5 Magnificent Magento Themes
Spend any amount of time in the company of fellow merchants, and you're likely to hear Magento mentioned a time or two. Website Magazine's experience at IRCE was no different. Magento monopolized plenty of conversations, which is why we are profiling the popular free open source ecommerce software (also available in commerce in the cloud or enterprise editions) today.
Magento is hot. It's the leading ecommerce platform among Alexa's top 1 million sites for the third year in a row and you'd have to imagine that its alignment with eBay is a big reason why. After all, being owned by eBay has its advantages, including access to branded capabilities from eBay Marketplaces, PayPal, GSI Commerce and more.
Aside from its eBay ties, Magento's Community Edition is scalable, flexible and offers thousands of ecommerce extensions to choose from (e.g. social sharing, live chat, email, etc.). On the downside, many merchants report that Magento has a steep learning curve and takes an investment in learning the "Magento way."
Magenta has some real winners when it comes to their themes, though. Magento developers offer a variety of themes to help merchants not only build online stores that are customizable and make great first impressions, but also ones that are search engine and cross-browser friendly and optimized for conversions.
Here are 5 magnificent Magento themes to consider.
Argento
$125
Dubbed the most advanced responsive template created for Magento, Argento was built on best ecommerce practices and is powered by more than 15 popular Magento extensions. Based on HTML5 and CSS3, Argento helps merchants increase their site speed and discoverability. Magento users who have installed this theme rate it 5 out of 5 stars.
Grayscale
$0
Minimal, yet beautiful and reliable, Grayscale is easy to install and customize. Merchants can include a newsletter sign-up block to grow their email list, include most-popular products to increase average order values and use the home page image slider to display current promotions or hero products. The highly-rated Grayscale theme also includes a customer service block, which can help reduce cart abandonments, as consumers will have easy access to contact information if there are any problems during their shopping experience.
Zeta
$169
Versatile and modern, the Zeta theme currently comes with a bonus OnePage checkout Magento extension and a shipping price calculator to help merchants increase conversions. Additionally, the clean look and traditional menu, makes the theme easy to navigate, reducing friction and bounce rates. Zeta's product pages (pictured) also offer product tags, suggested products and multiple product views.
Mobile Shoppe
$0
This highly scalable and robust responsive Magento theme can work for any online store and offers better readability on all devices. Reviewers say Mobile Shoppe works perfectly out of the box and is truly inspired design. It also works with all Magento features and offers user-friendly navigation that adjusts its look based on browser type.
JM Siotis
$80
The edgiest of the themes mentioned here, JM Siotis offers responsive design, slideshow features, multiple navigation styles, multiple product views, product recommendations and unlimited color choices.
Bonus: Responsive Theme Framework
$99
The responsive Magento theme is designed for retail and has many features that are proven to increase conversions, such as one-step checkout, suggested products, video and re-sizable product images. There are reported bugs, however, but its responsive design feature makes it one to watch. And, merchants have access to a contact email for all Magento developers.
