How good are pro templates and what difference do they make to sales???

[Dog_Guy]

Hi,

I have just had my site's upgraded to V2.  The first major thing that I was annoyed with was that I was restricted to joomla 2.5  because my developer said it wont work with J3.x

that aside, while I like the added metatag options, the cart look is essentially the same.

Can anyone in here report that by using a pro template that it has actually increased sales because it made it easier or more enticing for customers?

If so, what template site, or specific template would you suggest.  My niche is dog treats ...

Thank you for replying!   Bruce

[jenkinhill]

Why be annoyed that you can't use J3 yet? It is not yet released in long term stable version, so the code is not finalised. The last J3.2 update broke a few templates and components, and it looks like there will be a J3.2.2 release to fix some other issues before finally releasing J3.5 - and even then many savvy Joomla users will wait for 3.5.1 before using it with major third party components.  VM2.1 is already installable in J3.2.1 and if you want to contribute to the development process then see http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=119177.0

As for templates, too many commercial templates are overloaded with bells & whistles that they are slow to load, and as all the effects are JavaScript driven there is always a risk of conflict with js dependent third party components, such as VirtueMart. People often use full J/VM templates because they do not know how to build their own layputs or styles. An issue we have seen too often is that people buy templates designed for a particular VM version, and when they have updated VM the template breaks. Most template providers help by providing updates, but one in particular provided no aftersale support at all.

So if you are going to use a 3rd party J/VM template then do your homework first.

I have never seen a commercial dog treat template. Indeed as it is a very small niche market there would be little point in spending hours in development, as the template selling price would either be very high or the devloper would sell at a loss.

I am not aware of any research comparing the relative sales between different types of template, but generally a clear and informative, quick loading and easy to navigate store should be more successful in selling. Of course you would style the site to match the content & target market, and VM2 has the advantage that it is relatively easy to change the layouts and style with simple overrides.

I often use commercial templates as the clients usually have a good idea of how the site should look and very often has located the template of choice. But only a small proportion of the sites we build here are for VirtueMart. For VM the aim is usually something simple in layout and there I have bought templates, but not those specially designed for VirtueMart, as I always add my own template overrides. Generally the templates are selected because they are easy to restyle to suit the client/product, and of course, generally they already are responsive so will display well on mobile devices.