What is this blog?
Plain advice from Ecompanda on running and fixing a Shopify store: apps, themes, setup, ecommerce tools and how AI search reads a store. Every guide shows when it was written and, where we have updated it, when.
The Ecompanda blog
We looked at 14 clothing brands that run on Shopify and wrote down what each one does well, from size guides to regional stores. Here is what to copy, plus what has changed on Shopify this year that a clothing store should know about.
59 guides in all
Most slow Shopify themes are slowed by the same few things: third-party app scripts, a hero image the browser finds too late, images that are bigger than the screen needs, fonts that swap in and shift the page, and JavaScript that blocks taps. Measure with real visitor data first, then fix those in order, and check the result against what visitors actually see.
Customize a Shopify theme safely by working in order: try settings, sections and app blocks first, make every change on a duplicate or development theme, keep custom code in its own files under version control, run Theme Check, work through a short QA checklist, then publish with the old theme kept as your rollback. Stop customizing when the theme itself is the problem.
Shopify gives you a Custom CSS box at theme level (1,500 characters, every page except checkout) and at section level (500 characters). Anything bigger belongs in your theme code, as an asset file or a stylesheet tag. Work on a duplicate theme, find selectors with browser DevTools, and write rules that survive theme updates.
A Shopify page is built from a JSON template, or a section group for the header and footer, that lists sections in order. Each section is a Liquid file with a schema, and inside it merchants add, remove and reorder blocks. Blocks come in three kinds: section blocks, theme blocks that can nest, and app blocks supplied by installed apps.
Build a custom Shopify theme when your design, content model or performance goals cannot be reached by adapting an existing theme. Otherwise adapt one. Developers start from Shopify's Skeleton theme or Dawn with Shopify CLI, check the code with Theme Check, deploy through GitHub, and plan for ongoing maintenance, because a custom theme has no vendor updating it for you.
Pick a theme by working backwards from your own store. Write down your catalog size, product page needs and must-have apps, shortlist three themes from the Shopify Theme Store, drop any that fail a few hard gates, then test each with your own products and score them with fixed weights. Judge speed, accessibility and support on your content, not on the demo.
