Make sure you have the right theme for your Shopify store before you do anything else. The last thing you want to do is fill your store with products and then change the theme later.
Because Shopify has taken over the e-commerce market, it might be hard for you to choose between them.
So, in this review, I’ll talk about the free Shopify theme Brooklyn and tell you if it’s a good fit for your store. Before you do anything, you should think about how much it will cost. Themes are not cheap.
The problem with the free ones is that they might not have all the features you need.
Don’t they?
Let’s look at the Shopify Brooklyn theme, which is free and can be used by anyone with a Shopify store.
This is best for people who are just starting out in e-commerce and don’t have a lot of money to spend on themes or web development.
What is the Brooklyn theme for Shopify?
In this review of the Shopify Brooklyn theme, we’ll look at its history, its features, and how it will help you run a store.
Shopify made the free Brooklyn theme. It was made by Shopify.
It’s made for stores that sell clothes, and you can choose from two different styles. Classic and Playful are the names for these two styles.
Even though it was mostly made for clothing, this Brooklyn theme can be used in any niche.
On both the Classic and Playful themes, the home page slider is big and bold and takes up the whole screen.
This is important because putting the slider in the middle of a page and leaving white space on both sides makes a customer feel like the store isn’t finished.
With a wide slider, you can make the most of the space and use it to your advantage by putting more information about your products.
You can “wow” your customers with large banners because you can use bright photos with backgrounds that fill the whole screen.
The main difference between the two Shopify themes is that in the Classic, you can put two Feature Collections side by side, and the photos are all the same size.
Below that, you can add three more photos for three different collections that are smaller.
For the Playful style, the collection is set up so that one gives way to a large photo and the other photos next to it are half the size of the big one.
You can add another collection with the same format below that one.
Even though there are only two subthemes, it won’t work because there is only one big thing that makes it different, and that is the collections. The rest, like the color scheme and where the links are, can be changed. This theme also works with photo review apps, which will give your store more style.
Main Features of the Brooklyn Theme
The Shopify Brooklyn theme has a number of features that will help you make a store that sells. Anyone who wants to sell food online should use this theme. Find out more about that in our guide to the grocery store.
- When you sell clothes, you need space for photos that show off the clothes. On a website, you should show the clothes being worn, which means that a model should be wearing the clothes you sell. You can’t do this in a theme where the pictures are small.
- Slide Show: You can put slideshows that show off your products on both theme designs. A slide show is a series of moving pictures that each have a message about your business or product.
- Home Page Video: Your theme lets you put a video on your home page. It’s made so that you can link to a video you’ve already put on YouTube or Vimeo.
After you load the link, the customer can watch your video on your home page. They don’t have to leave your website to go to YouTube or Vimeo.
- Dynamic Product Display: If you use the Brooklyn Shopify theme, the website will automatically change how far apart your photos are so that the website looks like it flows. Can you imagine having only three pictures for a space that was made for five? If the two places for photos are empty, it will look strange.
With this Shopify theme, the sizes and spacing of the photos will change to fit the five spaces, which will make your website look better.
It also works best if you have upsell apps built in that can help you sell more.
- Slide Out Cart: It’s not good for a customer to add something to their shopping cart and then go back to a previous page. With this theme, the cart slides out and the customer can change the number of items he wants to buy. When he’s done, the cart slides back in.
All of these features can help your site a lot. Even if you don’t know how to code, if you use it right, you can make a website that looks like it was made by a big company.
Functions of the Brooklyn Theme
The features we’ve already talked about are superficial, which means they have to do with what your customers see.
But what about the important back-end features that you care about?
The Brooklyn theme has a lot of features that you are sure to like. These features will make it easier for you to run your online store.
- If you want professional photos that were taken for free, this Shopify theme is a great choice. If you use it, you can get access to thousands of royalty-free photos from Shopify’s Burst division. All of them are free to use, so you can get the word out about your products.
- SEO: This feature is great whether you know a lot about search engine optimization or not. Each of your products can have a meta description if you use the Brooklyn theme.
