Out of the Sandbox, the makers of professional Shopify themes like Turbo, just announced their newest creation: Flex.
I haven’t used it yet so can’t give a full review, but I scoped it out and it looks fast and cool 🤘
They have 12 preset demos set up (nice!) so you can create a pro site fairly quickly no matter what niche / style you’re going for.
Screenshot from the Flex demo page:
I checked out and tested 3 of those demos that caught my eye:
- Techno
- Nourish
- Bloom
The Techno theme is really cool, maybe I like it because it’s a dark theme, but it also felt super fast and is well optimized.
For most niches I think a white background theme works better in ecommerce, but if you’re in a niche where a dark theme makes sense, this could be a winner.
Nourish looks like a great all-around theme that can be used for just about any niche. I like the smooth layout and animations on this one.
Bloom has product focused single column product page. It’s also a good example of using the LQIP technique for loading images.
LQIP = Low Quality Image Placeholders. It’s a lazy loading technique that loads a small expanded placeholder image on initial page load to give the perception of a quicker content load.
LQIP sites might score lower on performance testing compared to sites using “true lazy loading”, but some people like the style, and it’s faster than not lazy loading at all.
Performance scores
I tested the home page of those 3 demos with the Shopify Analyzer and Google PageSpeed Insights.
I wrote a comprehensive guide about Google PSI and why it’s not the best tool for Shopify sites, but enough people ask about Google PSI scores that I figured it would be worth including here.
These Google PSI scores can also give you a benchmark on what type of scores you can expect on a maximum level / brand new site before loading 3rd party apps.
| THEME | ANALYZER | PSI MOBILE | PSI DESKTOP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Techno | 100 | 83 | 99 |
| Nourish | 93 | 61 | 95 |
| Bloom | 74 | 61 | 95 |
Techno hit a homer and scored a 100/100 on the Shopify Analyzer, fully optimized out the box!
It scored about as high as you’ll get on Google PSI for a platform site with 83 (mobile) and 99 (desktop).
The other 2 didn’t score as well, but they’re still fast Shopify themes, and the unoptimized warnings are pretty minor as far as speed is considered. Also not every theme has the goal of being 100% optimized for performance, there’s always going to be a balance depending on your goals.
If you ever want to test actual load speed, we’ve found WebPageTest.org to be the most accurate tool.
Features
Some notable features I like:
- Comprehensive icon library
- 4 header styles
- 4 footer styles
- 3 product page layouts
- Mega menu option
- Sticky bottom bar (maybe good for GDPR)
- Lots of demos to visualize before building
Verdict
Looks like a solid theme 👍
Little pricey compared to other themes but it’s a steal in the big picture considering you’re getting a great looking site out of the box with a lot of options to tailor to your brand message.
I’m looking forward to building something with it… anyone need a site redesign? 😃