Are you looking for a comparison of Shopify Booster and Shoptimized? Do you want know what will be the best theme is for your Store? Then this in-depth Case Study will help you make a decision.
This article is for you if you have a Shopify Store (or are about to create one).
It will also help if you are now looking for a high converting premium theme and are looking to boost your sales.
I imagine that if you are here, there are two themes that you have found in your search and that you are particularly interested in: Shopify Booster and Shoptimized.
But you are probably now wondering which theme is best to invest in and which one is best for you and your store.
You may be considering:
- Which theme has the best functionality?
- What do other Shopify store owners prefer?
- Which theme is easiest to work with,
- Which theme looks the best.
But most importantly, which theme will ensure that you improve your conversion rate and increase your sales.
You may even be considering if either theme is worth the price.
I will cover all these questions and more.
I will help you to identify the best theme for you.
I will now walk through each of the Themes in much greater detail, compare the spec and functionality, outline my experience and then I’ll show you my results!
Why Am I Comparing Shopify Booster and Shoptimized?
I know how you feel…. I was once in this very position for my own personal store and faced the same dilemma.
I was also struggling to make sales.
But with a change of theme I have been able to turn that around.
I came to realize that initially, my low conversion rates were the result of relying on a free theme that did not help convert my visitors into customers. There was no incentive to buy, and they did not feel that they were getting a particularly great deal.
I realized that I needed to invest in a premium theme. One that put pressure on the visitor, made it easier for them to buy and gave them the confidence to commit to a purchase.
I decided to research the market extensively.
In the end, I decided that I just couldn’t choose between Shopify Booster or Shoptimized based on their website alone.
I put in the time to thoroughly comparing spec to review and compare. I’ve been on a lot of Shopify Forums threads, read discussions on eCommerce community pages and more.
I’ve also factored in other case studies of other Shopify Stores owners who have or continue to work with these themes.
Beyond this, in my quest to create a truly profitable Shopify Store, I’ve purchased a number of premium themes by investing money up front and then reinvesting my profits.
The result, is that I ended up buying both Shopify Booster and Shoptimized (at different times and for different reasons – as documented further below).
Since installing them, I have put them to the test.
I have compared everything I possibly can to reach the conclusion I will shortly present below.
I have monitored the results from each one. This includes comparing store conversion rates, page speed load times, bounce rates, abandoned carts rates, mailing list sign ups and much more.
Shopify Booster vs Shoptimized
Before I dive deeper into the comparisons, lets first take a look at both of the themes and the functionality to understand what you are getting when you purchase either one of them.
Shopify Booster
Shopify Booster is a Shopify Theme that has many marketing tools built in. These tools are designed to help you to drive more sales and avoid having to pay monthly recurring app fees from the Shopify app store.
Its a quick to setup theme, and once you download and upload the theme to your store, you can get started with one click (activating the theme in your Shopify dashboard). All the features and functionality will be uploaded along with the theme functionality.
Therefore, you will not require any coding knowledge or experience to install or manage it.
Once you’ve installed the Shopify Booster theme, a number of intuitive apps become instantly available. These apps (listed below) will fire automatically and you can see that app in use on the screenshot below:
- Countdown Timer
- Scarcity Stock Countdown Notification
- Currency Converter (so visitors will see their local currency depending on where they are based)
- Scarcity Stock Countdown Bar
- Number of current visitors looking at the product counter to increase scarcity
- Estimated delivery time notification
- Secure payment security badges
- Ability to show/hide more product details (increase curiosity) with a read more button
- Product zoom functionality
- Buy it now button takes customer directly to cart/checkout
- Buy It Now Button Shakes to draw attention to it
- Increased Menu Navigation Functionalities
- Visual Promotion header bar
- Increase in search functionalities
Shoptimized
Now when it comes to Shoptimized, Mobile Friendliness was the main purpose behind the theme. The idea is to make your store loaf better on mobile devices. Like Shopify Booster, it also comes with some marketing tools that are also installed as part of the theme.
The theory is, that the majority of your customers are going to be using their mobile device to access your store. As such, if your site is more mobile friendly and easier ti navigate and work with, it will be easier to convert yiur visitors.
The problem with a lot of free themes is – that whilst they can look terrific on desktops, they can look/work completely different on mobile devices. Now this can be a major issue, or it can be completely harmless – it depends entirely on your audience and the devices that they are using when visiting your store.
For the most part, it pays you to have a theme that works well on both, because you do not know or can completely direct traffic from just one or the other (this should lead to an increase in sales).
However, if you are using Facebook Ads to generate traffic, you have the ability to and may want to exclude mobile users altogether.
But beyond just how it looks and how it loads, Shoptimized aims to persuade visitors to purchase from you. Similarly to Shopify Booster, there are a number of conversion boosting apps pre-built into the theme.
- Countdown/Scarcity Timers
- Currency Switchers
- Shipping Time Estimator
- Email & Exit Pop Ups
- Sales Notifications & Coupon Offers
- Marketing Integrations – with tools like Google Adwords, Google Search Console and Bing.
