Reviews and updated for BFCM 2018.
The Turbo Shopify theme’s latest style, Chicago, has a dark and sophisticated mood that’s perfect for any store that needs a clean, simple look with a bit of an edge; but its black color scheme also makes it a natural choice for Black Friday sales and opens the door to an interesting possibility — giving your store a temporary makeover for the holiday shopping season.
Chicago’s darker color palette with splashes of bold colors make it a natural choice to use during Black Friday sales events. The dark, simplified look can help declutter your store to focus shoppers on your products and deals while also adding a bit of a sense of mystery and excitement that comes with the gift giving season.
The idea of changing themes for only a short period of time might be a bit scary and “out of the box,” but it’s also a great way to shake things up a bit and make it clear to customers that you are in “Black Friday mode.”
The practice is also leveraged by many “big brand” online stores during the holiday shopping season or other big events — perhaps the most recent notable example was Apple’s “iPhone X” takeover of its homepage and many of its other pages.
Changing to a different style may also have practical, functional advantages if your store offers special deals, flash sales or other special offers that your normal design might not be able to handle as well. It can also be a good way to focus users on products that are most likely to be sold on Black Friday and Cyber Monday — whether they be “giftable” items or your biggest price reductions.
If you do decide to try out a new look for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, switching to Chicago will be easiest (and won’t cost you anything extra) if you’re already a Turbo user.
Keep in mind that you can always create a duplicate copy of Turbo, set it to Chicago and keep it unpublished while you work on setting things up and testing. This approach also means you can instantly switch back to your existing Turbo look after Black Friday or if you run into issues.
It’s important to note that each theme can only have one style active at time — so you might find that exporting the theme files and then re-importing a copy is the best way to try out your ideas and thoroughly test the alternate look.
Of course, you’ll want to fully test any new theme styles or copies of themes you install to make sure that everything works well before Black Friday — in fact, all of the “Black Friday checkup” tips here should still be on your to do list if you’re planning to change themes or styles for Black Friday.
It’s also worth noting that non-Turbo users could also explore the idea of switching to a different theme style within their existing theme for the holiday shopping season.
Even if you’re not comfortable or don’t have the resources to switch your entire theme for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, there are still lots of ways to quickly and easily add some elements to your store’s design to mark the occasion, including setting a dark background color for the whole shop.
It’s also worth considering tweaking your logo, color scheme or other design elements on any of our Shopify themes to let customers know that you’re marking Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Make good use of the various homepage sections that help you promote specific products, and try adding new attention-grabbing images and text to entice shoppers to keep coming back on and leading up to Black Friday, as you roll out special sales and deep discounts. Other stores also chose to add some “holiday decoration” to their design during this busy time of the year.
New for 2018: Chicago not your speed? Try Florence, Dubai, Barcelona, Phoenix or Victoria
If Chicago isn't quite what you're looking for, Out of the Sandbox's Turbo themes added two new styles since last BFCM — Florence and Dubai. They're included in both new purchases and existing users (though current Turbo users should read this note).
Also since this post was originally written in 2017, Out of the Sandbox released the Artisan Shopify theme with three styles: Barcelona, Victoria and Phoenix. This new theme is geared toward service oriented businesses, but is also great for any store selling goods or services. Full details about the release here.`
