Shopify Theme Review: Impulse by Archetype Themes

Detailed Shopify theme Review: Impulse by Archetype Themes

Posted 2 years ago by Jonathan Kennedy

Shopify themes are a powerful tool for businesses who want to take their brands online with impressive storefronts. They cut out the need to design page layouts from scratch, saving them tons of time in the process of setting up an online store. 

One such Shopify theme that has made it easier for so many brands to design enticing storefronts, is Impulse by Archetype Themes. 

Impulse theme is positioned primarily for brands in the Food and Drink, Health and Beauty and Jewelry and Accessories industries.

Having worked with the theme ourselves a number of times before, with the help of our Shopify theme developers and experts, we have put together a comprehensive review for you. 

This article includes everything you need to know about the Impulse theme if it has made it to your shortlisted designs for the store!  

What is the Impulse by Archetype Shopify theme? 

Impulse is a Shopify theme built by Archetype Themes. The theme developers built this theme keeping in mind that Shopify is a platform for businesses that come with varied inventories. The design layouts hence designed in this theme are minimal and clean, and come with a higher flexibility for customizations.  

The theme focuses on empowering brands from different industries with custom promotions, video, animations and other in-built powerful features. 

Impulse Shopify theme features you’ll love

Impulse was built keeping functionality and visual appeal in mind. This is why the theme developers have included competitive features in it. Here’s a quick walk through all of them: 

1. Support for Online Store 2.0

Shopify announced the release of Online Store 2.0, a set of features and feature improvements that will make themes customizations and maintenance easier. The Impulse theme is updated to fully support the new features, so that you can easily migrate the theme to Online Store 2.0.

2. Three built-in styles and color palettes 

The Impulse theme comes with three in-built styles – Modern, Clean and Bold. Each style is built using a different color palette, to help brands design a store that matches their branding easily. You can customize any of the styles further to include your own palettes as well. 

3. Optimized for large images 

The design layouts included in the Impulse Shopify theme are optimized to display large images. This is one of the reasons why we recommend this Shopify theme to fashion and apparel, and health and beauty brands. It lets them showcase their products with large, lifestyle images. 

PS. If you don’t have some of your images ready, you can use free stock photos by Burst in the Impulse theme. 

4. Customizable content sections on home page

Every brand is different and so are its potential customers. This is why your homepage needs to cater to your target audience’s needs, sharing as much information as they need and guiding their buying journey. Impulse theme comes with customizable content sections on the homepage to help you do exactly this. 

5. Background videos  

If you want to add more depth to your Shopify store design or some of your pages, you can also set up background playing videos on the Impulse theme. This will add an engaging element to your store pages, hooking the visitor’s attention immediately. It may require a few customizations in the theme code; for which you can reach out to our Shopify theme customization experts. 

6. Ability to add custom fonts 

When it comes to branding, it isn’t just about colors. Your branding also includes the fonts you make use of consistently across the store and also in other collaterals such as your logo, invoices, and more. Impulse theme lets you add custom fonts to your storefront, making it easier to maintain consistency. You can read how here. 

7. Mega menu 

If you have a large inventory showcased on your Shopify store, you would want to make it easier for buyers to explore products. The Impulse theme lets you set up a mega menu to help you with this. You can customize the look and the menu items easily. 

8. Homepage menu lists 

You can also display menu lists on your Shopify store’s home page to allow customers to easily navigate large catalogs. This is a design and functionality strategy that is commonly used even by the likes of Ikea and Walmart. 

9. Collection sub-listing 

With the Impulse theme, you can display custom collection tiles within another collection as well. This helps you get more collections discovered as a visitor browses through your Shopify store, increasing their chances to convert. At the same time, this helps build better internal links across your store pages. 

10. Collection page promotions 

With built-in powerful features, Impulse theme lets you create custom promotional content on collection pages. This helps you promote ongoing deals, discounts and sales with ease, building internal links to the relevant sales pages. 

11. Custom promotion times

Easily promote sales, discounts and featured products by setting up special promotional times on your home page, product pages or your collection pages. 

