7 Best Free Shopify Themes For Dropshipping Stores

Having run a couple of dropshipping stores on Shopify, I made my fair share of mistakes with selecting free themes. I wrote this guide to prevent you from making similar mistakes.

I compiled a bunch of free Shopify themes, or premium themes with free versions, and used criteria to determine whether they’re worth getting. By the time you’re done reading, you should have an idea of what theme you want.

I chose Refresh as the best overall theme because it offers the best customization for product and category pages. Making it exceptional for most dropshippers. No matter what they sell.

You may not like what the feature offers, though. I’ll provide more lightweight alternatives. Or other options that offer better features.

Let’s dive in.

Best Free Shopify Themes For Dropshipping ecommerce Stores

1. Refresh: Best overall
2. Dawn: Best for shops with many items
3. Studio: Best for selling art products
4. Taste: Best for selling clothing and jewelry
5. Spotlight: Best for quick deployment
6. Sense: Best for selling one product
7. Debutify: Best for minimalist sites

Top Free Shopify Themes For Dropshipping Stores

The following sections will cover the following with each theme:

• General information
• Pros and cons (list)
• Who it’s best for
• Expanding on pros and cons
• Other important information

Free Shopify themes won’t offer close to as many features and customization options as paid (premium) themes.

You’re likely getting free themes to save money on the beginning of your dropshipping journey, but you’ll need to put in a lot of work to make your site look good (and trustworthy).

If you haven’t signed up for Shopify yet, go for a free trial, first.

I’m done with my spiel, let’s get into the reviews.

1. Refresh: Best Overall

Important information:

• Demo 
• Key Features: Image zoom, product tabs, image gallery, product filter
• Great for: Beauty and hair products, clothing, jewelry, and electronics

Pros:

• Feature-rich
• Allows you to design a beautiful website without coding knowledge

Cons:

• I don’t like the product tab location

The Refresh theme is an ideal theme for anyone who wants to create a legitimate-looking dropshipping store.

I thought I was on a website that someone spent millions of dollars to develop when looking at Refresh’s demo page.

You’ll see that you have the ability to add quotes from noteworthy websites when first looking at this theme.

For instance, if The New York Times Wirecutter featured your product in a piece, you could slip a quote from them on your homepage to make your product more desirable.

The more social proof your product has from noteworthy websites, the more likely customers will trust your product.

The image zoom feature allows you to display a picture of your product in use when a customer hovers their cursor over the image. For instance, if you’re selling a shirt, the customer could see a picture of someone wearing the shirt when the image zooms.

As with all other themes on this list, the product filter options are limited to availability, price, and sorting. That’s common among all free themes and a detriment for dropshipping business with thousands of products.

Because it becomes harder for customers to sift through your SKUs.

I use whether a theme uses product tabs as a gauge as to if it sucks.

This theme includes a product tab. However, I’d prefer if the product tab was under the “buy it now” button like it is for the Sense theme (which I’ll cover later).

It’s beneath the image gallery—which looks the best out of all the themes on this list.

I love product tabs because it makes product descriptions much easier to read and understand for mobile users, which make up a huge percentage of customers.

You may not want your website to look good. Or you could want fewer features. Then consider the next option.

2. Dawn: Best for Shops With Many Items

Important information:

• Demo 
• Key Features: Product tabs, product filter, sticky header, image zoom
• Great for: Clothing, watches, shoes and accessories, and jewelry

Pros:

• Decent number of features

Cons:

• Nothing special about this theme

The Dawn theme is a fantastic alternative if Refresh wasn’t a good choice for your store.

I’d love to tell you a million reasons why this theme is better than the rest. But I can’t.

Why include it on this list?

It’s a well-designed theme that includes product tabs, which’ll make your products easier to read on mobile devices. And as I said, you need to make mobile users happy if you want to sell anything.

The product tabs allow you to feed your customers a lot of information through tabs that open and close. Instead of overwhelming them with a sea of text, like what many online stores will do.

They shouldn’t need to scroll for 5 minutes through information they don’t care about to find, for instance, a sizing chart.

The theme also lets you set different variations of your product. Helpful if you sell multiple sizes for a piece of clothing or various amounts of supplements (e.g., 120 versus 240 pills per bottle).

The product filter is a bit better than most alternatives on this list. Instead of the typical Availability, Price, and Sort By, there’s also Color and Product Type.

