The best Shopify theme for mobile for business growth in 2022

A few years ago, having a mobile-friendly Shopify theme felt like a cool, add-on feature. A perk. But in recent years, the rise of mobile shopping has made having a mobile-friendly Shopify store a must. 

Posted 9 months ago by Jonathan Kennedy

Mobile commerce sales hit a staggering $3.56 trillion in 2021 and nearly half of all shopping was done from mobile devices. With the number of mobile users now at 5.22 billion and increasing, the rate of mobile commerce is projected to continue growing for the foreseeable future. 

With so many people preferring mobile shopping, having a theme that is not mobile-friendly is e-commerce suicide. Luckily, most themes are mobile-friendly but some are definitely better than others. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what to look for in a mobile-friendly theme as well as our picks for the best Shopify themes for mobile. 

What makes a great mobile-friendly Shopify theme?

Why do consumers find mobile shopping so appealing? One of the biggest reasons is that good mobile-friendly Shopify themes, like the ones we discuss below, make shopping on the go super easy.

Here are a few things to look out for to give your customers that effortless mobile experience:

Responsiveness

Responsiveness refers to a website’s ability to read, in real-time, the screen size being used, and respond by adapting to the device’s display size.

While it sounds simple enough, not all themes will do this well.

Most responsive themes will stack rows and eliminate rows to create one, long, continuous, scrolling mobile store. This works great. 

But some themes can crash or lag, usually from trying to refit images to mobile screen size. It creates a jerky and slow mobile store that consumers will click out of. 

When choosing a good mobile-friendly theme, it needs to offer the following responsive design: 

• Layout and design should stay as true to the original style as possible. Of course, a desktop grid of six items in one row won’t work with a mobile device. But a good responsive theme will offer a smooth mobile browsing experience without sacrificing the design elements that make your store distinguishable from others. The best Shopify themes will still be recognizable from a brand perspective. 

• Clear Navigation: Navigation bars are too big for most mobile devices and are instead hidden as dropdown menus. With your mobile theme, the store should be easy to navigate with a clear menu. A store without clear navigation will only cause confusion. 

• Appropriate Button Size: Mobile screens are smaller than desktop screens but our fingers are bigger than the pointer of a mouse. A good theme will account for this issue and have appropriately sized buttons, not bunched together, and easy to use. Customers who can’t hit the right button will get frustrated and shop somewhere else. 

Design

It’s essential to have an instantly recognizable brand. So when selecting a theme, you need one with a striking, mobile-friendly design that perfectly displays your store and brand.

A great mobile-friendly Shopify theme design seamlessly integrates links, images, text, and videos. With the right design, they will be readable, look fantastic, and be accessible on all screen sizes. 

Be sure to test themes’ mobile compatibility with the View Demo option on HeyCarson before purchasing. This way, you can see how these themes will respond to different screen sizes. 

Features

Whatever features your store theme has should work consistently across all devices. For example, if checkout on desktop devices has a quick, add-to-cart function that doesn’t require opening a new browser window, then it should work the same on mobile devices. 

A well-built, mobile-friendly theme will offer style features like slide-out carts, vertical slideshows, and layered and easy-to-use navigation that allow for a clean, uncluttered store and SEO-friendly structure.

Here is where the differences between free and paid themes come into play. Paid themes are likely to have more advanced features – such as animations, slide-out carts, and product recommendations – that work both on desktop and mobile. Product catalog options and layout options are also important, they are considered one of the best ways to influence online shoppers.

Free themes will have limited features. This will require you to add on apps that might slow down your store; this is a big problem because fast themes are ranked higher on search engines. You can hire a Shopify developer or designer for specific theme tweaks instead of adding apps to your store. This will also be cheaper than paying for a theme because of one specific feature. Instead, a free theme can be customized with the help of our developers.

If you opt not to go for a paid theme, select one of the best free themes so that you can make sure it has the features and responsiveness that you want.

If you are unsure about what to do moving forward with your theme, chat with the HeyCarson team. We’ll talk about your store goals and how to make your Shopify store the best it can be.

10 of the best Shopify themes for mobile

Impulse

Impulse is one of the best-selling themes on Shopify. Using Impulse, you can empower your brand with incredible promotional tools, video and animation support, a modern aesthetic, and a design that is optimized for mobile shopping. This theme comes in three styles: Clean, Modern, and Bold. 

Impulse works great with mobile devices. Images and menus are condensed without losing any design attributes. All features look the same across devices while still retaining smooth loading.  

Impulse will work best for stores that want to showcase their brand with images and visual storytelling. This theme is designed for high-volume stores and supports in-person selling with an in-store pickup checkout option.

Key Features:

• Visual Storytelling
• High-Volume Stores
• Product Badges & Reviews
• Customizable Contact Forms
• Promo Banners & Pop-ups
• Animation & Video 
• Product Options

Streamline

Streamline has a premium look and feel that focuses on modern influences with style options like Hype, Luxe, and Core. Its clean design allows product images to speak for themselves and works great as a visual storytelling motif.

