Well, whether Flow is worth the money or is too pricey, you will be able to decide after this blog! Having considered all the ins and outs of the theme, we will give you an honest Flow Shopify theme review of its design, key features, performance, etc.
Bonus: We also hand-picked top Shopify brands using Flow so you can have a realistic expectation of what the theme looks like in real stores.
Without further ado, let’s explore!
Contents
1. Flow Shopify Theme review: An overview
Before we dig into the in-depth review of the Flow theme Shopify, let’s get to know some basic information about this top premium theme first.
Flow Shopify theme is a premium theme developed by Eight Themes– a Shopify template creator specializing in building premium themes specifically for large-sized brands. Besides Flow, the team has crafted five other premium themes so far, and they are all priced at $460.
With an image-focused approach, tons of sales-boosting functionalities, and diverse eye-catching blocks, Flow is a versatile theme choice that will fit any niche just fine. However, with its visual storytelling blocks and content-rich product pages, Flow is particularly suitable for large stores or brands with a compelling story to tell.
Created by | Eight Themes |
Great for | 👍 Stores of any niche, ranging from fashion, food and beverage, home decor, cosmetics, jewelry, electronics, etc. 👍 Businesses with a large catalog 👍 Brands that want an image-focused theme or visual storytelling sections |
Price | $460 per one-time payment |
Unique features | ✨ Various flash sales features like countdown timer, sales badge, announcement bar ✨ Product cross-sell, cart cross-sell ✨ Content-rich product page layoutShoppable images ✨ Product quick view ✨ Enhanced navigation with sticky mega menu, breadcrumbs, recently viewed products ✨ Smart search ✨ Store locator |
Rating | 89% positive (302 reviews) |
Demo store |
2. Flow Shopify Theme review: Features and functionality
Now that you have a quick look at Flow, let’s see what the $460-worth theme has to offer in terms of visual appeal, features, performance, and more!
2.1. Design and layout options
Talking about visual designs, the Shopify theme Flow comes in three presets: Nourished, Crafted, and Luxe. At its core, all the presets share the same suite of pre-made blocks and features on top of a clean, modern layout.
However, depending on the look and feel you want to achieve, one of Flow’s presets will better suit you than the other.
2.1.1. Nourished
Mood: Fresh, nature Recommended niche: Food and beverage, eco-friendly products, beauty products
As fresh and earthy as it looks, Nourished is a Flow preset that would give your audience a sense of detoxification, freshness, and cleanness. And for that reason, we find the Nourished preset a perfect choice for those who sell F&B items or environmentally friendly products.
2.1.2. Crafted
Mood: Warm, vintage | Recommended niche: Fashion, footwear, handmade items
Unlike the Nourished preset, the Crafted preset of Flow stirs up nostalgic feelings with a vintage color palette and image-focused product grids. Hence, if you plan to sell apparel, shoes or handmade items, the Crafted preset should be your go-to choice.
2.1.3. Luxe
Mood: Luxurious, relaxing | Recommended niche: Fashion, Jewelry, Home decor, Furniture
If you are selling high-end fashion, jewelry pieces, or home decoration, then you can make the best use of the Luxe’s luxurious and relaxing vibes. With this preset, the theme developer mixes and matches a thin, sleek typeface with a pastel color palette to make the theme’s overall aesthetics nothing but an elegant piece of art.
2.2. Key features
Here we are at the main part of our Flow Shopify theme review – exploring its fanstatic features!
As one of the most premium Shopify themes, the Flow Shopify theme indeed offers various handy features to boost your store’s conversions and user experience. After experimenting with Flow on our test store, here are top features we like the most about the theme:
2.2.1. Flash sales features
Eight Themes advertised their Flow theme as a theme “designed with features for running time-based promotions”.
Well, they have our approval. The Flow Shopify theme actually comes well-packed with tons of flash sales features for stores that frequently run time-limited discounts. Chief among them are the theme’s countdown timer, sales badge, and banner announcement features.
- Countdown timer: If you love to run FOMO marketing campaigns, this functionality would make all the difference. You can easily feature a virtual countdown clock on your web pages to create a sense of urgency among your shoppers, prompting them to make purchases.
