Changing how your shop looks

Two different things get called changing how your shop looks. One swaps the whole layout. The other changes the colours and the type inside the layout you already have. Sellers mix them up, pick the wrong one, and wonder why their shop looks nothing like the picture.

Both live on the same screen. Here is which is which.

The Storefront screen

Open Storefront in the seller menu. Only the shop owner can reach it.

It has two parts. Current is what customers see right now. Browse is every template you can choose from, each with a picture of it. To see what the templates look like before you open the screen, read our Updates post, Four new looks for your shop.

The Storefront screen showing the Current section with the Default template and a Configure button, and the Browse section with the line saying choosing one saves it as a draft — Current on top, Browse below. The line under Browse is the one to remember.

A template is the layout

A template decides the shape of the shop. Where the header sits, how the product grid is arranged, what a product page looks like, what the footer holds. Changing template changes all of that at once.

Each card in Browse has Preview and Use. Preview first. It lets you look at the template as your own shop before you commit to anything.

A template card in Browse showing a picture of the Minimalist template, its name and description, and the Preview and Use buttons — A card in Browse. Preview to look, Use to start.

The card for the template you are on shows Live, and offers Configure instead of Use.

Use does not change your shop

This is the part most people get wrong, and the screen says it under the Browse heading: choosing one saves it as a draft, and nothing changes for customers until you publish.

So pressing Use is safe. It saves the template as a draft and takes you into the designer to set it up. Your shop carries on looking exactly as it did. Back on the Storefront screen, Current shows a Modified chip and a line telling you a change is waiting, and the card in Browse shows Draft.

Three buttons appear while a draft exists: Preview draft, Discard, and Publish. Publish asks you to confirm, and tells you which template is about to replace which.

The Current card with a Modified chip, a line saying a settings change is waiting and customers still see the current version, and the buttons Configure, Preview draft, Discard and Publish — Current while a draft is waiting. Customers still see the live version.

The designer is where colour and type live

Configure opens the designer. A rail of settings down one side, your storefront in a preview beside it, and a bar along the bottom.

The rail has two groups.

Style is the part people are usually looking for. Colour palette: you pick a palette and every colour in the storefront comes from it. Then Heading Font and Body Font. That is colour and type. You change them for the whole shop, not one button at a time.

Options holds Homepage, which is what your home page shows and says. It appears on templates that have homepage settings, so you may not see it on every template. Then two more that behave differently, which is the next section.

The designer rail. Style on top, Options below. Read the notes under Social links and Shop brand.

The bar at the bottom tells you where you stand. It reads This template is published when nothing is waiting, and Template changes saved but not published when something is. Your changes save as you make them, so there is no save button to hunt for. Publishing is a separate step.

The bar at the bottom of the designer reading Template changes saved but not published, with Discard and Publish buttons — The bottom bar while a change is waiting.

The two settings that do not wait for Publish

Read this part twice. It is the one surprise on this screen.

Social links, your Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, go live as soon as they save. They show in your footer on every template.

Shop brand, your icon, wordmark and favicon, go live as soon as you upload them. They are not part of the template. They belong to the shop, so every template uses the same ones and Publish does not control them.

Everything else in the rail, the palette, the fonts and the homepage, waits for Publish. The rail says this on the rows themselves, before you click into them.

So, which one do you want

If the shape of the shop is wrong, the header, the grid or the product page, you want a different template. Preview a few, press Use on one, set it up, publish.

If the shape is fine and the colours are not yours, open Configure and change the palette. That is a smaller job.

Either way, nothing reaches a customer until you press Publish. Take as long as you like.

Start your store at berkedai.com