Newsletter #22: Shopify themes performance (episode 1), Seb La Frite and a peaceful song

Hi there,

I hope you're feeling good.

I was in Strasbourg yesterday to participate in a documentary series for TV5 Monde. It was a lot of fun! I will share more about it in a few months when it is released.

During this time of year, Strasbourg is very photogenic. I took plenty of colorful pictures.

In today's edition, we're discussing Shopify themes performance (episode 1), Seb La Frite and a peaceful song.

Let's dive in.

Work

Theme performance has been a trending topic in the Shopify ecosystem lately.

Major actors have shared their perspectives, allowing the whole ecosystem to move forward together.

There are two events in particular that I would like to highlight. Covering them both in one newsletter would be too long, so I’m dividing the topic of theme performance into two episodes.

Episode one took place on October 27th, 2023: the Performance Team at Shopify released a Theme Performance Data Table, which compares the performance of the 100 most popular themes (i.e. themes with the most installs).

The goal of this study was not to see how themes perform out of the box, but rather to use real data on real stores to see how themes perform in the real world, when additional features and apps have been added to them.

Initially, the data was presented alphabetically. After reviewing it, I reorganized it into a Google Sheet so that we can see the full list of 100 themes ranked by performance. You can access it here.

In short, here is the TOP 10 of the most performant themes:

1. Simple: this theme does not exist anymore.

2. Cascade made by Switch.

3. Debut: this theme does not exist anymore. It was Shopify’s base theme, before Online Store 2.0. It has since been replaced by Dawn.

4. Venture: this theme does not exist anymore. It was a free theme made by Shopify, before Online Store 2.0.

5. Sunrise made by Rawsterne Web Design & Illustration.

6. Enterprise made by Clean Canvas.

7. Spotlight made by Shopify. It’s a variation of their base theme Dawn.

8. District made by Style Hatch.

9. Ride made by Shopify. It’s a variation of their base theme Dawn.

10. Taste made by Shopify. It’s a variation of their base theme Dawn.

It's important to note that the performance of your Shopify store depends on the theme you're using, but that's not the only contributing factor.

Your store’s performance can be impaired by:

• The design and layout of individual pages. For example, stacking 3 video sections and 5 featured collections on a single page might not be the best idea.

• The customizations made to theme code.

• The third-party apps added to the store. Regularly reviewing your apps is a best practice to ensure they are still in use and providing value.

• The version of the theme you are on, as theme developers tend to improve performance in each new major version.

Discover more by reading Shopify’s Theme Performance Data Table here and the blog article explaining the methodology used to gather this data here.

After selecting a high-performing theme, optimizing the layout, and only implementing essential customizations, what else can you do to enhance your store’s performance? I’ll explore that next week, in the episode two of our theme performance series.

Inspire

A few years ago, I was contacted to build a Shopify store for a famous French YouTuber: Seb La Frite.

Seb La Frite has 5M+ subscribers on YouTube. I knew his name but I didn’t know much else about him.

The goal of this Shopify store was to sell merchandising (tee-shirts, hoodies, caps, etc.) to celebrate the launch of his first album, “Crash Test”.

To immerse myself in the project, I listened to Seb’s album, watched some of his YouTube videos and browsed his social media.

I liked what I was seeing: this guy seemed to be curious, passionate and hardworking.

The other day, his latest video popped up in my YouTube feed. It was called “10 years later”. I clicked on it, with no particular expectation. I thought it would just be a recap of his 10 years on YouTube and the best moments of his journey.

The video started like that indeed but it turned out to be much more than that.

Seb takes us through the biggest project of his life: building his own video production company. He shows us every step of the way: choosing a name, a logo, crafting a vision, finding office spaces in Paris and renovating them entirely (you know how much I like renovation).

It’s incredibly inspiring to see someone realize a dream with hard work, sweat and perseverance.

There is something so beautiful in waking up every morning to head to the offices of a company you envisioned, built and successfully rallied others to join.

Discover more by watching Seb’s video on YouTube. It’s in French but there are English subtitles.

Explore

I sent the first edition of this newsletter on a Thursday morning.

I then took on the habit of writing each edition a few days in advance and programming it to be sent on Thursday morning.

This one is an exception.

I’m writing it on Thursday evening. It’s almost midnight, and I will press “send” in a few minutes when I’m done writing these last sentences.

Let me share with you the music I’m listening to now to end this day peacefully: “Holocene” by Bon Iver.

I discovered it randomly many years ago - in a movie, I believe - and it has stayed with me ever since.

This song brings me peace and relaxes me. I hope it does the same for you.

Enjoy.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this edition until the end.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take good care of yourself.

Coralie