Thorough Empire Theme Shopify Review: Features, Pros, Cons & Ratings

Discover the power and versatility of the Empire Theme Shopify in this comprehensive review. Just like choosing the ideal outfit for a special occasion, selecting a suitable theme is crucial for your online store's success. The Empire Theme, known for its dynamic design and robust features, takes center stage in our exploration.

This review aims to be accessible for beginners while offering insights for experienced users. We'll navigate through the Empire Theme's layout options, pricing details, user reviews, and more, providing you with a clear understanding of its strengths and potential drawbacks.

About Empire Theme Shopify

Empire Theme for the Shopify store is a marketplace-inspired gem meticulously crafted for those with expansive product catalogs. If your goal is to command over every facet of your catalog, from product discovery to seamless comparisons, and ultimately drive conversions, then Empire is your go-to solution.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Empire is equipped with robust features to elevate your product game. Imagine effortlessly managing merchandising, upselling, and cross-selling, turning every customer interaction into an opportunity for increased order value and satisfaction.

This theme rises to the challenge with agility and sophistication. Its app-level functionality seamlessly integrates with your unique brand identity and business model, making it the perfect ally for your online venture.

Empire is purpose-built for you whether you're a dropshipper, handling a high transaction volume, or engaged in in-person selling. It transcends the boundaries of a typical theme, evolving into a strategic partner that understands and caters to the distinct requirements of your business.

Empire theme Layout options

Supply

Dive into the Supply layout, where modern aesthetics meet user-friendly navigation. Perfect for showcasing a vast array of products, Supply ensures your customers can effortlessly discover and explore.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Industrial

The Industrial layout caters to those with a penchant for a bold and robust aesthetic. Seamlessly blending strength with refinement, this layout is ideal for stores that exude power and authority in their product offerings.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Depot

Experience the fusion of bold style and creativity with Depot. Its striking black and yellow palette makes a statement, offering a clean yet impactful canvas for showcasing your products.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Graphic

Graphic, the expressive powerhouse within the Empire Theme, is designed for those who want their products to tell a story. Dynamic visuals, bold typography, and engaging layouts make Graphic perfect for brands that seek to captivate their audience.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Features & Pricing of Empire Theme Shopify 

Empire Theme Features

Optimized for Large Catalogs: Empire is purpose-built for high-volume stores, efficiently managing extensive catalogs to ensure systematic organization and enhanced accessibility for an optimal shopping experience.

Advanced Live Search: Revolutionize user experience with dynamic search functionality, providing instantaneous results and quick links for exploring products and store pages efficiently, thereby improving overall navigation efficiency.

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Homepage Menu Lists: Simplify catalog navigation by featuring menu lists directly on the homepage. This feature facilitates effortless exploration and discovery of products, contributing to heightened user engagement.

Advanced Product Filtering: Elevate user experience with advanced product filtering options, enabling customers to categorize products by type, best sellers, and price directly on collection pages, enhancing the efficiency of product browsing.

Quick Buy: Streamline the purchasing process as customers efficiently add items to their cart without leaving collection pages, ensuring a seamless and efficient user journey conducive to increased conversion rates.

Read more: How to Create a Distinctive Product Quickview on Shopify

Customizable Promotion Tiles: Enhance customer engagement through customizable homepage tiles, strategically promoting sales, discounts, and featured products. This feature maximizes visibility, capturing customer attention and driving conversions.

Instagram-Inspired Shoppable Images: Transform your storefront with shoppable images featuring up to five quick shop hotspots. This interactive feature introduces a dynamic element, engaging customers visually and increasing opportunities for conversion.

Unique Variant Management: Exert precise control over product variants with expanded options. Define how customers interact with product forms, contributing to a personalized shopping experience and overall customer satisfaction.

Drop-Down Navigation Support: Facilitate seamless navigation with drop-down menu support. This feature contributes to an intuitive and user-friendly browsing experience, allowing customers to explore your store effortlessly.

Mobile-Friendly Design: Experience a flexible and responsive design, ensuring a consistent and enjoyable shopping experience across diverse devices. This feature caters to on-the-go users, optimizing accessibility and usability.

Built-In Styles and Color Palettes: Immerse your store in visually appealing aesthetics through built-in styles and color palettes. This feature establishes a cohesive and branded look, reinforcing brand identity and captivating the audience.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Enhance online visibility with built-in SEO features, ensuring the store is easily discoverable by potential customers and ranks prominently in search engine results, increasing visibility and traffic.

Read more: Shopify SEO Experts: The Complete Guide to Successful E-Commerce

Empire Theme Pricing Options

Empire Theme Shopify offers a flexible pricing structure that allows you to explore the full potential of the theme before making any financial commitment with the unlimited free trial. A one-time payment of $340 is required only if you decide to publish the theme in your store.

