If you’re ready to take your WordPress eCommerce site to the next level, a beautiful theme might be the way to do it. The right template can completely refresh the look of your eCommerce website while at the same time providing some much-needed functionality and customization options to showcase your products in the best possible light.
So, if you’re looking for WordPress theme inspiration for your online store, you’ve come to the right place. We’re taking a look at fifteen of the best eCommerce WordPress themes for 2021 and beyond. What’s more, all the themes we’ve picked are entirely free to install with any WordPress.com plan.
What do the best WordPress eCommerce themes offer?
To ensure your site comes out of your theme change with the best design, performance, and usability, here’s what to look out for when you go hunting for WordPress eCommerce themes:
Responsive design
Any WordPress theme worth its salt should function on all kinds of devices. Over half of all online shopping traffic originates from mobile devices, so ensuring your site looks as slick on mobile as it does on a desktop is imperative.
Integrations
One of WordPress’s most significant advantages is that it integrates with thousands of eCommerce plugins. You don’t want to lose that flexibility. So, double-check your theme’s compatibility with the plugins you’re already using/planning to use. Third-party plugins are available on any WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan or higher.
Customization potential
To what extent does the WordPress theme enable you to add your own personal touches? Highly customizable themes come with custom widgets and add-ons that allow you to build a storefront that speaks to your brand. WordPress.com makes it easy to create beautiful sites with its powerful Customizer.
Page templates
The best WordPress eCommerce themes provide a range of great-looking templates for you to plug content into, from your store’s product pages to your checkout. This empowers you to get started while exploring all your customization options quickly. Bonus points if the templates are designed with your industry in mind!
Fast loading
User experience is vital. Even a second’s delay in loading time can lead to a 7% loss in conversions. So ensure your theme is lightweight and fast-loading.
SEO friendly (search engine optimization)
Is the theme optimized for search engines? With the first page of search engine results accounting for 67.7% of all clicks, you’ll want to rank as high as possible on popular search engines to attract new traffic.
Specialized for your business
The websites for a photography store and a DIY shop should look nothing alike. A theme optimized for your business should provide better-suited templates and design options for your specific niche.
Understanding WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
Below we explore some theme options; it’s worth pointing out that the WordPress eCommerce themes we’ll look at are for WordPress.com sites rather than WordPress.org sites.
Why? What’s the difference?
WordPress.org is an open-source platform where you have complete freedom over your WordPress website creation. But this also means you have to handle lots of the work yourself. For instance, when you purchase a premium theme, you’ll have to buy it from a third party. Then you’ll need to install it to your hosting provider before vetting and installing any necessary plugins. This is all on top of managing the core of your website’s backend functionality: security, updates, hosting, and so on. Unless you have a team behind you to support these efforts, you might end up spending lots of time learning the ropes and managing your site, and you might cause a lot of damage if you don’t know what you’re doing.
WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a complete and user-friendly website building solution that takes care of just about everything for you:
- Hosting and domain
- Security
- All necessary plugin and software updates
- Content delivery
- SEO
- Payments
Where web design is concerned, you can simply choose one of our WordPress eCommerce themes. These are fully responsive and designed with the end-user in mind. Just plug your chosen template into WordPress.com’s visual composer to start customizing the theme to suit your needs.
A one-click install with these free themes makes the process super simple. All these themes automatically load the new homepage template so you can start customizing right away.
To get started with your WordPress.com store, you’ll first need to create an account and pick a subscription plan that suits your needs. From the plugin-enabled plan and above, you can take customer payments. But you’ll need to upgrade to at least the plugin-enabled plan to enable the WooCommerce plugin and start your store.
That said, if you’re serious about your online business, we recommend the plugin-enabled plan. This comes with free and premium extensions and several storefront themes. You can also process WooCommerce payments with a choice of several payment providers.
With all the basics out the way, let’s dive into the 15 best WordPress eCommerce themes of 2021:
1. Barnsbury
Barnsbury is a theme designed for agriculture businesses, down-to-earth foodies, and shopkeepers. It has a hearty, simple look that promises freshness and authenticity. Needless to say, this WordPress eCommerce theme also works well for restaurants and food bloggers focusing on healthy eating and natural products.
