Integrations
Get a Shopify dropshipping theme that makes it ridiculously easy for you to add the javascript code snippets from some of the most popular tools to grow your Shopify store.
This way, there’s no need to get a developer involved, simply copy and paste the code into the relevant field in your theme settings and that’s it!
#9 Risk-Reversal
A weak guarantee is the fastest way to turn off would-be customers. And what’s worse is forcing customers to hunt around for the information on it before they buy.
It’s an essential part of your unique value proposition. A good Shopify dropshipping theme will put it prominently in the footer so visitors can get the reassurance they need before they checkout.
#10 Value Proposition
You can’t afford to assume your visitors already know why they should buy from you. You need to set yourself apart from your competition and one of the best ways of doing this is telling them why you’re better than the rest.
And the best time to tell them why is just when they’re about to commit to buying. Find a dropshipping theme that lists out some ‘Reasons Why’ icons under the ‘Add to Cart’ button and also on the cart page itself.
#11 Sell Personalized Products
It’s no secret that selling personalized/customizable items increases conversions compared to non-customizable items. It also means you can charge higher prices too.
A good Shopify dropshipping theme will have product customization features built-in. This could save you $180 per year on an equivalent app.
#12 Mega-Menu
The Baymard Institute’s research into top performing e-commerce stores found that those that perform best consistently use a mega-menu (*cough* Amazon *cough*). It makes sense that when users can see the entire landscape of what you have to offer in one vista, they’re more likely to find their way to products that they will buy.
A good Shopify dropshipping theme will let you customize the mega-menu to suit your niche and range of products making it easy for your visitors to find and buy your products.
#13 Customizable Header Area
Your header is hands-down the most important piece of real estate on your store. It sets the tone for your brand and it’s the most visually consistent element. Because of this fact, you have to make every pixel in your header earn its place.
#14 Built-in Social-Proof Pop-Up
Like persuasion expert, Dr. Cialdini says, people will do things that they see other people are doing. It’s a fundamental of human persuasion.
A good Shopify dropshipping theme will have a built-in notification pop-up that randomly displays sales from your store. If your prospects see a buying frenzy, they’re more likely to join in.
#15 Live Traffic Count
Again, social-proof is a big persuasion element, so showing a real-time visitor count layers on another way to make your visitors feel there are others after your products too.
And when you combine this with scarcity inducing factors, like low stock or expiring discounts, then conversions go through the roof.
#16 Up-sell Pop-Up
Your average order value is a critical factor in whether your ad campaigns make money hand over fist, or are losing you money.
This built-in upsell pop-up lets you bump up your average order value by encouraging customers to buy more than one item. It’s simple and effective.
Third party apps that do this are notorious for slowing your site down and killing conversions.
#17 Fully Customizable Call-to-Action Button
Getting visitors to add an item to the cart is everything when they land on your product pages, if your button is camouflaged or hidden by clutter, your sales will suffer.
Get a Shopify dropshipping theme that makes it easy for you to test different button sizes, colors and call-to-action text. This way you can find the sweet spot that pulls in the maximum profits.
#18 Cart Page Urgency
As legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga says “In most people, the fear of loss is a much stronger motivator than the desire for gain”.
So by making users feel that the deal they want is going to go away, you can create a sense of urgency. Having an optional countdown timer on the cart page can help to motivate users to complete their checkout.
#19 Skip the Cart
Any Shopify dropshipping theme worth its salt will have a way to skip the cart entirely from the funnel to reduce friction and often increases conversions.
Many of our theme users asked if we could create a way to skip the cart entirely from the funnel, this reduces friction and often increases conversions. We’ve made it super-easy for you to choose what converts best for your store with 5 options for what happens when someone adds an item to their cart.
#20 Cross-sell Pop-up
The amount of money you’re able to extract from each customer will make or break your e-commerce business. That’s why our cross-sell pop-up helps your customers quickly add relevant products to their cart to increase your average order value.
And because it’s built-in you’ll no longer need a costly and slow-loading third-party app to help you bank more profit.
#21 Free + Shipping (Tripwire) Offers
It’s no secret that free + shipping offers or “tripwire” offers are a surefire way to rapidly acquire new customers and gain market share.
Get a Shopify dropshipping theme that has dedicated call-to-action buttons for your Free + Shipping offers so you can take full advantage of this time-tested tactic.