This pricing policy ensures you can confidently tailor the Empire theme to your brand's unique identity - products, brand colors, and other customizations - without any initial financial investment.

Pros & Cons of Empire Theme Shopify 

Pros of Empire Theme Shopify

Fast and Helpful Customer Support: Experience efficient support, ensuring a smooth journey through the Empire Theme, with timely assistance to address any queries or challenges you may encounter.

Easy to Customize: Enjoy a user-friendly customization process, enabling seamless adjustments to the Empire Theme to align with your unique brand identity without technical complexities.

Suitable for Various Store Types: Versatility defines the Empire Theme, making it a fitting choice for diverse online stores, accommodating different products and industries with ease and adaptability.

Beautiful and Clean Design: Empire Theme offers a visually stunning and professionally crafted design, creating an aesthetically pleasing and clean presentation for your customers.

Flexible Functions: Harness the power of flexibility within the Empire Theme, accommodating a range of functions that can be tailored to the dynamic needs of your evolving online business, providing adaptability and scalability.

Free Updates: Stay current with continuous improvements. The Empire Theme prioritizes your store's optimization and security, offering free updates that ensure your online presence is always at the forefront of functionality and performance.

Cons of Empire Theme Shopify 

Speed-Related Issue: The Empire Theme encounters speed-related challenges, potentially impacting your store's loading time and, subsequently, its Google ranking.

Read more: 10 Tips to Speed Up Shopify Store and Impress Customers

Limitations in Brand-Specific Customizations: Some brand-specific customizations may face restrictions within the Empire Theme, limiting your ability to achieve highly tailored and brand-specific aesthetics.

Possible Problems with Filtering and Glitches on Product Pages: Users may encounter issues with filtering functionality and glitches on product pages, which may pose challenges and impact the seamless navigation and experience on your online store.

Lack of Some Features: The Empire Theme may lack certain features considered essential by some users, such as a wishlist functionality. This absence might limit user engagement and the overall shopping experience for customers.

Empire theme user reviews, Support, and Resources

User Reviews

(Image source: Shopify Theme Store)

Positive User Experiences

Users express satisfaction with the Empire Theme's functionality and suitability for extensive product inventories. They commend its ease of use, clean aesthetics, and the responsive support provided by the Pixel Union team. The theme is praised for its overall performance in meeting the needs of stores with extensive product displays.

Some users acknowledge a learning process associated with the theme but highlight Pixel Union's ongoing support and helpfulness in addressing queries. The theme is credited for its powerful tools, such as the unique "Show the look" feature, giving it a competitive edge.

Estilo Living Oct 06, 2023

We're really happy with the Empire theme and its functionality. We are still in the building phase now, but we are currently updating our old store with a new theme and find that Empire has all the features that we are looking for for a store with a large number of products to display and manage. Really great customer service from the Pixel Union team throughout - super friendly and helpful!

Bath Supply Oct 20, 2023

Easy to use, looks great out of the box, clean, sharp, and minimalist with some nice editing features. The support team is also super speedy and helpful!

E-woodproducts Nov 08, 2023

Had some issues with the Empire Theme, but the issues had nothing to do with the team. Sometimes, it's just a learning process, and Pixel Union is always happy to help me out :-) Thanks!

PLOMERIA UNIVERSAL Nov 30, 2023

It's a powerful theme. My competition lacks some of the tools this theme offers (e.g., Show the Look). I don't know if it's our fault that the theme scores 21/100 on speed, but outside of that, it's a good theme.

Contribute and Negative Feedback

Several users note concerns regarding the theme's speed, which is identified as an area that needs immediate attention upon publishing.

Critiques emerge regarding the theme's limited customization options and dissatisfaction with the support quality. Users expressed frustration with the support team, citing ineffective assistance and referrals to external services like 'Storetasker' for modifications.

Users also highlight specific functionality issues, including challenges with the quantity selector box impacting the shopping experience. Glitches, such as filtering not working on collection pages and difficulties removing products from the cart page, are also reported.

Jungle Aquatics Pet Superstore Nov 14, 2023

Empire Theme offers an excellent user interface and highly responsive support. The critical area for improvement is the quantity selector box - it should limit the number of selections based on Shopify inventory to avoid customer errors and enhance the shopping experience. Moreover, considering the premium price, adding a wishlist feature would be a beneficial upgrade for users.

Secret Saunas Dec 20, 2023

Overall, it's a great-looking theme, but limited customization and the support is useless. After a week of email exchanges just to try and resize a single image box, their advice was quite frankly wrong (reduce the file size and re-upload it). They'll refer you to 'Storetasker' for any changes. The theme is also very slow and requires speed optimizations as soon as you publish it.