12. Custom collection sidebar filters 

Let your Shopify store visitors quickly browse through and filter products using custom filters and tags. This is especially important for stores that have a large inventory as online shoppers with the highest purchase intent too tend to abandon a site if they can’t find the product they’re looking for, easily. 

13. Search engine optimization 

The Impulse Shopify theme includes design layouts, content templates and widgets that are optimized for the search engines. They are easily crawlable and indexable, helping your store rank on search results. 

14. Speed-optimized 

It has been proven time and again that if a site takes too long to load, you risk losing the visitor for good. Since online stores tend to include a number of images and videos on their storefront; the overall site may slow down. But the Impulse theme lowers the load by helping you keep the page designs optimized – despite the innumerable features you may have used. 

15. Mobile-friendly design 

More than 60% of online purchases are now made using mobile devices. Hence, it is important to ensure that your Shopify store design is optimized for smaller screens. The good thing about the Impulse Shopify theme is that all its layouts and features are mobile-friendly. 

16. FAQ pages 

Most online shoppers suffer from pre-purchase anxiety. They don’t just have questions about the product, but also the legal policies like returns, refunds, exchanges, shipping and more. The Impulse theme comes with a template for FAQs that lets you address all these queries in one place. With the help of a little customization, you can also include FAQs as a module on your product pages to address specific queries. 

17. Cart drawer 

While it is important to let a buyer know that a product has been successfully added to the cart, it is also critical to not break their natural flow of shopping. This is where a cart drawer, a smart overlay that slides in from the corner when a product is added to the cart; keeping the visitor on the page they are on, letting them continue browsing the site if they wish to. This reduces the to and fro between the product pages and the cart, but at the same time keeps the cart visible. 

18. Variant selector with related images 

A powerful feature that the Impulse theme comes with includes the ability to easily select variants on the product page. But in addition to that, you can also customize this feature to only show images related to a selected color variant. 

For example, if a t-shirt is available in red and blue, and the visitor chooses red. Then the visitor sees only product images in red, instead of a mix of both the available colors. 

19. Non-expiring license for one store (comes with all paid themes)

When you purchase the Impulse Shopify theme, your payment entitles you to use the theme on a single store. You can keep it as long as you like.

20. Free theme updates (comes with all paid themes)

As time passes, themes – just like plugins, will require updating too. The Archetype Themes developers have made sure that you get the latest theme features and fixes from the store on Impulse. You can also redownload your purchase at any given time. 

Already love what the Impulse theme has to offer? Reach out to our Shopify experts to help you set it up. 

What type of brands can use the Impulse theme? 

A lot of Shopify themes are designed keeping a definite type of brand, business or industry in mind. This impacts the design style that the theme developer uses and the page layouts they include. 

The Impulse theme can be used for any size of inventory and industry. It comes with versatile page layouts and features that can be customized to suit any type of business. 

But our Shopify design and development experts recommend the Impulse theme to fashion and apparel, health and beauty brands. The reason being that the Shopify theme offers a clean layout that brings these types of products in focus, letting the buyers consume the information provided alongside them and helping them make an informed purchase decision. 

Shopify stores using Impulse by Archetype Themes 

There are a number of Shopify stores that are using the Impulse Shopify theme. But here are some we like to show new businesses as an example when they’re getting started with designing their online store. 

1. Kappa USA 

Kappa is an Italian sportswear and athleisure brand in the fashion and apparel industry. Their target market consists of consumers that are focused more on the functionality and the comfort of the clothing range. So the Impulse theme suits their storefront perfectly, keeping the design clean to keep the focus on their products. 

2. JN Global

J NITIN Global is one of the pioneering brands across the world that deals in various product categories like jewelry, kitchen linen, bags and accessories, curtains and more. As a merchandize sourcing organization, the brand needs to display its catalog in a clear and impressive manner. That’s exactly what the Impulse theme lets them do.  

