Many fashion, apparel, accessory and other store owners on Shopify improve the customer experience by allowing their shoppers to view products and customize orders using a range of different product options.

For instance, when a customer needs to select items from a range of colors or images that can be added to a product.

A Shopify swatches app can help you display accurate images of the chosen products to potential buyers (and remove anything that is not relevant). Customers see the exact product that they have chosen, removing the guesswork and helping you both increase conversions and reduce returns. That’s great for profits.

Shopify swatches apps replace the need for customers to constantly switch between images to compare products and view the precise one they want before they buy.

As well as your preset colors, text and image options, you can even allow customers to submit custom images or text.

Some of these Shopify swatches apps also do other things like enabling the addition of extra features or services to products, such as gift wrapping, adding a message or card, extended warranties, or other product add-ons and cross-sells. Some also have date-picking features and provide various other options via radio buttons and dropdowns.

It’s the smart way to help customers choose the products they want in fashion and design-based stores without it affecting general store performance.

Let’s take look at a few of the best Shopify swatches apps currently available…

There are over 100 Shopify themes to choose from in the Shopify Theme Store and thousands in third-party marketplaces like Themeforest, Template Monster, etc.

If you are starting an ecommerce store, you want the nest around.

The current trend is away from elaborate themes and towards minimal Shopify themes that use plenty of “white space”. Perhaps, this is simply a design preference in some cases and it can certainly be an effective way to showcase your best products.

But there are also some solid practical reasons to “go minimal”. Minimal Shopify themes use little code and are quick to load. They do well in the search engines and they generally provide a slick customer experience, especially for mobile users, who increasingly dominate ecommerce sales.

Shopify merchants face a constant balancing act of providing the best possible functionality for customers without making the site too “top-heavy”. A slow-loading, code-heavy site does nobody any favors and will damage rankings as well as conversions.

So, the advantages of a minimal Shopify theme are many. But which of the minimal themes are best?

We have gone through user reviews and download statistics to compile the following rundown of the best minimal Shopify themes and templates – as suggested by Shopify merchants themselves.