- Risk & Value Badges
- Video Embedding
- Free Shipping Bar
- Upsells and Cross Sell Pop-up Functionality
- Cart Page Urgency & Skip the Cart Functionality
- Product Badging – enabling you to add badges on top of product images
- Site Search Auto-Complete
- Volume Purchase Social-Proof
My Experiences
As stated earlier in this article, I’ve purchased both Shopify Booster and Shoptimized at different times and for different reasons. This was never my intention at the outset!
I benefited from both themes during their time installed on my store, primarily due to the apps.
I’d like to first start by saying that both themes are better than all of the free themes available on Shopify.
The Shopify Booster Theme and Shoptimized Theme are definitely an upgrade as they factor in the science of customer behavior and persuasion.
However, there is only one theme that I recommended – keep reading to find out which one it is!
Whilst many of the apps they include overlap, this is because they provide Social Proof, Scarcity and Authority – three distinctive phenomena that help to persuade your visitors become customers.
Results With the Shopify Booster Theme
I signed up to the Shopify Booster Theme first having read mostly positive reviews and because it is cheaper in price. It was also the first theme I had come across, long before I even discovered Shoptimized.
I was impressed with the ability to easily download and install the theme, but where I saw the most benefit was in the the apps that came included.
Whilst I liked the initial look and feel of my store, I found that it was most optimal for stores with only one or two products. It is best equipped for stores that only want to showcase a couple of products at a time and want to really drive sales to those items.
Where I felt that the theme was quite limited was in their customer support. There were a number of times I needed assistance but I couldn’t obtain the help I required as quickly as I needed it. This was disappointing and caused a lot frustration at times, especially when you have a live store with visitors!
In the time that I had the Shopify Booster Theme active on my store, I was able to increase my conversions my store by around 15%. (confirmed via Analytics).
I also know that this was due to the intro of the theme on my store because it was the only changing variable at the time – (I continued with the same paid marketing strategies with the same campaigns).
This has led me to believe that the conversion boosting apps work very well, and that they can increase and boost sales when deployed on your store.
Overall I was satisfied with the Shopify Booster Theme, but with an ever expanding product list I wanted to seek an alternative that could best showcase my inventory.
Results With Shoptimized
I then purchased Shoptimized because I wanted to be able to showcase my products further. I also wanted to make the store more mobile-friendly and more optimized for mobile devices because being mobile friendly is incredibly important.
Through my Shopify Analytics, I was able to identify that around 60% of my customers visited my store from their mobile devices. As such, it made a lot of sense to switch to the most mobile friendly theme I could find.
I did notice that my store looked slightly better when accessed on mobile, but it was not worth the extra investment.
The thing with Shoptimized and a mobile-friendly store, its not usually an issue because you can direct just desktop traffic from Facebook. So its not worth heavily investing in a theme for!
The of the major disappointments of Shoptimized was that the apps seemed kind of clunky amd having them all deployed actually slowed down my store! And despite advertising 7 days a week support, I did not receive much support – even for basic asks. It became really time intensive researching, and difficult trying to understand complicated code. If the Shoptimized Support team responded to my tickets then it would have meant this could have been avoided.
They also failed to provide any real documentation for working with and optimizing the theme. Instead, they tried to make me pay for add-ons, and support. Whilst I can understand why they charge for such services, it does seem like a bit of a money-making ploy.
If you have the money to spend and want to outsource the work – Shoptimized can install and configure your Shoptimized Theme for you. The main problem is however, this is a very expensive service and should not really be required when you are paying for a theme in the first place.
Enter eCom Turbo
I began to research further due to the inherent problems with both Shopify Booster and Shoptimized.
The main factor in this decision was that I was looking for a completely customizable theme, being able to change every single element. I also had a lot of products that I wanted to showcase.
I decided to invest further and purchase eCom Turbo (because it was not that much more expensive) following further research and a recommendation from an entrepreneur in the field. I read a lot of positive and (unbiased) reviews and success stories.
One of the principal things I like with eCom Turbo, is that it has not been designed by just a web design consultant or developer, but instead someone who is actually using it himself and has made millions drop shipping through Shopify. He has been able to grasp the platforms limitations and weaknesses; and improve it by adding various elements to the theme. He also provides detailed proof of his success, so you can see the results his theme is capable of.
With eCom Turbo, I can fully customize and design my homepage. This has enabled me to create a clean, minimalist professional looking and consistent store. It was also very easy to do so and could be done with minimal clicks.
Having the ability to change the layout and every single color is incredibly important for your brand identity. More importantly, the colors play a crucial part in drawing your visitors eyes to the right places – such as the add to cart/checkout buttons which is ultimately what you want your visitors to do.
When Shoptimized was installed, I didn’t see any difference in page loading times compared to a standard free theme. In fact, it likely got worse!
This is the complete opposite with eCom Turbo; I noticed an instant improvement.
The thing with store loading is that even a few seconds difference will have a major effect on your sales. Studies show that store with a loading time of 3 seconds or more can lose up to 40% of there sales.
With eCom Turbo I’ve noticed and confirmed via Pingdom (free page speed analysis service), an impressive increase in the speed of my site.