You can use the template to showcase food photography or share your favorite recipes. You can also add online ordering and benefit from other eCommerce features.
Barnsbury’s key features:
- Custom color schemes and menus
- High accessibility
- Global styles
- Flexible headers
- Featured images
- Translation ready
- RTL language support
2. Mayland
Mayland is a free WordPress eCommerce theme for online retailers. It provides a timeless, simple, and clean design that’s great for calligraphy and photography portfolio websites as well as online stores. Mayland comes with a beautiful tiled gallery that opens into a slide view for visitors to browse. If you’re looking to turn your creative practice into a reliable source of income, Mayland is an exceptional place to start.
Mayland’s key features include:
- Accessibility-ready
- Tiled galleries
- Block editor styles
- Custom menus
- Featured images
- Global styles
- Threaded comments support
- RTL language support
3. Rivington
Rivington began as a high-quality website template for realtors. It’s a versatile theme that’s ideal for anyone in the real estate market. The theme provides an excellent showcase for properties and homes with its flexible image gallery. You can also offer virtual tours, upload images, embed videos, and add contact forms so interested parties can immediately get in touch. Rivington comes in a conservative color scheme that looks credible and professional – although, as with all WordPress.com themes, the Customizer provides you with limitless potential for changing it up!.
Our favorite Rivington features include:
- Featured images and image galleries
- Flexible headers and social menus
- Support for a storefront
- Accessible design
- Custom menus and colors
- Global styles and block editor styles
- RTL language support
4. Maywood
Maywood is a sophisticated eCommerce theme for restaurants and chefs. It keeps its design minimalistic and elegant, allowing your food photography to shine.
The page layouts boast full-width images for striking headers and photos. You’ll also find a menu page where customers can browse your food and drink options, complete with pricing. You can use WordPress.com’s drag-and-drop page builder to add additional information to your online shop. More specifically, contact forms, maps, business hours, and more.
From the plugin-enabled plan and upwards, you can also add functionality like online ordering and table reservations too.
Here are Maywood’s key features:
- Custom menus
- Featured images and sticky posts
- Full site editing
- Store support
- Block editor styles and global styles
- RTL language support
5. Exford
If you want a stylish, striking online presence, Exford is a fabulous option. Its classic typography and straightforward layout really let your photography shine. This theme especially suits travel agencies and bloggers but is easily adapted to other business types and online shops.
Exford’s core features include:
- Full site editing
- Access to block editor styles
- Storefront
- Custom and classic menus
- RTL language support
6. Rockfield
Rockfield is another one for food lovers! This elegant eCommerce theme was designed for restaurants and other food-related businesses looking for a clean, simple, and minimalist style.
This restaurant theme features large images that put your food center stage. You can even create a preview of your restaurant’s atmosphere with its stylish image galleries and videos.
Rockfield’s main features are:
- A customizable menu page
- Image galleries and feature images
- Storefront support
- Block editor and global styles
- RTL language support
7. Stratford
If you’re selling tutoring services or classes, Stratford might be a suitable theme for you. While it isn’t primarily a theme for eCommerce stores, it works well for educational institutes, personal blogs, and other more information-heavy WordPress sites.
The template is straightforward, so viewers can easily navigate the wealth of knowledge published on your site. It’s perfect for displaying information snippets, testimonials, white papers, and more.
The features of this Stratford theme include:
- Featured images
- Storefront support
- Global styles and block editor styles
- A fixed menu or classic menu
- Threaded comments
8. Stow
Stow is a clean and simple theme with a twist: It features bold colors to make your eCommerce shop stand out, making it an excellent choice for various creative, stationery, and fashion stores. Stow boasts a responsive design that looks great on any device and provides a first-rate user experience. It also comes with a storefront, global styles, complete site editing, and more to give you the customizability you need to bring your vision to life.