Partify Nov 21, 2023

This was the biggest mistake ever. We put so much time and effort into this theme, and the filtering does NOT work on the collection pages. Additionally, there is some weird glitch where you can't remove products from the cart page.

Read more: How to Create Shopify Featured Review Sections Effectively

Support and Resources

Support

Pixel Union provides comprehensive support services through their Pixel Union Help Center to assist users in maximizing the potential of their themes. 

The services include:

• Assistance with inquiries about Pixel Union products, functionality, and technical capabilities, including pre-sale questions.
• Guidance in setting up features included in themes and configuring theme settings to ensure optimal performance.
• Resolution of bugs or issues in unmodified theme installs for a seamless user experience.
• Provision of updated theme files to ensure compatibility with new software versions.

While Pixel Union's support is robust, it comes with certain limitations:

• Pixel Union does not support integrating or troubleshooting 3rd-party (non-Pixel Union) apps.
• Support does not extend to modifications made after theme purchase, including adding new features, altering theme design, implementing 3rd-party code or apps, or troubleshooting previous customizations after updating the theme.

Support Availability and Process:

• Support services for Pixel Union merchants are available Monday to Friday.
• The estimated wait time for support is 3+ business days.
• Users are required to fill out a form to submit support requests, ensuring efficient processing and resolution of queries.

Resource

When you access the Pixel Union Help Center for Empire Theme, there are 6 categories for you:

Templates (6 articles), including: Product page template, Collection page template, Subcollections, Quick shop, Cart page,...

Sections (21 articles), including: Blog posts, Collection list, Custom HTML, FAQs (Frequently asked questions), Featured collection,...

Blocks: Using the request quote block, Setting up collection page filters in Empire, Adding controls to Empire's collection page utility bar, Displaying navigation menus in Empire's sidebar

Read more: How to use Shopify Sections & Blocks for theme customization

Header and footer (11 articles), including: Header features, Utility bar, Logo, Header search bar, Header width and sticky header,...

Theme settings (6 articles), including: Using Empire's color swatches for product variants, Adjusting theme settings for products in Empire, Making product descriptions full-width in Empire, Adjusting media gallery settings for Empire's product page, Setting up Empire's product compare feature,...

Frequently asked questions (16 articles), including:

• How do I activate the free shipping bar?
• How do I show the add-to-cart button on order pages?
• How do I customize the inventory status labels?
• How do I display stock levels for my products?
• How do I set up a product for pre-order?
• And more…

How to Purchase the Empire Theme Shopify

The Empire Theme Shopify is conveniently available for purchase and download from both the Shopify Theme Store and Pixel Union. Below are the steps to acquire the theme on each platform:

From Shopify Theme Store, follow these steps:

• Click the button below to access the Empire Theme on Shopify Theme Store.

Try Empire!

• Click "Try theme" and follow the instructions to complete the purchase process.

From Pixel Union, follow these steps:

• Visit the Pixel Union website.
• Navigate to the Theme section and select Empire.

• Click “Try them for free” or “Find it on the Shopify Theme Store.” You will be redirected to the Shopify Theme Store website. Follow the aforementioned instructions to purchase and install the theme seamlessly.

Merchant websites using this theme

Explore the versatility and appeal of the Empire Theme Shopify by discovering prominent merchant websites that have successfully implemented this dynamic Shopify theme. The Empire Theme caters to diverse industries and showcases its adaptability through the following notable examples:

Muji

At Muji's website, the Empire Theme enhances the presentation of its lifestyle products. The clean design seamlessly aligns with Muji's ethos of simplicity and functionality.

(Image source: Muji)

Lighting Design

The Empire Theme provides a visually appealing backdrop that accentuates the elegance and functionality of Lighting Design's products. The theme's adaptability ensures a seamless browsing experience for customers seeking the perfect lighting fixtures.

(Image source: Lighting Design)

Add custom sections to the Empire theme using EComposer

EComposer Page Builder is an application that can enhance the visual appeal of your Empire theme, empowering businesses to craft diverse pages and sections effortlessly. Follow these straightforward steps to personalize your Empire theme with EComposer:

1. Go to your Shopify account: Access your Shopify account to initiate the customization process.
2. Install EComposer Landing Page Builder: Visit the Shopify App Store, install EComposer Landing Page Builder, and ensure the app is seamlessly integrated with your Shopify store. For existing users, open the app to proceed.

3. Access Theme Customization: Within your Shopify account, navigate to "Online Store" and select "Theme" from the options available.

