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The Ultimate Shopify Hydrogen Theme For Headless Websites
Jun 26, 2023
By Paul Phan8 mins read
The Ultimate Shopify Hydrogen Theme For Headless Websites
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This is a guest post by TrueStorefront team.

Shopify is one of the most powerful platforms in the e-commerce landscape. As the demand for headless commerce continues to grow, choosing the right theme becomes crucial for unlocking the full potential of your Shopify store.

So, look no further! Discover how the OWEN theme empowers you to create visually stunning, high-performing, and customizable headless commerce experiences that leave a lasting impression on your customers.

I. Overview

1.1. Peek behind the curtain about Shopify

In the world of e-commerce, Shopify has emerged as a leading platform, providing entrepreneurs and businesses with a robust and user-friendly solution to launch and manage online stores. With its extensive range of features, flexibility, and scalability, Shopify has become a go-first choice for merchants of all sizes, especially SMEs.

According to the statistics of Store Leads, there are over 2 million live stores running on Shopify, increasing 14.9% quarter-over-quarter in 2023 Q1. In addition, this platform is used by online businesses in over 170+ countries worldwide. These numbers show the fact that Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms at present.

1.2. Hydrogen - Shopify’s answer for headless websites?

As the demand for headless commerce grows, the need for specialized themes that cater to this unique approach becomes crucial. This is where Shopify Hydrogen themes come into play. Announced at Shopify Unites 2021, Hydrogen is a powerful React-based framework for headless Commerce, specifically crafted to empower businesses with complete control over their customer-facing websites and front-end experiences.

Technically speaking, Hydrogen encompasses a range of tools, utilities, and ready-to-use examples that streamline the process for web engineering teams, enabling them to swiftly launch headless commerce storefronts on the Shopify platform

Venturing into the headless realm brings immense advantages and robustness, but it also reintroduces challenges. Suddenly, you find yourself in need of substantial development resources to upkeep headless storefronts.

So, what do you need to do?

II. Introducing OWEN theme - best theme in town for Shopify headless site

In the realm of Shopify headless commerce, choosing the perfect theme for your online store is of paramount importance. The theme you choose will shape the entire user experience, define the visual aesthetics, and influence the performance and functionality of your website.

In order to tailor the user experience, enhance performance, scalability, responsive design and more key reasons, choosing the appropriate theme for your Shopify headless commerce is absolutely essential.

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Looking for similar Hydrogen demo store to TrueStorefront, check out this blog post.

2.1. What is the OWEN theme?

Is it incredible to assure that Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme stands out as the ultimate choice for Shopify headless site? Say hello to OWEN theme means say goodbye to slow loading times and hello to a seamless experience with this empowering theme!

Its advanced optimization techniques and lightning-fast loading speed allow your website to run at peak performance, maximizing user engagement and driving conversions.

Shopify Hydrogen Owen theme incorporates a robust technical stack that empowers developers to create exceptional Shopify headless commerce experiences:

  • Node.JS version 16 or higher

  • NPM version 7 or greater

  • Remix.run

  • Typescript

  • Tailwind CSS

  • Sanity Content Builder

  • Strapi Content Builder

As a result, with these comprehensive technical stacks, Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme ensures a solid foundation for building high-performing and customizable Shopify headless commerce stores with Owen theme.

2.2. Shopify Hydrogen OWEN Theme live demo

Let’s dive into the live demo of OWEN them in action with headless CMS such as Sanity Studio, Strapi Content Builder, and Algolia Search.

Explore the live demo to witness how the Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme brings the best of content management, data administration, and search capabilities, empowering you to create an unparalleled Shopify headless commerce experience for your customers.

  • Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme’s integrate with Sanity, an advanced content management system, allowing you to effortlessly create and manage your website's content, ensuring a dynamic and engaging user experience. (Check out live demo | Hydrogen With Sanity)

  • With Strapi, a powerful headless CMS, the OWEN theme offers a user-friendly interface for managing your data and providing a scalable backend solution. (Check out live demo | Hydrogen With Strapi)

  • OWEN theme's integration with Algolia, a robust search platform, enables lightning-fast search functionality, delivering accurate and relevant results to your customers. (Check out live demo | Hydrogen With Algolia)

III. Key highlight features of OWEN theme

Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme offers a range of impressive features and benefits that make it the ultimate choice for Shopify headless commerce. Besides several general features including incredible UX/UI, maximum customizability, SEO-friendly, fully responsive, and support multi-language & currencies, OWEN theme also presents numerous other awesome core features.

Powerful Mega Menu: Replace the basic and simple menu with a dynamic and informative “Mega Menu”.