Here are Stow’s features in summary:
- Featured images
- Social menu and classic menu
- Full site editing
- Global and block editor styles
- A store
9. Hever
Hever works with cheerful, bright colors to add a punch to your online store’s appearance. It also provides bold feature images that draw customers in. Hever is recommended for weddings, bridal stores, and creative and crafty businesses and works as a great multi-purpose WordPress theme.
You can customize this responsive theme with your own photos, add different menu options, guest lists, accommodations, and a wedding wishlist.
Hever is a multi-purpose theme for small businesses – from individuals to freelancers and small creative types.
It comes with some key features, like many other themes on our list:
- Full site editing
- Global styles and block editor styles
- Classic and social menus
- A store
- Threaded comments
- Feature image
10. Leven
Leven is a flexible WordPress eCommerce theme that suits a wide variety of businesses. It exudes elegance, allowing your photography to stand out beautifully against the typography-driven design. It works well for creatives, photographers, and journalists. But its online store template is also great for product displays.
This Leven theme comes with:
- Featured images
- Accessibility
- A store
- Block editor and global styles
- Classic menu
11. Brompton
Brompton is a responsive WordPress eCommerce theme for small-business owners and entrepreneurs alike. It has a conservative and professional look that would suit various agencies, consultants, service providers, real estate agents, lawyers, and more.
Brompton comes with intuitive tools and features to build a professional eCommerce website, including:
- Color customization
- Featured images
- Threaded-comments
- Global styles and block editor styles.
- Storefront support
12. Redhill
Redhill is another WordPress theme that keeps it clean and simple, perfect for displaying your writing and photography. It was created with small businesses and entrepreneurs in mind and provides a blank slate for business sites to grow with. Redhill’s core features include ample white space that can be interrupted with full-width images for an elegant and engaging look.
Redhill’s primary features include:
- Featured images
- Social menus and classic menu
- Threaded comments
- Accessibility ready
- Store
- Global and block editor styles
13. Radcliffe 2
If you liked the general look of Redhill, you might also enjoy Radcliffe 2. Like the previous WordPress eCommerce theme, it features a typography-driven design with plenty of empty space to let your content speak for itself. The theme is ideal for most small businesses. You can easily create stunning call-to-actions and prominently display your contact information.
This theme’s features include:
- Featured images
- Custom backgrounds
- Custom colors and menus
- Author bio
- Storefront
14. Lodestar
Lodestar provides a modern and trendy look. How? It offers a one-page parallax theme designed with start-ups and innovative business ventures in mind. The one-page scrolling enables you to publish all relevant information on one page so that you can present your business as a story from top to bottom. Lodestar also features full-width imagery and an uncomplicated menu.
Use Lodestar to display your services or introduce your business’s vibe with a large and engaging image.
Lodestar comes with:
- Custom and classic menus
- Customizable colors and headers
- Featured images
- Support for an author bio
- Portfolio and store
- RTL language support
15. Ixion
And finally, we’re presenting Ixion. This free and responsive theme is ideal for schools, nonprofits, and other educational organizations. It would also work well for book shopkeepers, libraries, and online teachers of any kind.
Ixion is clean and professional, sporting feature images, image galleries, and neat typography. You can customize your sidebar and footer, where you can add up to four widgets. Ixion also includes featured content at the top. Here you can drive traffic to your most popular content using image links.
The theme Ixion also comes with:
- Custom backgrounds, colors, and menus
- Blog excerpts and featured content with pages
- Author bios
- Full-width template
- Testimonials.
- RTL language support
Did You Find The Right WordPress eCommerce Theme for Your Store?
With WordPress.com, there’s no shortage of eCommerce themes to choose from. The customization options are vast, and you can always change your theme later down the line if necessary. Find tutorials for these themes in the WordPress theme store.
We hope this list has given you some inspiration for what your store could look like with a suitable template.
Remember: Always choose a theme that reflects your brand and business type and provides the right level of customization for what you want to achieve.
For more information about setting up the perfect WordPress.com site, visit our blog and browse our other articles.
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