Understanding Shopify themes

A theme determines the way an online store looks, feels, and functions for merchants and their customers. If you're new to Shopify themes, then refer to the Shopify themes overview.

Building a new theme

You have a couple of the following options for creating a new Shopify theme:

1. From scratch: Start building your theme entirely from the ground up, allowing for complete customization.
2. Using Dawn: Choose to build on top of Dawn, our reference theme, which provides a solid foundation for your design.

Theme development technologies

Shopify themes are built using several web technologies, including the following:

• Liquid: Shopify's theme templating language
• HTML: For creating and structuring content
• CSS: For styling your theme’s appearance
• JavaScript: For adding interactive and dynamic content
• JSON: For data management and configuration

Selling your theme

You can sell your theme on the Shopify Theme Store and reach an international audience of millions of merchants.

Steps:

1. Familiarize yourself with Theme Store requirements: Review the Theme Store requirements. These guidelines will help ensure your theme meets various technical standards, performance benchmarks, and design expectations.
2. Prepare for submission: After your theme meets the necessary criteria, learn about the theme review process, the Shopify Theme Store listing page, and common theme rejections to ensure your theme is meeting all requirements.
3. Submit your theme: When you submit a theme to the Shopify Theme Store, your theme is reviewed to ensure it meets the Theme Store requirements. During the review process, you might need to make changes to your theme. You'll be sent an email notification to the email you added in the Theme submission contact email field when you completed your theme listing. Learn more about submitting your theme and the theme review process.
4. Market and manage your theme: After your theme is approved, you can market and support your theme to make it more successful. Learn more about being successful in the Shopify Theme Store.