That’s better for businesses who have a lot of products and don’t want to overwhelm their customers with choices. Let’s say you sold boots, sandals, heels, hiking boots, and loafers. And in those subcategories, you have footwear in varying colors.

Check this out:

Pretty cool, huh?

Now customers can sort through all the different types of footwear on your site and find exactly what they want. That’ll increase the likelihood of a sale and decrease the chance of scarring your customer into the arms of a competitor.

You might sell items like artwork. This next theme will work better for your needs.

3. Studio: Best for Sites Selling Artwork

Important information:

• Demo 
• Key Features: Image zoom, sticky header, image galleries
• Great for: Art, watches, health products (e.g., supplements), baby products, and hair products

Pros:

• Large images
• Can add descriptions beneath “buy it now” button

Cons:

• No product tabs

The Studio theme works best for dropshipping websites that sell posters, framed pictures, or other works of art that require large product images.

I hate themes that don’t have product tabs because it makes product description pages have less readability and worse user experience on mobile pages.

However.

Products like posters, art, and such usually don’t require many details. You’ll likely provide information about their size, when it’s made, and how to care for it. And that’s how this theme weaseled its way onto this list.

Otherwise, this theme includes everything else most other themes on this list will include like basic search filtering, similar products container, and an image zoom.

If you’re not selling art, or products that require large product images to present their details, then move forward to the next theme.

4. Taste: Best for Selling Clothing & Jewelry

Important information:

• Demo 
• Key Features: Product tabs, FAQs, image carousel
• Great for: Food, clothing, travel products, baby products, and jewelry

Pros:

• Contains most features you’ll need

Cons:

• Nothing special about this theme

The Taste theme is an excellent theme for stores who want all the features Refresh has, but doesn’t like how Refresh runs their site.

Many folks have encountered errors with the Refresh theme—for instance, some of the menus may not display properly. You may have encountered something similar and nearly threw your shoe through your computer monitor.

Taste is a good alternative to Refresh because it offers most of the same features (except the good-looking image gallery). And that’s about it.

It has a 60% positive review rating, despite having only 5 reviews. However, that’s a good enough sign in my book to recommend it as an alternative to Refresh.

Do you want your brand to have a minimalist appeal? Then this is a good theme to consider due to its minimalist design.

Otherwise, it has a product tab, which makes your site easier to access for mobile users. This can help improve conversions since you’re not overwhelming the user with information.

FAQs, which gives you a page to list all the frequently asked questions regarding policies and products. The more questions you answer, the less likely you’ll have customers filling your inboxes with inquiries.

And a carousel for your front page gives you a space to display sales, new products, and whatever else.

Yes, most free Shopify themes will include these features. But at least it doesn’t lack them like the next pick.

5. Spotlight: Best for Quick Site Deployment

Important information:

• Demo
• Key Features: Image zoom, multiple product sizes
• Great for: Clothing without many variations, yoga products, and electronics

Pros:

• Not much to edit

Cons:

• Limited customization

Spotlight is an ideal theme for dropshipping stores that want to launch quickly and want a minimal setup.

This is by far the most unattractive Shopify theme I’ve looked at and almost didn’t put it on this list. Like, I almost threw up when looking at it.

However, you might want to start a store quickly without much tinkering. This is the perfect theme for that. Though it lacks customization, it’s quick to deploy.

And it runs quickly, due to the lack of customization and features. That’s perfect if you’re decent at coding and want to put lipstick on a pig.

I’ll stop thrashing this theme.

It’s responsive and will work on different devices and browsers. Perfect for reaching folks on multiple devices and browsers. And that’ll increase the number of potential customers who can access your site.

If you’re a clothing store, you can offer multiple product options to customers. Perfect if you offer various sizes and colors.

There’s an “image zoom” feature, which allows customers to zoom into product images while searching. Great for seeing details from afar. Fantastic for “helping” them rush a purchasing decision without them spending time on your product pages.

The sales page for Spotlight says there’s an “Ingredients or nutritional information” feature. I thought it would be a product tab. It’s just a description that you can add under the “buy it now” button.

Otherwise, there’s nothing else to say about this theme. It’s great for providing the bare essentials.

Want more features and a theme that’ll make your site look more trustworthy? Check out the next pick.

6. Sense: Best for Selling a Single Product

Important information:

• Demo 
• Key Features: Cross-selling, FAQ pages, product tabs, image gallery, similar products
• Great for: Hair and beauty products and selling a single products

Pros:

• Includes many features

Cons:

• Filled with bugs

The Sense theme is a fantastic theme for anyone wanting the “prettiest-looking” product pages.