- Sales badges: Not everyone lands straight on your product pages and knows what kinds of deals you’re offering. Therefore, if you run discount campaigns for specific products, make sure your visitors can know about your deals wherever they are.
And that’s when Flow’s sale badge feature comes in handy. You can inform your potential shoppers of your offerings with clean and modern sale badges like in the screenshot.
- Announcement bar: Another flash sale feature of Flow Shopify theme we’re impressed with is its announcement bar. This functionality would be helpful not only for announcing your deals but also for any important updates or information you want to inform your shoppers.
2.2.2. Cross-sell features
Did you know that the cost to retain an existing customer is much more affordable than acquiring a new one? On that note, any of the best Shopify themes should offer cross-selling functionalities.
Luckily, with Flow, you can cross-sell your customers at any important touchpoints, whether on product detail pages or cart pages.
Cross-sell on product pages:
Cross-sell on cart page:
2.2.3. Content-rich product pages
The best brands not only sell products but also sell a story behind it. If you have a compelling story to tell and satisfied customers who can’t get enough of your items, we bet you will fall in love with Flow’s content-rich product pages.
Instead of giving you a standard, minimal product detail page that comes with a title, price, and description, Flow gives you many more flexible blocks to play with. For example, you can add a large-sized banner to tell your brand’s origin, use pre-made image grids to highlight your unique selling points, or leverage the testimonial slider to build trust among your customers.
2.2.4. Shoppable images
Up next, we have taggable images– an engaging feature of the Flow theme that enables you to tag products straight on your images under hot spots. When someone clicks on a hot spot, the product will appear on the screen.
With this handy functionality, you can feature your products in a real-life setting to help your potential shoppers better visualize how your items actually look like.
2.2.5. Product quick view
If you want to enhance your customers’ on-site experience, Flow’s product quick view feature will come in handy. With this function, your customers can view whatever products they are interested in on a sidebar slider in the screenshot without leaving the current page, which is beneficial for both your customers’ on-site experience and your page speed.
2.2.6. Enhanced navigation
If you have a large catalog with various product lines and pages for customers to discover, optimizing your store for navigation should be at the top of your to-do list. Otherwise, your potential shoppers will be likely to get lost and drop off your site.
Fortunately, the Flow Shopify theme comes with helpful navigation features to help customers get around your store easily. To name a few, we have:
- Sticky mega menu: Thanks to the theme’s mega menu always being visible on the top of the screen, your site visitors can hover over the menu and explore any product category they want at anytime.
- Breadcrumbs: If your site has a rather complex structure, adding breadcrumbs on your pages is an effective tactic you can try to enhance your store’s navigation. The theme’s breadcrumbs will help your shoppers understand their current position and easily go back to higher-level pages to keep exploring your store.
- Recently viewed products: By showing visitors the items they have viewed during their browsing session, you can encourage them to easily revisit products they’ve shown interest in, potentially boosting your conversions.
2.2.7. Smart search
The smart seach functionality is another cool feature we highly appreciate about the Flow Shopify theme. Flow’s powerful search bar will automatically suggest relevant search queries, products and collections as your customer types in. By enabling your customers to find their desired items more easily, you have more chances to convert them into sales.
2.2.8. Store locator
The store locator is the last highlight feature of Flow Shopify theme we’d love to discuss. By displaying a store locator like in the screenshot, your potential customers can pinpoint your exact location and find their way to your store easily. This would be of big help for stores that do in-person selling or offer local pickup.
2.3. Performance and speed
We have used Google PageSpeed Insights to check how Flow Shopify theme performs in terms of page loading performance.
As of the time being, here are the results for all the theme presets:
| Flow’s preset | Score on desktop | Score on mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Nourished | 89 | 50 |
| Crafted | 86 | 48 |
| Luxe | 86 | 53 |
There isn’t much difference between the page speed performance of all presets, they all scored nearly 90 on desktop and 50 on mobile devices. These scores are not bad, actually, but they aren’t great either.
When compared to the fastest Shopify themes out there, like Eurus or Debutify, clearly Flow Shopify theme is quite mediocre in terms of speed
2.4. Pricing
The Flow Shopify theme costs $460 per one-time purchase, which will give you access to:
- All the theme presets: Nourished, Crafted, and Luxe.