Streamline is built to handle a high volume of transactions at any given time and will work perfectly for bigger stores that also support in-person pickup. The theme setup is easy to allow a quick store launch without any hassle. 

Streamline will work well for stores that prefer images over text and want to showcase their designs and aesthetics without any distractions.

This theme was built to be the perfect mobile shopping theme. Because of the simple design, its responsiveness is great. Streamline also offers a sticky menu that hovers at the bottom of mobile screens without slowing down browsing. 

Key Features:

• Slide-out Carts
• High-Volume Stores
• Product Badges & Reviews
• Customizable Contact Forms
• Promo Banners & Pop-ups
• Animation & Video 
• Product Options & Tabs

Narrative

Narrative is a simple but powerful theme built to enhance brand and product storytelling. 

The vertical slideshow feature displays products and images in a sleek, homepage vertical slideshow. The wide layout supports large, high-resolution images to showcase finer product details. Narrative’s fullscreen, border-to-border, image style stays present, even on mobile devices for a great immersive mobile experience. 

Fixed navigation also helps with the browsing experience across all devices. The logo, cart, and menu will surface when customers scroll up, allowing them to access them easily. 

It also supports a fullscreen, autoplay video on the store homepage. 

Narrative comes in four styles: Cold, Light, Warm, and Earthy. This theme is ideal for small stores that have only a few products and want to focus on high-resolution videos and images on mobile. 

Key Features:

• Vertical Slideshow 
• Fixed Navigation
• Hero Video
• Quote Slides

Pipeline

Pipeline has a smart and modern design available in three styles: Light, Dark, and Bright. Each brings its own endearing quality to help create a clean and customizable aesthetic. Pipeline is fully optimized for mobile shopping with seamless mobile product scrolling. 

Pipeline’s carousel, a slideshow of images that can be scrolled through forward or backward, gives your store more depth and allows for multiple products to be displayed on mobile. 

It also supports high-volume stores that have physical store locations, with features like in-store pickups and cart notes. Take advantage of their international selling feature to sell across regional boundaries

Pipeline is ideal for those looking for a minimalist store theme that can handle high-volume sales and support national and international shopping. 

Key Features:

• Product Badges & Reviews
• Cross-Selling
• Customizable Contact Forms
• Promo Banners & Pop-ups
• Animation & Video 
• Lookbooks
• Product Options & Tabs

Prestige

Prestige is an elegant Shopify theme designed to enhance and support high-end stores. Prestige comes in three beautiful, premium styles: Couture, Allure, and Vogue. Prestige is optimized for mobile with images adjusted to prevent any loss of context on mobile screens. With Prestige, there will be no awkwardly cropped and fitted images. 

It has a sleek, sticky header menu that is gorgeous and easy to use, without causing any jerky store loading. 

Prestige supports long-form text and editorial content for brand storytelling. This theme is also designed to support image rollover, image hotspots, animation, and product videos. The theme offers shopping features that allow in-store pickup-cart options. 

Prestige is the perfect theme for those looking to create a premium look for their customers, with an aesthetic that can be translated over into an in-person shopping experience. This theme is great for showcasing every aspect of your products with visuals and text. 

Key Features:

• Slide-out Carts
• Product Videos
• Product Badges & Reviews
• Promo Banners & Pop-ups
• Cross-Selling
• Customizable Contact Forms
• Press Coverage
• Image Hotspot
• Animation 

Testament

Testament is a Shopify theme dedicated to converting visitors to shoppers while providing a smooth, fully optimized mobile shopping experience. It comes in four styles – Deliverance, Revelation, Genesis, and Exodus – to allow store owners the freedom to create a brand identity that suits their needs. 

Testament is focused on product imagery and creating a specific color palette. Testament works great on mobile with a responsive design that offers clean lines and product catalogs that don’t overwhelm small screens. This theme can also easily handle high volume sales and works in conjunction with physical stores for in-store pickups. 

Testament is perfect for store owners that want to prioritize conversion, expansion, and fast, easy online shopping with shipping and delivery options. 

Key Features:

• Shipping/Delivery Information
• Cart Notes
• Quick View
• Recently Viewed
• Promo Banners
• Product Badges
• Product videos

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is tailor-made for modern apparel stores with Playful and Classic theme styles. Brooklyn works great as a contemporary apparel store theme with its focus on brand identity and visuals.

 

With Brooklyn, you can use the homepage video feature to showcase product videos. You can also play YouTube or Vimeo product videos for smooth cross-platform marketing.

The dynamic product grid adjusts according to how many products are available, making it perfect for all screen sizes. The menu also seamlessly blends with the header image on mobile devices. The header image is not cropped on smaller screens but is instead adjusted to fit the whole image on the store page. 