The product tabs are my favorite feature in this theme because they allow you to provide more details on your products without filling the pages. That makes products more readable on mobile devices, which now accounts for up to 60% of all ecommerce sales globally [1].

And if product descriptions are easier to read, skeptical buyers can get more information without overwhelming themselves with walls of text.

It’s a part of having good website user experience.

Then there’s cross-selling—or similar products in this case. It’ll help you recommend products in similar categories to the one they’re viewing. Using this could help you get more sales by recommending additional products the customers could need.

For instance, if you sell a walkie talkie, you could have batteries as a cross-sell since they’ll need the batteries to operate the walkie talkie.

It does have product filtering for the category pages, but only for the following filters:

• Availability: Whether it’s in stock
• Price: Price ranges
• Sort by: Features, Best Selling, etc.

The limited filter choice is fine for stores with fewer than 100 SKUs, but not optimal for shops with more products. Because otherwise, customers will never find most of those products if they can’t enable precise filters.

All of these features are nice, but if you look through the reviews of this theme, you’ll see a lot of people complaining about various bugs. However, it appears that the Sense team is quick to reply and address those concerns.

I recommend this theme for creating stores that have a lot of information to provide about their products—something that all dropshipping stores SHOULD do. Meanwhile, it’ll work well with reaching and converting mobile users.

You may not want all these features. Consider our last pick.

7. Debutify: Best for Minimalists

Important information:

• Demo: Must book
• Key features: Cart bubbles, announcement bar, and breadcrumbs
• Great for: Selling single products

Pros:

• More color customization than most free themes
• Well-documented

Cons:

• Ad-on selection is shady (for premium plans)

The free version of Debutify is an excellent theme for online stores that want a fast-loading site that offers plenty of customization to match their branding.

Debutify is a premium theme, but also offers a free version. It lacks all premium features (of course) and access to customer service. Because we need to apparently pay for access to customer service, nowadays.

You get 3 features:

• Cart Bubble: Shows number of items in shopping cart.
• Breadcrumbs: Shows customers what page they’re on.
• Announcement Bar: Displays announcements on the top of the webpage.

The first 2 features are unimpressive and are common in any Shopify theme, but the announcement feature is great for announcing promotions and website updates.

Eventually you’ll have sales and may want to upgrade. Is it worth it with Debutify? It depends on how many “add-ons” you want. With the next tier up (Growth), you get to select 6 out of 35 potential standard add-ons, which adds functionality to your store.

Most of their Standard add-ons aren’t mandatory, but 6 is a very low amount considering you’d need many of them (e.g., product bullet points). However, these add-ons also save you from having to purchase separate apps.

Oh, and you get 3 out of 24 premium add-ons with their Growth plan. Many of these add-ons are essential for dropshipping stores. For instance, the trust badge, ability to remove Debutify branding, and cart upsells.

I didn’t like that Debutify makes it a nightmare to book a demo. You need to fill in a bunch of information (e.g., first and last name) to even test their service.

Debutify lacks features, which isn’t excellent for dropshippers. However, if you’re someone who’ll code your own features and needs a lightweight canvas, this is the optimal free theme.

And that’s all for recommendations. Let’s dive into the guide to help you find a good theme.

What to Consider With Shopify Themes for Dropshipping Stores

Consider these factors when searching for a free Shopify theme for a dropshipping store:

• Design and Aesthetics: Ability to customize your site to match your branding.
• Functionality and UX: Quick-loading website that allows you to make it easier for customers to check out.
• Dropshipping-Specific Features: Includes features that’ll integrate with dropshipping platforms.
• Support and Documentation: Ensure your theme has regular updates.
• Responsiveness: Guarantees that the theme will look good on multiple devices and browsers.

I’ll expand upon all these points throughout the following sections.

Let’s dive in.

1. Design & Aesthetics

A well-designed theme will catch a customer's eye and convince them to stay. It’ll also improve their trust in your store. Because if you put no effort into your site, how can they trust shopping from you?

Here's what to look for to make sure your dropshipping store looks fantastic:

• Clean layout: Pay attention to how it organizes product listings, search bars, and filters.
• Responsiveness: Your store must look great on all devices—desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
• Visual hierarchy: You’ll need elements like bold calls to action, and clear distinctions between product titles and prices.
• White space: A good theme balances content and white space, which creates a sense of elegance and lets your products breathe.
• Customization options: Look for some flexibility to add your own touch. Can you adjust header styles, add banner images, or tweak the arrangement of sections on your homepage?