Page Builder: With Sanity Page Builder, it helps you create your dream store in the fastest way possible.

Multi Layout: This Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme supports multi layout for a storefront, which changes it easily via settings.

Collection Filters & Showcase: OWEN theme offers awesome components for collection filters, easy to show products on the storefront with icon, name, link of collection/category.

Banner Slider & Grid: This theme framework supports Banner Slider Component which is easy to set up, and helps you show promotion banners for storefronts.

Video Background: The OWEN theme includes empowering video background components for storefronts.

Moreover, the Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme brings advanced site settings, multi-layout, integrated social media sharing, a seamless checkout process, comprehensive documentation and support, and continuous updates and improvements to ensure your store stays at the forefront of innovation.

IV. How to install and integrate OWEN theme?

As a result of the ultimate core features, let’s explore how to download and install Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme in the step-by-step guide below.

4.1. Install and integrate with Sanity

Step 1: Download the latest theme file

After you complete the purchase, you would see the download package displayed in the My Account / Downloads section.

Step 2: Set up Sanity Studio for CMS

In this step, you need to extract owen-sanity-studio.zip and update environment variables in sanity.config.ts and sanity.cli.ts*.*

After installing your Sanity Studio, continue installing the Sanity app to synchronize products and collections to your Sanity project.

Step 3: Install the OWEN theme

Follow this guide as below to install Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme:

  • Change environment variables in .env file

  • Change other variables in general.config.ts file

And finally, you have installed the OWEN theme on the development server successfully!

4.2. Install and integrate with Strapi

Step 1: Create a Shopify custom application (to sync Shopify collections and products with Strapi)

  • In Shopify Admin, go to Apps → App and sales channel settings → Develop apps → Create an app → Fill the App name → Click Create app button.

  • Choose API credentials tab

  • In the Access tokens choose Configure Admin API scopes option, and choose permission for custom app

  • Scroll down and choose Save, then Click Install App

  • Click Reveal token once and save it somewhere secure because you can only view it once

Step 2: Update config for Strapi

In this step, extract the owen-strapi-cms.zip file.

Then, edit database/shopify.js then change your store link and ACCESS_TOKEN that you have created in the above step.

Step 3: Deploy Strapi CMS to your server

Next, you need to deploy Strapi CMS to your server to provide the best possible environment.

Step 4: Grant all Permissions for Public Roles

Step 5: Update Strapi variables for Owen Hydrogen Theme

In the root folder of Owen Hydrogen Theme, edit general.config.ts file and store Strapi variables.

Completing this step and you have successfully installed the Strapi CMS and integrated it with the Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme.

V. Weaverse Builder - The First Theme Customizer for Shopify Headless Themes.

Imagine OS 2.0, but for Headless, Hydrogen-powered Storefronts.

With Weaverse, Shopify developers build and curate reusable Hydrogen themes, then share them with non-technical users. Everyone builds their own headless Hydrogen-powered storefronts that are lightning-fast, performant, and highly customizable without writing code.

Here’s a sneak peek.

For non-technical users, Weaverse brought in the familiar section-based page-building experience they had with the current Shopify Customizer. Add section. Edit text. Add image. Customize. then Publish.

The best thing about Weaverse is that merchants can keep doing what they’ve been doing, but instead of a normal Liquid-based Shopify store, they got a blazing-fast Hydrogen storefront bursting with possibilities: HD video dancing in the background, sleek animation enlivening every corner, or uniquely story-driven product page design - they’re all within reach.

And by providing Shopify developers with a trove of pre-built components, pre-made Hydrogen themes, and a Theme Customizer, Weaverse enables developers to shorten development time and quickly overcome the technical complexity of building a Hydrogen storefront from scratch.

However, Weaverse is currently in private beta and will be open to the public soon. If you aspire to remain at the forefront of the latest trends and stay ahead of the curve, follow them on LinkedIn or sign up for early interest.

VI. Conclusion

In conclusion, Shopify Hydrogen OWEN theme emerges as a game-changer in the realm of Shopify headless commerce. With its superb code performance, incredible UX/UI, maximum customizability, and support for multi-integration, OWEN theme equips you with the tools to create truly exceptional online stores.

Its responsiveness, SEO-friendliness, and support for multiple languages and currencies further enhance its versatility and appeal. Whether you're a small business, a growing enterprise, or an established brand, OWEN theme offers a range of pricing plans to suit your needs.

Embrace the power of OWEN and elevate your Shopify headless commerce venture to new heights of success. Do not hesitate to experience the future of e-commerce with OWEN theme and revolutionize the way you engage with your customers today!

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