#22 Product Filter
Improving the user experience of your Shopify store helps channel visitors to your product pages and buy. Make sure your Shopify dropshipping theme has an easy to use product filter to help visitors find exactly what they’re shopping for in no time.
#23 Site Search Auto-complete
Auto-complete on your Shopify store’s site search helps users to find their way to your products more easily. This plays a huge role in boosting your conversions because according to research from WebLinc, visitors who use your site search are 216% more likely to convert than regular visitors.
#24 Volume Purchase Social-Proof
Telling your shoppers how many other customers bought more than 1 of an item helps encourage people to buy in bulk. This catapults your average order value into the stratosphere.
#25 Exit Pop-up
Grabbing abandoners’ attention with a last-minute discount offer is a proven way to capture more sales. You can offer a percentage discount or money off. Make sure the Shopify dropshipping theme’s exit pop-up has an optional countdown timer to leverage urgency/scarcity too.
#26 Dynamic Day Cart Coupon
A surprise discount leverages the proven principle of reciprocity and helps make shoppers commit to buy. Add in urgency/scarcity by making it valid for that day only and your conversions sky-rocket.
#27 Instant Coupon Code Delivery
What’s the point forcing someone to leave your site to check their email for a coupon code? You risk them getting distracted by another email and blowing the sale. As soon as someone enters their email address, their discount code should be revealed so they can use it to checkout straightaway.
HEADS UP: The Next 3 Features are CRITICAL for ANY Shopify Theme…NOT Just Shopify Dropshipping Themes
#28 Mobile-First Design
It’s no secret that mobile traffic has overtaken desktop by almost 10:1 in the last 6 years (source: Statista). This means that your store needs to perform perfectly on mobile to maximize your profits. This goes for your content and the page load times.
The thing is, most Shopify dropshipping themes are built backward because they rely on the outdated approach of responsive design. This old-school method starts with a desktop design which is then rehashed downwards to fit on mobile devices. The end result is a site that often performs sub-optimally on mobile costing you precious sales.
Get a Shopify dropshipping theme that is built from the ground up with a mobile-first approach. This means your store’s most persuasive content gets seen more readily and that navigating the site is quick and effortless for your visitors. The net results are higher conversions and more repeat business from a better user experience.
Want more motivation? Check your analytics. You’ll likely find that a significant chunk of your traffic is coming from mobile devices.
#29 Speed
The speed of your website is becoming of more and more importance on the internet.
Your potential customers care more about how fast they can review and decide on your products rather than all the bells and whistles that come with a fancy design.
Here are just a few statistics.
- 73% of mobile internet users say that they’ve encountered a website that was too slow to load.
- 51% of mobile internet users say that they’ve encountered a website that crashed, froze, or received an error.
- 38% of mobile internet users say that they’ve encountered a website that wasn’t available.
- 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.
- 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load
- A 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.
- If an e-commerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1-second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year.
Source: gomez.com, akamai.com
So how can you keep your store from falling victim to these sales killing mistakes?
Find a Shopify dropshipping theme that loads faster as a rule of thumb.
Any good theme should have a demo store, try to find stores that use the theme you are looking at. Use a tool like pingdom.com to find out how fast they load.
From there you can get a baseline of whether or not a theme is a good fit to keep your load times down and your sales high.
#30 Support
With most themes online, you pay once and then you’re left with a theme that becomes outdated and unsupported.
Even when you do manage to find a theme that has support, it’s usually outsourced overseas support people who are frustratingly slow to respond and often confusing.
This is a train wreck for your store, your customers, and your business.
Find a Shopify dropshipping theme that has a support team is run by native English speakers. Make sure they are Shopify experts, not just customer service reps who field questions.
BONUS: Sourcing Products With Your Shopify Dropshipping Theme
All the Shopify theme features in the world won’t make you more money if you don’t have an amazing selection of products for your customers to choose from.
That’s why we’ve partnered up with Spocket, a marketplace with the best dropship ready suppliers, to give you exclusive access to the hottest variety of items to dropship helping you crush your competition.
Now it’s your turn…
It converts like no other.
Want to find out more about The Shoptimized™ Theme’s amazing package of features to turn your bare bones Shopify store into a sales-pumping, dollar-generating machine?
Read on, fellow Shopify store owner because it’s hands down the fastest Shopify theme.
P.S. The link above can keep you from wasting up to $2,011 a year on app subscriptions.
P.P.S. Want to check out some successful Shopify dropshipping store examples?