This has in turn benefited my stores rankings in the search engines and improved my product page SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions -proven via Serprobot)
I’ve managed to start ranking on the first page for my selected target keywords since installing eCom Turbo (positions in which I hadn’t obtained during our time with either Shopify Booster or Shoptimized). Its clearly been designed with SEO in mind!
Moreover, where eCom Turbo really trumps Shopify Booster and Shoptimized, is that:
- You gain instant access to a membership portal and Private Facebook Group where you can discuss strategies with other students and online entrepreneurs.
- There’s hours worth of video showing you exactly how to set up optimize the theme and some extra free training on eCommerce
- Free training and support for life.
I’ve gained so many valuable insights and useful tips and tricks form dropshippers in the private forum.
Things like how to optimize marketing campaigns, better target my audience, the best ad copy to use and more.
I’ve also managed to edit my store further via coding – all it needed was a simple ticket raised to the eCom Elites support desk. They even help with getting things like Facebook Pixels installed.
Since installing eCom Turbo, my conversion rate has jumped 32%, all from the same traffic and the same marketing campaigns:
Shopify Store Dashboard, 1-31 Sep 2018
This is a 30% increase from when I had a free theme, and 17% increase on when I had Shopify Booster and Shoptimized installed.
Lastly, eCom Turbo provides every single app of the Shopify Booster Theme and Shoptimized, but its also incredibly cheaper.
You can get the theme, with all the functionality and the bonuses for 1 of your stores for only $97!
If you wanted to install it on three stores it will only set you back $127
Or alternatively, the most expensive eCom Turbo plan costs just $147 (for use on unlimited stores!)
And with all theme licences, you get included:
- Lifetime Updates
- Lifetime Support
- Private eCom Mastermind Facebook Group
- Full Theme Training (Comprehensive Video Series)
- Bonus eCom Training
Click Here to see the plans.
The equivalent plan with Shopify Booster Theme would cost you $497, but you can only install the theme on 5 sites and you’ll only get updates for one year. That’s right beyond this your theme will not be updated and can eventually become incompatible with Shopify!
Similarly, the equivalent plan with Shoptimized also would cost you $597, and this only includes a maximum of 10 sites and 1 year of updates and support!
Considering my store is more successful now with eCom Turbo than it was with the Booster Theme or the Shoptimized theme, and its considerably cheaper, it really is a no brainer regarding my recommendation.
I wish I had discovered it first!
Only the most effective conversion apps and features are included in eCom Turbo. This keeps your store looking minimalist, fresh and clean and also keeps it from loading slowly.
Shoptimized, try to package too much into the theme, and the result is that it is overwhelming and ‘clunky’. You don’t need all the things they provide and not much of it provides any real value.
Here’s some of the apps that come with built into eCom Turbo, so you can compare with the other themes:
- Fully Customizable Cash Boosting Upsells
- Built In Scarcity Timers
- Cash Boosting Upsells
- Custom Clean Footer
- Super Clean Call to Actions
- Urgency Sales Tickers
- Instagram Integration Functioanlity
- Trust Badges
- Profit Boosting Cart Buttons
- Fully Customizable Homepage/Product Pages
Final Verdict
| Theme Name | Complete Home Page & Product Page Customizable? | Updates and Support? | Store Load Time | Store Licences | Price | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | eCom Turbo | Yes | Lifetime | < 1-2 Seconds | Unlimited Stores | $97-$147 | 5/5 |
| #2 | Shopify Booster | No | 1 Year | 2-3 Seconds | Max 5 Stores | $597 | 4.8/5 |
| #3 | Shoptimized | No | 1 Year | 2-4 seconds | Max 10 Stores | $597 | 4.5/5 |
I feel that having tried and tested all three themes on my Shopify Store (and keeping factors consistent), it would only be fair to recommend the one that has been most useful, valuable and profitable to me.
If I was in your position then I would get eCom Turbo.
Click Here to See the Power of eCom Turbo
However, if you are adamant on choosing either the Shopify Booster or Shoptimized theme, then I would have to suggest Shopify Booster. I personally got better results with this theme and it is also considerably cheaper.
But, there are several reasons why I believe eCom Turbo is the superior choice, namely:
- Price (considerably cheaper)
- No Installation limitations (can even install on multiple stores)
- Clean & Minimalist
- More Marketing Apps
- More Physiological Conversion Tools
- It loads and displays brilliantly on both Desktop and Mobile
- Under 2 seconds page speed load times.
- Ability to Fully Customize Store/Product Pages, Change Custom Colours etc.
- Fantastic Support and Training
- Lifelong Access
- Bonus eCommerce Training
- 14 Day Risk Free Money Back Guarantee
If you are looking for a great premium Shopify Theme that will help to increase your conversions from a simple 10 minute download, install and setup, then I would suggest you take a look at eCom Turbo by Franklin Hatchett. Its the best converting theme available.
Hey, I’m Peter; a seasoned entrepreneur that has been earning his full time income online since 2005. My online business portfolio includes eCommerce stores, affiliate marketing niche sites, content websites and Rank and Rent sites. I also make money through Blockchain and Crypto. I created Unrivaled Review to share my knowledge, experience and recommendations for anyone looking to pursue such ventures.