Let’s take a look at one of the more popular WooCommerce themes on the market, WoonderShop by ProteusThemes. (see: what is WooCommerce?) I’ll illustrate some of Woondershop’s best features and talk about some areas in which it could improve.
In this WoonderShop theme review, we’ll take a look at the following:
- Who is WoonderShop for?
- WoonderShop’s WooCommerce features
- WoonderShop’s other features (blog, design, etc.)
- WoonderShop on mobile
- Security & coding standards
- Conclusion
Still shopping around? Check out our list of the top WooCommerce themes of the year.
Who is WoonderShop for?
The WoonderShop theme can be used for just about any type of WooCommerce store, and works well with both physical & digital products. It’s elegant design will also display your blog posts in a responsive grid so you can show off your content marketing efforts.
- Great for all types of WooCommerce shops
- Perfect for those who are comfortable using page builders to customize layout
- Small- and medium-sized online stores who plan to blog in addition to selling products
Free, 7-day, fully customizable demo with full admin rights.
WoonderShop’s WooCommerce Features
Let’s take a look at WoonderShop’s features that are specifically designed for ecommerce sites.
AJAX Search with auto-complete
Let your shoppers quickly find the products they’re looking for using WoonderShop’s AJAX search feature. Located in the header of all pages, just start typing and instantly see the results in a dropdown.
Product Filtering
For larger WooCommerce shops, the ability to filter products is common practice. WoonderShop provides a useful product filter widget that can be used in several ways:
- Choose between vertical (sidebar) & horizontal (top of page) layouts
- Use as the sidebar on your main shop page
- Add to any page using a WordPress shortcode
- Create a separate page & use it as an advanced product search (click a button to go to a new page & apply filtering)
Shop Page Layout
Simple yet effective, WoonderShop provides a few of options for displaying your shop page.
- Choose number of products per page
- Include an optional sidebar (great for product filtering, or use no sidebar if you only have a few products)
Individual Products Layout
You can also customize the individual product pages.
- Show/Hide product meta data (sku, categories, tags)
- Show/Hide breadcrumb navigation
- Show/Hide page title at the top
Here’s an animation of an individual product page being adding to the cart. There’s a nice hover-zoom on the product image, easy selection of a required color option, and a conversion-focused add-to-cart button.
Product Image Boxes
Build beautiful product image boxes that link to your product page. Here is an example from the WoonderShop Demo:
Ecommerce Widgets
The WoonderShop theme comes pre-installed with some helpful widgets that can be added to several areas around your shop.
There are multiple areas in this theme where you can add widgets:
- Header – Great for search bar & navigation menus
- Footer – Display up to 4 widgets in adjustable columns
- Top Bar – Add widgets to a top bar above the header, and place them to the left or the right
- Benefit Bar – Displayed below the main navigation; great for shipping, returns or highlighting customer service info
- Shop Sidebar – Great for adding a product filter
- Blog Sidebar – Showcase latest posts, all categories, a search bar, or promote other content
- General Page Sidebar – Displayed on general pages (about, contact, etc.)
And here’s a list of the ecommerce widgets you can use to enhance the functionality of WoonderShop:
- Cart: Display the visitor’s shopping cart, with a dropdown of all items
- Single Featured Product: Add one (or many) featured products to any sidebar throughout your theme
- WoonderShop Products: Display any number of WooCommerce products in customizable columns. Filter by category, best-selling, recently added, top-rated, on sale and more.
Distraction-Free Cart & Checkout
Because WoonderShop was designed for optimal conversions, they’ve removed anything that might be seen as distracting from the cart & checkout pages.
Here’s a sample cart page:
And a look at the checkout page:
Other WoonderShop Features (blog, design, etc.)
These are things that will benefit any website, and are not just unique to a WooCommerce site.
Integration with SiteOrigin Page Builder
If you’re already familiar with the SiteOrigin Page Builder, customizing WoonderShop will be a breeze. For new users, there will be a slight learning curve, but it provides a lot of flexibility for creating custom layouts.
When installing WoonderShop, you can choose to import the demo content with one click. You can then learn from the demo layouts, and begin creating your own custom layouts.
Tons of Theme Options in the Customizer
WoonderShop makes good use of the WordPress Customizer. You have access to change many elements of the theme by simply choosing custom colors, layouts, and other design elements.
- Layout: Choose between wide or boxed layout
- Colors: Customize text, headings, sliders, background, buttons and more
- Navigation: Lots of options for both desktop & mobile devices
- Header: Adjust colors, use a sticky header, show/hide elements on mobile, breadcrumbs, and more
- Footer: Choose between 1-6 columns, adjust the size of each one, and customize the colors
- Blog: Several options, including when and where to show sidebars
- Shop Pages: Options for sidebars, headers, breadcrumbs and the display of product meta data
WoonderShop Header Options
WoonderShop contains several areas in the header where you can add widgets and customize the display:
- Top Bar: Add widgets to the left & right sides
- Main Header Area: Customize the look & placement of elements
- Navigation: Mostly reserved for your primary navigation
- Benefit Bar: Add any widgets to this area, and choose to show/hide on homepage
WoonderShop Footer Options
You can design the WoonderShop footer to include 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 columns, and add several widgets in each column. I don’t recommend you go overboard, but you have a good bit of flexibility.
WoonderShop Blog Options
You can also choose to display blog posts in many different ways.
- Number of columns for blog archive page
- Choose a left, right or no sidebar for individual blog posts
- Show/Hide ‘read more’ links, a search box or post reading time
WoonderShop’s Mobile Design
It’s quite clear that WoonderShop was specifically designed for mobile devices. The mobile design & layout are just as good, if not better, than it’s desktop appearance. Here’s a quick taste of how it looks on a mobile phone.
Homepage, Navigation & Products
Your users will have no trouble finding your products. The WoonderShop homepage highlights your best-selling items, or whichever products you want to promote.
WoonderShop’s mobile header provides several mobile features:
- Off-page navigation makes it easy to browse categories
- Tap the magnifying glass to quickly search products
- Slide-in shopping cart provides quick access to checkout
Blog Pages
In addition to beautifully displaying your shop’s products, WoonderShop also makes your content stand out. Your blog posts are laid out in a responsive grid, showcasing the featured image for each post.
Security & Coding Standards
One of the things I value most about ProteusThemes is their dedication to high standards. Every piece of code that goes into all of their themes is optimized for speed & security. They even go so far as to have their themes reviewed by two of the best WordPress theme review services out there.
Conclusion
I’m really excited about the future of WoonderShop. The guys are ProteusThemes have fully dedicated themselves to this theme and made it their top priority for the next few years. You’ll definitely see lots of improvements to an already excellent WooCommerce theme.
For those looking to fully customize every aspect of WoonderShop, be prepared for a learning curve to master the SiteOrigin Page Builder. But as ProteusThemes continues improving WoonderShop, I expect to see a lot more options aimed at getting customers to buy your stuff 🤑.