The meta title can also be changed. Both of these are important because search engines use the information in your product title and description to rank your website.
- You want to put your store’s items into different categories. Drop-down menus can be made.
For example, you can put a label on top of your store that says “T-SHIRTS,” and then you can add subcategories like “V-Neck” and “round neck” under that.
By putting your collections and menus in this way, your customers will find it easier to move around your store.
- Social media: This is an important part of every theme. You want a Shopify theme that has icons for social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
All you have to do is put the links to your social media accounts in the admin panel, and the Brooklyn Shopify theme will show the icons for you.
Customers will be taken to your social media page when they click on that icon.
- Sidebar: A sidebar is a menu bar that is usually on the left side of a website. This is where you put the menus for getting around. With a sidebar, you can get rid of the headers and put the photos on the top page of your store.
- Footer: Important links can be found in the footer of every web page. Usually, this is where you put links for Contact Us, About Us, Address, Terms and Conditions, Shipping, and so much more.
With this Shopify theme, you can switch the footer’s content on and off and choose which parts to show.
- Email subscription: With this theme, you can set up a campaign to collect emails. You can put a bar at the bottom of the page where people can type their email address if they want to hear from you.
- Compatibility with mobile devices: The theme was made so that it looks good on mobile devices. You don’t have to program this on your own anymore. When a customer uses a smartphone, the theme will notice and change the layout to one that works well on a phone.
Without these backend features, you can’t set up an online store that looks good.
The Shopify Brooklyn theme was made so that you only have to check a few boxes to turn pages on or off, or to add or remove pages.
Features of the Backend Shopify Theme
This Shopify Brooklyn theme review wouldn’t be complete without a look at the backend features, of course.
. As we go, we’ll also give you some how-to guides that will help you see how this theme is used.
- Change the color scheme: If you don’t like the color scheme, you can change it. This is important so that the look of the theme as a whole will match the theme, message, and spirit of your brand. You can change the background color, the color of the links, and a lot more.
Go to your store’s admin page and follow these steps to change the color:
Online Shop > Themes > Brooklyn > Customize > Theme Settings > Colors
When you’re done, you’ll see the color palette and be able to change the color. Don’t forget to click “Save”!
- Typography: You can change the font on your website, but you only have a few options. But you can’t use any font; you can only use the ones that come with the theme. You need to follow this path, just like the color:
Online Store > Themes > Brooklyn > Customize > Theme Settings > Type > typography
With the Shopify Brooklyn theme, you can change the font styles of different elements, like the font for your product description and the font for your product title.
You can also choose between bold, regular, and italic fonts.
- Customizing the cart: Sometimes you want to give your customers more choices. With the Brooklyn Shopify theme, you can add some cool features to your customer’s shopping cart before they pay. You can add a box where customers can tell you anything else they want.
To do this, go to Online store > Themes > Brooklyn > Customize > Theme settings > cart page.
- We’ve already told you that you could add social media channels to your store. You can also upload a picture that visitors can share on social media. A social media image is a photo that will show up in the feed of the person who shared it.
To do this, go to your online store, click “Themes,” then “Brooklyn,” then “Customize,” then “Theme settings,” and then “Social media.”
When you get there, click the button that says “Upload Social Media Image,” and then you can choose which photo to show.
It can be your company’s logo, a picture of a product, a slider, or a message.
- favicon What is a exactly ? This is an icon that shows up just above the URL in a customer’s web browser. This one doesn’t really do anything technical, but it gives your website a professional look. It’s a great way to build a brand.
Follow these steps to change your favicon: Online store > Themes > Brooklyn > Customize > Theme settings > favicon
Click the button that says “Change image,” and then upload the image you want to use.
Remember that a favicon should only be 3232 pixels in size.
Why You Should Use the Theme from Brooklyn
There are a few things that make this theme different from the other thousands out there.
In this part of the review, we’ll talk about the reasons why you might want to use this Shopify theme.