4. Choose Empire Theme: Locate the Empire theme in your list of available themes and click "Customize" to access the theme's customization interface.
5. Explore Customization Options:

Find the "Add section" option inside the customization interface. EComposer offers a variety of section types for personalization within the Empire theme. Select the desired section type to create or customize your storefront.

Additionally, delve into the Element section to experiment with various elements, infusing uniqueness into your online store's appearance. Elevate your Empire theme customization effortlessly with EComposer Landing Page Builder.

Read more: How to create Shopify Theme Sections

Alternatives to the Empire theme

Kalles

Discover the Kalles theme, a versatile and dynamic choice that introduces over fifteen purpose-built demonstrations, each featuring an impressive array of functionalities and captivating styles. 

Tailored to cater to various online businesses, Kalles distinguishes itself with a modern design, minimalist essence, and a diverse range of specific demonstrations to suit different needs.

(Image source: The4)

Key Features

• Smart Product Filter: Kalles integrates an intelligent product filter, streamlining the shopping experience for users by allowing efficient sorting and searching of products.
• Fast Load Speed: Experience swift page loading times, contributing to a seamless and responsive user interface that enhances the online shopping experience.
• Responsive Design: Kalles ensures a responsive design, adapting seamlessly to different devices and screen sizes, promoting accessibility for a broader audience.
• Powerful Theme Options Panel: Benefit from a robust built-in theme options panel, providing users with a centralized hub for convenient and efficient theme customization.
• 15+ Product Layouts: Choose from a diverse selection of over fifteen product layouts, allowing for varied and visually appealing product presentations tailored to different business needs.
• Flexible Customization Options: Enjoy flexible customization options that empower users to tailor the theme according to their brand identity and specific preferences.
• Mega Menu: Kalles incorporates a mega menu feature, facilitating organized and efficient navigation through the website's extensive range of products and categories.
• Quick View: Enhance user convenience with the quick view feature, allowing customers to preview product details without navigating away from the current page.
• SEO Friendly: Kalles is designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind to make sure that your online store is well-optimized for visibility and discoverability on search engines.

Price: $89.00

Try Kalles HERE!

Read more: Kalles Shopify Theme Review: Features, Pros, Cons & Ratings

Elessi

Elessi is a beautiful and classy template designed to enhance the online shopping experience. Crafted on customer satisfaction, it incorporates unique features such as product filtering, compare functionality, ajax off-canvas wishlist and cart sidebar, quick product views, and seamless one-click theme installs, providing an exceptional user journey.

(Image source: The4)

Key Features

• 20+ Demo Concepts: Elessi offers a diverse range of over twenty demo concepts, providing various visually appealing and functional design options for your online store.
• Simple Setup and Management: With Elessi, simplicity meets efficiency. Its user-friendly interface ensures easy setup and management, empowering users to navigate the theme without extensive coding knowledge.
• Designed for Conversion: Tailored to drive conversion, Elessi creates an environment encouraging users to make purchases seamlessly.
• Responsive Design & Retina Ready: Elessi ensures a beautiful design that can appear well on different devices and screen resolutions, providing a visually appealing and consistent experience. It is also optimized for retina displays.
• SEO Optimized: Prioritizing visibility, Elessi is optimized for search engines, enhancing the discoverability and ranking of your online store.
• Quick Shop: The quick shop feature streamlines the shopping process, allowing customers to explore and purchase products with minimal steps.
• Instagram Shop: Seamlessly integrate your online store with Instagram, expanding your reach and providing customers with a visually engaging shopping experience.
• AJAX Shop Filters and Search: Elessi incorporates AJAX shop filters and search functionality, enabling users to efficiently find products based on their preferences without reloading the entire page.
• Mega Menu: Enhance navigation and organization with the mega menu feature, providing a structured and intuitive menu system for an improved user experience.
• Built-in Quick View Feature: Allow customers to preview product details effortlessly with the built-in Quick View feature, available in both off-canvas and popup modes.

Price: $99.00

Try Elessi HERE!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Empire Theme Shopify is a robust and versatile choice for online businesses seeking a visually appealing and feature-rich storefront. With its marketplace-inspired layout options, advanced features like live search, and compatibility with high-volume catalogs, Empire offers a combination of style and functionality. 

For those seeking alternatives to the Empire Theme, Kalles and Elessi stand out as compelling choices. Kalles impresses with purpose-built demonstrations, fast load speed, and a powerful theme options panel. Meanwhile, Elessi offers a beautiful and classy template with 20+ demo concepts and a focus on conversion. 

Moreover, the EComposer Page Builder further elevates the customization possibilities of these themes, empowering users to tailor their online presence effortlessly.

Get EComposer NOW!