Turbo Theme for Shopify
Choosing a Shopify Theme can often be a tricky decision for Shopify brands who are scaling up. Many brands who have grown quickly often find that free or lower-priced themes have limitations that impact on their key eCommerce metrics.
Over the past 7 years, our team at Blend Commerce has worked with over 200 Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants. In this time, over 95% of these clients have used the Turbo theme by Out of the Sandbox to achieve significant results
So, the question of 'Why use the Turbo theme?' is one that asked often. In this article, we explain the key features of Turbo and why it's such a valuable tool for growing Shopify merchants.
1. Turbo Theme for Speed
Turbo is major USP is speed. Typically, a page load time of sub-3 seconds is often regarded as the benchmark for Shopify stores. Our experience has shown us that site speed is a key trust factor evaluated by store visitors - poor speed always translates to a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rate.
The key way that Turbo provides such great speed is by taking advantage of 'lazy loading'. This essentially means that the content most likely to be viewed first by a site visitor is loaded first. Therefore, this gives the impression that a whole page has been loaded, but in fact, it may be just the visible content that has. In turn, this gives a much better experience for visitors and therefore a higher possibility of converting visitors to buyers. It's important to note that tools like PageSpeedInsights do not take account of lazy loading - so even though a speed test report may provide a load time, in reality, the 'visible' load time is much lower. Check out this article from Out of the Sandbox for more detail.
While lazy loading contributes to the speed of Turbo, there's also the ability to remove specific features from the theme to make speed even faster. For example, disabling the quick shop feature also reduces the code weight of the site and can speed up the page load.
2. Turbo Theme for Mobile Optimisation
On average, our client's mobile traffic is between 61-89% (Stats from May 2020). Without a store that provides a great user experience on mobile, converting on mobile with be difficult. Luckily, Out of The Sandbox has not only achieved speed on mobile with Turbo but also created a Theme that consistently delivers beautiful and intuitive mobile sites for users.
So yes, it will be a revenue stream, but I do not expect huge scalability in the near future.
In 2018, we worked with Wee Squeak who came to Blend with a specific goal of increasing mobile conversion. Click here to see the incredible results that were achieved on mobile.
3. Turbo Theme looks
Whilst visual appeal isn't the most important feature of a Shopify store, it certainly helps to have a good looking store that captures the attention of visitors. Here's a few examples of stores the Blend Commerce team has created with Turbo.
4. Turbo theme flexibility
We understand that developing a Shopify store can sometimes be frustrating. Whilst we believe Shopify offers a superb platform for building an e-commerce store, many themes have a standardized feel, with standard features. In turn, these can limit you to set layout - unless you employ a developer to build out custom features. When we build stores on Turbo, we often find that the functionality that our clients are requesting is already a standard feature and the options available with the standard Turbo theme allow you to completely differentiate your store to other Turbo built stores.
Due to our deep relationship with Out of the Sandbox and commitment to providing unique features, our development team has worked extensively with the pages.index template to provide even greater possibilities with the Turbo theme. This means an even greater level of flexibility in terms of control, design and features. Contact us here to find out more about how we Blend can help you and your Shopify store.
5. Turbo theme sections
Out of the Sandbox has long had sections enabled sections on the theme. Some Shopify themes do not have this feature, but Shopify merchants should be careful to choose a theme that does. Essentially, the use of sections means that its possible to use the same custom feature/section in a range of places on your Shopify store. From an aesthetic point of view, this again adds to the flexibility of the Turbo theme, enabling Shopify store owners to create uniqueness on their store and turn your store into a high converting e-commerce site.
6. Out of the Sandbox theme updater app
Out of the Sandbox theme updater has actually reduced our sales. But if we're honest, our development team were super happy. Prior to the theme updater app, all custom code on a Shopify store would need to be manually transferred or re-coded onto your updated theme. For some of our clients, this was a cumbersome and costly process. Using the theme updater app not only saves our clients money but also saves hassle and stress for developers.
Whilst the theme updater will help with the majority of the updates needed, major or advanced customisations may require support from a Shopify Expert. Take a look at our Out of the Sandbox Theme Update service here.
7. Out of the Sandbox Support
We work with a whole host of partners that provide apps, themes and support directly and indirectly to our clients and us as a business. Getting reliable, helpful and thoughtful support is crucial to our clients and us, yet these expectations are sometimes not met. From our experience of working with the team from Out of The Sandbox, and that of our clients, we can tell you that expectations are always exceeded. Logical, timely and helpful support is always given, which is invaluable when running a business.
If you’d like to talk to us about the setup or redesigning your store with Turbo, why not book a call with us today?