- Customizable pre-built blocks and sections
- Detailed documentation on how to set up the theme’s features
- Free feature and improvement updates from the theme developer
- Free support related to the theme’s configurations, bugs, etc.
And just like any theme on the Shopify Theme Store, you can download Flow to your online store, customize it to your liking and only pay when you publish it.
2.5. User review and rating
In the meantime, Flow Shopify theme review section on Shopify has received 300 reviews so far, with 89% of them being positive comments.
Most of the theme users complemented Flow on its beautiful layout, functionalities, and, most importantly, the great support they get from the theme developer. For instance, the owner behind the LOUI store was satisfied with the theme’s aesthetic and the support they got from Eight Themes.
With that being said, not every user is crazy about Flow. Take a merchant named Natalie, for instance, this user complained about issues when updating the theme to a newer version. The review from Catisse is another negative one where the theme user expressed their disappointment in the theme’s customization options.
2.6. Pros and cons
Pros
Cons
3. Shopify brands using Flow Shopify theme
Now that we have walked you through an in-depth review of Flow, the final part of our Flow Shopify theme review will give you a quick look at how real brands are using the theme on their live websites for your inspiration.
| No | Store | Product |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cinnabon UK | Cinnamon rolls |
| 2 | Shimmer Blue Fashion | Women’s wear |
| 3 | Alpine Dog Co | Dog lovers’ accessories |
3.1. Cinnabon UK
First, we have Cinnabon UK, a bakery chain renowned for its irresistible cinnamon rolls. Founded in 1985, the company has become a global sensation, offering a range of sweet treats centered around their signature cinnamon-infused pastries.
The store’s best use of Flow: Product quick view
Cinnabon leverages the product quick view of Flow Shopify theme to allow their audience to quickly view their offerings without hopping back and forth between pages. With this functionality, Cinabon’s site visitors can easily explore their products and add to cart without the hassle.
3.2. Shimmer Blue Fashion
Shimmer Blue is a South African e-commerce store specializing in elegant, adventure-inspired fashion for women. Their product line includes tops, wraps, kimonos, and dresses, with a focus on their signature collection that embodies luxury essentials.
The store’s best use of Flow: Product tagging
As a prime Shopify store using Flow theme, Shimmer Blue Fashion makes the best use of the theme’s shoppable images to stylishly showcase their stunning dresses in real-life settings. As a result, their potential customers can better visualize their products and make more confident purchases.
3.3. Alpine Dog Co
Alpine Dog Co. is a Canadian e-commerce store specializing in high-quality, customizable dog accessories. Their product line focuses on durable and stylish items for active dogs and their owners.
The store’s best use of Flow: Cross-selling features
As one of the best Flow Shopify theme examples, Alpine Dog Co employs the theme’s cross-selling features quite effectively. When a visitor lands on their product pages, they will get product suggestions that add value to their…
4. Flow Shopify Theme Review: Final verdict!
As a premium Shopify theme, Flow Shopify theme clearly has lots to offer in terms of features and visual appeal. Nevertheless, the theme isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
If you are asking whether to invest in Flow or not, here’s our buying guide:
Use Flow Shopify theme if you
- 👍 Have a large product catalog and need a theme optimized for navigation and user experience
- 👍 Usually run flash sales campaigns
- 👍 Favor an image-focused themeAlso do in-person selling
Don’t use Flow Shopify theme if you
- 👎 Have a small product catalog
- 👎 Are on a tight budget
- 👎 Want a theme with lightning-loading speed
5. Wrapping up
At $460, many will say that Flow Shopify theme is kind of expensive. Well, that’s undoubtable. However, with its image-focused design, spacious layout, and various sale-driven features, we don’t think it is overpriced at all.
But how about you? Will you give Flow a shot? For that, eComStart team hopes that this detailed review can help you decide whether Flow is worth trying or not.
Remember to check out eComStart.io for all the latest eCommerce tips and tutorials for launching and growing your online business.
📚 Still want to have more theme options? Check out these detailed review:
6. Frequently asked questions
