10 Brilliant Instagram Themes for Shops & How to Optimize Them

Instagram is a bang for the buck when it comes to conversions. The platform has more than a billion members who spend an average of 53 minutes per day using it. Moreover, 90% of all Instagram accounts follow at least one business and more than 80% of them use the platform to discover, research, and buy new products. 

Instagram has a fairly high engagement rate of 1.60% and this is helped in large part by the thousands of social media influencers active on the platform.

Introducing new Instagram Shops

Instagram Shop is a new feature that has so far been launched in the United States and a few other countries. Instagram Shops are connected to the new Facebook Shops that allow merchants to create a customizable shopfront for their eCommerce business. This can be connected to Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and more.  

You can use the Socialshop app to live sync your entire product collection from Shopify to Facebook for free, and Instagram Shops shortly. 

Instagram Shops allow you to: 

• Create a customizable storefront 
• Create product collections 
• Use the Checkout feature to buy directly within Instagram
• Share products in stories and feeds
• Use the live streaming to promote products  

Instagram Shops haven’t been rolled out to all countries around the world yet. So far, only eligible businesses can use them. The service is going to be rolled out to everyone in the coming months, so getting a head start on Instagram now will only serve to improve your business’ discoverability later on down the line. 

Instagram is in the process of becoming one of the world’s largest commerce discovery engines. It’s time to start selling here if you’re not already. Here are some simple tips to help you optimize your conversion rate when selling on Instagram. 

• High-quality photos: This one should be a no-brainer. If you’re going to sell on a visual-based social media platform, you best make sure your photography is professional. 
• Be consistent with content: You shouldn’t have any off days on Instagram. Share a story every day and regularly upload posts to drive up impressions and engagement.
• Use story ads: Instagram story ads reach a lot of people and are effective at converting. Don’t go cheap on the advertising. 
• Keep a signature theme: You should have consistency on your Instagram feed that is in keeping with your brand’s aesthetic and personality. Keep this consistency in your stories if you can – although the stories can be overlooked if it comes at the cost of not releasing new content every day. 

Or you can follow these brilliant tips to sell even more on Instagram in 2020.

Put an Instagram widget on your eCommerce website 

Draw more people to your Instagram account and increase engagement by featuring an Instagram widget on your eCommerce website. The Socialwidget app allows you to show your Instagram feed on your website, giving your store a visual edge.

You can use this Shopify app to increase traffic to your Instagram account, elevate your social proof game on your website, and drive up conversions by adding top-notch Instagram feeds and other visual content to your online store. It’s highly customizable and only takes a couple of minutes to install.

You wouldn’t want your storefront to look cluttered and unorganized, so why would you allow your Instagram feed to look like this? Your business’ Instagram feed is a reflection of your brand itself. It’s what people will judge your brand on, so it’s important that it looks the part. 

So, there are 10 suggestions for brilliant Instagram themes to spice up your Instagram feed.

Product list Instagram theme 

This is where you simply post photos of your products, accompanied by some key information and a link to buy. This is the most basic of the themes I’ll suggest, although it’s still a legit Instagram feed if done consistently.

This theme is best suited for products that can’t be modeled. It’s not going to take a lot of time to manage and you could easily learn to take the photos yourself on an iPhone, saving your money on a photographer.

Lifestyle Instagram feed

You’ve no doubt seen countless businesses using the ‘lifestyle feed’ theme on Instagram. It’s an effective way to show potential customers how your brand can bring them one step closer to their desired look and mode of living. 

The lifestyle feed focuses on showing pictures of models using your products in real-life situations – think the tattooed guy on a motorbike wearing your brand’s backpack. This style of Instagram feed can show off the practicality and aesthetic of your products in a way that the traditional white-background product image can’t get across. 

It goes without saying that this Instagram theme is best suited for clothing brands, but it can also be used for just about anything if you put some thought into it. Most products have an impact on your lifestyle – think about how yours does and put this into your photos.

Drawing Instagram theme 

This is arguably the most creative theme we’ll cover. The drawing Instagram theme might require you to hire an illustrator or artist to draw your products which you can then post onto your feed. This theme looks incredible when done correctly and is perfect for cosmetics and beauty products. 

You might be able to find an app that converts images into drawings but be careful not to risk letting in low-resolution photos. 

The drawing theme will require more effort than your average Instagram theme, but the payoff is worth it.

White lines Instagram theme

This is a very simple theme that doesn’t require any pre-planning. All you need to do is add a white border around the edge of your photos. This allows your photos a little room to breathe and makes your Instagram feed look more elegant. 

Adding a border also allows you to show your entire photo on your feed instead of wide-angle photos being cut off to fit into the square resolution. Very easy. Very effective.

Puzzle Instagram theme 

This is a very creative Instagram theme that will require the help of a dedicated app. You can turn your photos into smaller chunks and create a puzzle theme on your feed. The big downside with this theme is that while it looks great when someone visits your Instagram page, it will look confusing when the individual photos show up on the main feed. 

You can use this theme alongside another to create a lifestyle puzzle, or a drawing puzzle, for example.

Line in the middle Instagram theme

This Instagram theme does exactly what it says on the tin and doesn’t come at the expense of ruining the main feed. Post images so that you always have lifestyle or product photos on the left and right of your theme and some text or color in the middle. 

A key benefit of this theme is that it tends to make people scroll further through your feed. You can include quotes or lifestyle tips in the middle line, for example, if you’re a cosmetics brand then why not share some tips for skin care. 

This theme shows attention to detail and is quite fun so it’ll likely result in more followers than a generic product list. It’s also easy to maintain.

Tile Instagram theme

This is essentially the same concept as the line in the middle theme but a tiled design. Simply post a product or lifestyle photo one day, then a quote, product tip, or detail the next. The final result is a professional-looking and consistent Instagram feed that provides useful information alongside visuals. 

You can use this theme for any type of product or lifestyle, making it one of the most accessible and brilliant Instagram themes for business while also being cheap and easy to maintain.

Mono-color Instagram theme

The dominant color you use on your social media channels, logo, and website says a lot about your brand. You should make an effort to use just two or three colors consistently to make your marketing materials more recognizable. 

The mono-color theme takes a little effort to keep consistent, but once you’ve figured it out you can combine it with any other theme on this list to give that extra attention to detail on your Instagram feed.

Flatlay Instagram theme

This is one of the brilliant Instagram themes that works exceptionally well with small to mid-sized products that can’t be modeled easily. Flatlay simply means to layout the product flat on a surface and take a picture from directly above. 

This is a very effective way to make a product list theme more interesting, and you could easily combine it with the tile theme and mono-color theme for that extra punch. 

This theme draws attention to the product in the photo and you can use other items to decorate around it. It takes very little effort to set up and works well when used on a nice surface.

Analog Instagram theme

Have you noticed how most of the Instagram filters are modeled after types of film? So why not shoot entirely on film for your feed? This can get a little expensive and will take some practice if you’ve never shot with a film camera before. 

Shooting your products with film gives a real vintage look and feel to your feed and can make it much more interesting. It shows that you have a creative side and that you know how to use it. 

There are many different types of film to shoot with, each giving its own unique finish. I’d recommend Kodak Ultramax 400 or Kodak Gold 200 to begin with. You’ll have to pay to get your photos developed and scanned in a professional photo lab, and this can be expensive depending on where you live. 

The analog Instagram theme works very well with the lifestyle feed and is perfect for fashion brands, crafts, and anything homemade.