- free Did you know that this kind of theme can cost more than $100? At that price, you can’t expect free updates or customer service.
Once the transaction is done, web designers will no longer help you. Any extra work you ask them to do after you get the themes will cost you money.
So, what happens if Shopify releases an update that breaks your paid theme? You have to pay for their help.
If you use the Brooklyn Theme, you won’t have to worry about that. The theme is free, and you don’t have to sign up for anything to use it. Also, all updates are free.
- nine collections: Most Shopify themes only let you add up to five collections. You can make no more than six. You can make and show off nine collections with this theme.
You can make more than nine collections, but you can only show the most recent nine.
What gives? This was made for clothing stores by the people who made the theme.
Clothing stores need to show off a lot of collections, like pants, shirts, blouses, underwear, and so much more.
- Home Video: You can’t use a video on your home page with most free themes. Videos take up a lot of bandwidth, which is why. We think this is a great bonus for a free theme.
- Featured Collections: These are the collections that show up right below the sliders in your store. You can choose which of your collections you want to put in the spotlight.
- Newsletter: As we’ve already talked about, you can get your visitors’ email addresses. You don’t need a separate app to do this anymore because it’s built right into the app. All you have to do is change the words and make it much more inviting, and your visitors will be more likely to give you their email address.
- In-slide button: This is something that a lot of themes don’t have. The in-slide button is a link that the customer can click on to go where you want them to go. You can, for example, make a slider about pants. If you put a button there, clicking it will take the customer to the pants collection.
- Blog: This is what keeps a business going. If you don’t have a blog, you can’t share anything. The good thing about the theme is that you can post your blog entries there. Use this to teach your customers and help them.
It’s much easier to build credibility when you have a blog.
You no longer have to pay for a separate blog account because this blog feature is built in.
When used together, online blogs and your online store can be very powerful.
The Brooklyn theme is one of the most popular choices for Shopify store owners because it has everything a new business needs.
Customer Feedback On The Brooklyn Shopify Theme
So far, Shopify users have given this theme a 75% positive rating. Let’s look at some of the most common things that people who used it didn’t like about it.
- Updates often: One problem with this theme is that it gets new versions of itself often. All of the updates are free, but they may or may not show up in your store. Because of this, you have to redo your website, which is a problem.
It means you have to re-upload the photos, pages, product names, and descriptions.
This is a very bad thing. But this isn’t a big deal if you’re happy with the theme and don’t want the updates.
- No Embedded Videos: You can only upload a video to the homepage. You can’t put a video on a product page. Some merchants would rather see a video than a picture.
You can’t do this with this theme, so you can only upload photos of your products.
There is also no way to put a link to a video that will automatically play the video on the page.
- Bad Photo Resizing: People complain about websites where the photos don’t automatically show up on smaller devices. In particular, this mistake happens with the slide show, not with the photos of the products.
To fix this, put the main part of your picture in the middle.
When the photo is cropped for smaller devices, the middle part of your slider can still be seen by the customer.
Even though the theme has some problems, which is normal, it’s great for being free.
The Brooklyn Theme End
It’s one of the best free Shopify themes you can find online. Like the Shopify Venture theme, it was made for businesses with a lot of inventory.
This theme lets you add up to 50 products, but it’s also a good choice if you only have a few.
The boldness of the sliders is the main thing that makes this stand out.
Some themes come with a slider, but the photos can only take up about 75% of the width of the screen.
The home page video is another great thing about the Shopify Brooklyn theme that makes it a great choice.
Even if you don’t know how to code, it’s not hard to add a video to a website.
With the Shopify Brooklyn theme, all you have to do is get the embedding link for your YouTube or Vimeo video and paste it in the space that the theme gives you for it.
The video will play as the customer looks around your site, giving you more marketing power.
You can’t believe how many good things this theme gives you. It’s easy to use, and you can get a store up and running in less than a day. I hope this review of themes helped you decide which one you want to use.
Don’t think this one is right for your store? Check out what we thought about the Minimal theme by clicking here.