3. Penny Skateboards 

A unique brand, Penny Skateboards is a business based out of Australia that sells skateboards online. But apart from skateboards, the brand also sells skateboard parts and apparel online that skateboard enthusiasts love. Their store design uses the Impulse theme to be able to offer a clean look, keeping the focus on their products. 

4. NanaMacs

NanaMacs is a fashion and apparel brand with a wide range of products for men and women both. From topwear, bottom wear to even shoes, their Shopify store has it all. That’s why they use the Impulse theme to make browsing through their entire catalog less overwhelming. 

5. Excell

Excel is a brand that has established its niche in bathroom accessories and bath linen like curtains, towels and more. They design eco-friendly and antimicrobial products, and their Shopify store design reflects the same with the help of the Impulse theme. 

How to set up your Shopify store with the Impulse theme? 

Log into your Shopify store admin. Go to the Themes section and you will notice that a default theme is set up on your store. 

If you want to use and customize the Impulse theme on your Shopify store, you need to add it to your admin. To be able to do so, follow these steps: 

• Visit the Impulse Theme on the Shopify theme store
• Click View demo store if you’d like to see how the theme looks in action 
• If you like what you see, click Try theme to add it to your store 
• Go to Shopify admin > Online Store > Themes 
• You will see the Impulse theme listed here 
• Select an Action you’d like to take on the theme – this is where you can preview and customize the theme  

Now at this point, the customizations you implement entirely depend upon the type of products you’re selling, your target audience and your goals. 

Must-have customizations on the Impulse theme for higher conversions

The Impulse theme is extremely flexible and enables you to change a lot of things if required. We recommend only making changes that truly add value to your branding. 

But at the same time, we do usually customize a few things in the Impulse Shopify theme, using its features and layouts to help brands design a conversion-driven storefront. 

1. Build a cross-sell functionality in the cart page/ drawer  

Most online shoppers visit a store seeking something specific. There is a high chance they simply add the product to cart and complete checkout without looking at what else you have to offer. This is why we nudge Shopify stores using the Impulse theme to build a cross-sell functionality in the cart page/ drawer. This enables you to make the most out of every visit to your storefront, ensuring higher value sales.  

2. Create a reorder functionality in the account page

Repeat buyers spend 33% more than new customers. They already trust your brand from a previous experience, know the value you bring to them and are simpler to convince into making another purchase. But if you make it simpler to reorder items, things get even simpler. This is why our Shopify developers recommend creating a reorder functionality in your account page. This is especially important for brands that sell products that a consumer may require time and again.  

3. Add a separate quantity selector for each variant

If your fashion and apparel brand includes products in different variants that may interest a potential buyer, make them simpler to purchase. Just as we like to purchase our favourite t-shirt in all colors at times or get a bunch of white ones so that they serve our purpose for the coming days, your buyers may too. So make sure that apart from a variant selector, you also offer the ability to separately add the quantity of each variant. 

4. Add a sticky add to cart button that appears on scroll 

Sometimes, it takes more than a nudge to get a visitor to add a product to cart. In case you have a lengthy product page to include all the details of it, make your add to cart button sticky. So that if at any point the visitor is convinced to make the purchase, they have a button readily available in front of them instead of having to scroll all the way up. 

5. Include a quantity and add to cart button on collection pages 

Irrespective of the size of your inventory, make sure you include a quantity and add to cart button on your collection pages as well. This will make it easier for the store visitors to add products from specific collections to cart; without having to visit the individual product pages under the collection. 

So, what do we think about the Impulse Shopify theme?

Our in-house Shopify design experts feel that the theme offers a clean and professional look for your storefront. It comes packed with features that can help you customize the look and feel of your Shopify store to the t! 

From flexible header and footer options, multiple promo sections with various layout options, the Impulse Shopify theme is one of our in-house favourites. Whether we’re designing a site for desktop shoppers or for an audience that uses mobile more, the theme is able to keep up with all the different requirements! 

Want to know more about the Impulse theme or would like some help customizing it for your Shopify store? 

Know someone who’d like a detailed Shopify theme Review of Impulse by Archetype Themes? Share this article with them.

Reach out to our Shopify design experts today.