Free themes won’t offer as much customization as paid themes (of course). However, try to find the ones that’ll offer the most customization possible. And if that doesn’t work for you, bite the bullet and pay for the theme. Or pay a programmer to build one for you.

Let’s move onto functionality.

Summary: A well-designed theme, with clean layout, responsiveness, and customization options, can enhance customer engagement and store credibility.

2. Functionality & User Experience

Hotjar, UX software, suggests that complicated checkout processes account for 17% of cart abandonments [2]. And that’s a sign of poor user experience.

Many free themes don’t offer the best user experience customization, but you can reduce the strain customers have during shopping, which’ll increase the likelihood that they’ll finish their purchase.

Anyway, keep these factors in mind when shopping:

• Ease of navigation: Can customers find products quickly with clear category pages and a good search function?some text
  • Does the theme offer filtering options to refine searches?
• Speed: Prioritize themes designed for speed so customers don't click away out of frustration.
• Smooth checkout: Can customers easily add items, apply discounts, and see shipping options?
• Mobile optimization: Your theme must look and function flawlessly on smaller screens—that means easy-to-read text and tappable buttons.

Complete a mock transaction when testing demos of the themes you’re considering. Determine whether it’s complicated to complete the transaction process (if possible). And if there’s resistance, see whether the theme in questions offers ways to reduce it.

Test the loading times of different themes using tools like PageSpeed Insights by Google, Pingdom, and GTmetrix. Note that these speeds will change a lot when you add images and apps due to your website needing to load more code.

Look for user reviews, live demos, and themes specifically built with dropshipping businesses in mind. 

Investing time in this upfront will ensure your store provides the smooth shopping experience that keeps customers coming back and drives your sales success.

Summary: A complicated checkout process is a significant factor in cart abandonment. Choosing a theme with a smooth checkout is crucial for a positive user experience and increased sales.

3. Dropshipping-Specific Features

While free themes can be a good starting point, they generally focus on the basics and may lack the specialized tools dropshipping stores need. Think of it like using a regular toolbox vs. one packed with tools for your specific project.

However, it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out for features that’ll benefit your store, like:

• Integration with dropshipping apps: Connect to popular apps like Dropshio.io to import products and automate order fulfillment.
• Currency converters: Allow customers to shop in their local currency, boosting sales in international markets.
• Shipping calculators: Display accurate shipping rates in real-time, increasing transparency and preventing abandoned carts.
• Trust badges: Add trust badges to product pages showcasing security, payment options, or guarantees, making customers comfortable buying from you.
• Upsell/cross-sell features: These tools encourage customers to purchase complementary items or upgrade their orders, maximizing your revenue per customer.

Again, you’ll likely need to pay for apps or premium themes to get these, but they’re worth searching for.

Summary: Free themes for dropshipping stores may lack specialized tools, but features like integration with dropshipping apps and upsell/cross-sell features can be beneficial.

4. Support & Documentation

Well-documented themes are easier to tweak, and active support often provides regular updates. As your dropshipping store grows, good documentation and support ensure your chosen theme can scale with your business.

The level of support can vary with free themes. It's crucial to research the theme developer's reliability.

Summary: Well-documented themes with responsive support are crucial to minimize downtime, customize efficiently, accommodate evolving needs, and ensure compatibility with Shopify features.

5. Mobile-Friendliness

Almost all free Shopify themes should be responsive (mobile-friendly). Visit the demo page of the theme you’re considering and test its responsiveness using your browser’s developer tools.

Here are tutorials for testing a theme’s responsiveness with different browsers:

• Chrome/Chromium
• Firefox
• Safari

Ensure you test in all these browsers. Though most people will use Chrome, Safari has a 18.59% browser market share and Firefox has a 3.35% [3]. That’s a lot of customers.

And that’s it for the buyer’s guide. Now, go find a great Shopify theme.

Summary: Check the responsiveness of free Shopify themes on multiple browsers to ensure a seamless user experience.

Conclusion

Let’s review our top picks:

• Refresh: Filled with features and looks great.
• Dawn: Offers more product filters.
• Studio: A great option for sites selling art.

I chose Refresh as the best overall because it offers a bit more features than most other themes on this list. You won’t get the most features and customization when searching for a free Shopify theme. However, these themes will help you get started.

Do you need help finding products for your dropshipping store? Learn how we can help.