The header slideshow also allows for multiple products or images to be displayed at once on your store’s homepage. Brooklyn is great for showcasing apparel through images and videos with a clean, modern aesthetic. 

Key Features:

• Dynamic Grid Layout
• Slide-out Cart
• Header Slideshow
• Homepage Video

Handy

Handy prioritizes mobile shopping with a theme that adapts to all small screens. It comes with three simple style options: Fresh, Cool, and Light. 

The multi-column menu lets you feature products in a large, multicolumn dropdown menu on mobile. Navigating the store is super easy with a clear search bar on the multi-column menu. The search bar makes finding products simple, especially on mobile.

With the menu’s quick-link contact bar, the store’s details and contact information are easily accessible to customers. The contact details are also presented with a stylish set of icons that work with any brand and any screen size.

You can promote sales and feature products and discounts with the custom promotion tiles feature. Combine that with the continuous product scroll feature to get maximum product exposure. The best part? These features work on mobile and desktop. Utilize the infinite scrolling feature between product pages to increase your store sales. 

Search is optimized to work with product names and tags without overwhelming small devices. Handy is the perfect theme for Shopify store owners that want to prioritize mobile shopping and product visibility. 

Key Features:

• Mobile-First Design
• Multi-Column Menu
• Quick Link Contact Bar
• Custom Promotion Tiles
• Continues Product Scroll

Reach

Reach is a playful theme that focuses on product storytelling, through visual aids and text, without overwhelming mobile screens. Reach is available in three styles: Natural, Plush, and Solid. 

As the name suggests, Reach aims to expand store reach with a social sharing feature. You can share products, posts, or stories via testimonials or other sharing options available with the theme. 

Reach has a dedicated story page linked in the header. It’s the perfect way to share your story and that of your store with your customers. It’s available on mobile devices toward the bottom of the screen, on a sticky menu. The sticky menu has cute icons and smoothly moves with store visitors when they scroll on mobile. 

Add product images in customer testimonials and link them straight to product pages for greater discovery. Utilize the collage-style layout feature to showcase multiple products, posts, or promotions on mobile. Combine this with custom animations and icon styles for a mobile-first, playful Shopify theme.

Key Features:

• Product-Focused Testimonials
• Collage-style Layout
• Social Sharing Options
• Image, Icon, & Animation Effects

Palo Alto

Palo Alto has a simple contemporary design that lets you focus on telling your brand story. Palo Alto is available in three styles: Stanford, SoMa, and Palo Alto. 

This theme is optimized to handle large images to showcase high-resolution product visuals throughout your store. Palo Alto also features a multi-level, dropdown menu for easy navigation. All these features work great on mobile with a smooth and responsive layout that doesn’t compromise store performance. 

Palo Alto will work great for those looking to create a product story-telling experience that showcases images and text on mobile with image carousels and a detailed product journey. 

Key Features:

• Quick Buy
• Multi-Level Menu
• Optimized Large Images
• Back-in-stock Alerts
• Quick View
• Animations
• Product Videos

Mobile-friendly Shopify themes FAQs

Are all Shopify themes mobile-friendly?

If your theme was designed for Shopify, chances are it is mobile-friendly. If you aren’t sure, you can view whether or not it is mobile-friendly by the features or design specifications of the theme. 

On Shopify, there is the option to view demo sites running the theme. With these demos, you will be able to see what the theme will look like on mobile and how it will work. 

How do mobile-friendly themes impact Google rankings?

Because of the rapid increase of mobile commerce, mobile-friendly themes are essential for ranking higher on Google. Google doesn’t consider non-mobile-friendly stores search optimized and therefore, oftentimes won’t make them visible on any search pages unless someone specifically searched for that one specific URL. This is especially true for newer stores that don’t have regular visitors. 

How do I make my Shopify store more mobile-friendly?

Besides using a mobile-friendly theme with the above features, regularly update your theme. A theme update will ensure your store is running with any new Shopify theme features that might improve the responsiveness and design.

Did you find our blog helpful? Then consider checking other guides:

• What is a Shopify theme?
• Shopify blog themes
• How to change your Shopify theme: 2022 guide
• How to upload a Shopify theme (full guide)
• How to update your Shopify theme (without losing anything)
• Shopify theme review: warehouse theme by Maestrooo
• Shopify theme review: streamline by archetype themes
• What are the most popular Shopify themes and why?
• Best Shopify themes for digital products and features to look for
• Quick tip: how to audit Shopify themes performance with google lighthouse
• Why a higher-priced Shopify theme can be key to your store’s success
• 5 Shopify order fulfillment strategies to fast-track your business growth
• Double your sales fast: 7 useful tips on developing an SEO friendly e-commerce website
• How a/b tests can help you build a strong conversion funnel for your Shopify e-commerce store
• How to integrate Tik-Tok with Shopify: a beginner’s guide