If you are thinking of starting an online business and want to set up an online store, then you must be looking for a platform that is easy to download and set up without the knowledge of coding. The many platforms available on the market provide you the option of setting up an online store yourself, however, you must be looking for a platform that’s easy to handle and manage with that’s easy to handle and manage without thorough technical knowledge.
One of the best platform options is Shopify which offers a Turbo theme as well as a Flex theme for users. Read this guide to have detailed knowledge about both the themes and the differences between them.
Now when I say Turbo, I don’t mean eCom Turbo Theme by Franklin Hatchett. I mean the Turbo theme by Out Of The Sandbox.
Flex Vs Turbo Shopify Theme Comparison
The Flex theme is the newest of both themes and has more robust functions. The turbo theme had been launched to provide enhanced performance optimization to the websites to give the shop owners a seamless experience of setting up the website and selling products. Though both themes have good features, however, there are some major differences in terms of functionality, format, and layout of these themes.
Layout
In terms of the difference in the layout between Flex and Turbo, the flex team has three different kinds of layouts for the landing page. This theme offers the branding of the website to be done horizontally on the left or the right corner as well as on the topmost part of the page.
This flexibility in design allows the website creators to artistically incorporate the logos and the details of the brand on the website. Flex offers more control and has many options to configure web pages. There are multiple layouts and section options that use advanced CSS that helps in styling the pages better. There are 4 headers and 4 footer styles. All of these can be done without ever leaving the page.
With the Turbo theme, each template comes with a particular layout and only small parts of the layout like color font size can be changed. The Turbo theme has different templates that can accommodate shops of different niches that can display large catalog volumes.
The turbo theme comes fully loaded with advanced functions and can be used for business owners who want cut-edge speed without compromising on style and flexibility.
Ease of customization
Both the flex and the turbo themes allow a lot of customization on all the pages like the landing page, the pages of the catalog, the blog page, and the communication page. The overall look of the pages can be customized by changing the format of the content, changing the design of the page layout, inserting different content, and so on.
The fact is that the flex theme gives more flexibility to change or customize the different pages of the website for the online store as it allows the law of changes to be done by the front-end editor without a detailed understanding of the coding of the page. Flex also offers different CSS patterns which allow playing with the user interface and styling of the page.
Though the options for customization in Turbo, as well as Flex, are many, limited flexibility has been given to the front-end editor to make changes in the web pages if any changes in terms of the embedded coding of the page need to be done that would require detailed knowledge of coding and advanced technical skills. Turbo has been embraced since its launch for its remarkable performance optimization and in-demand features.
Templates
These creations by Out The Sandbox offer different ready-made templates for building websites without starting from scratch while coding the web page. Turbo and Flex both offer different templates to be worked upon for building a customized website for niche products.
Turbo offers 6 different templates, which are:
- Portland – This template has a sporty look and is suited for websites that have content related to health, wellness, and fitness.
- Tennessee – The layout of this template is more suitable for kitchen products and household items like glassware, cutlery, etc
- Chicago – This template suits products like customized printing, tech gear, and music equipment
- Seoul – This template suits the websites that sell electronic products and accessories
- Dubai – Suitable for websites selling luxury items like jewellery bags watches, etc
- Florence – This is also suitable for websites that sell luxury items like jewellery, luxury clothing, and other accessories.
Flex comes with 12 different templates to cater to a wide range of products:
- Studio for selling artwork
- Techno for technology and electronic products
- Wink for eyewear and glasses
- Moda caters to fashion items
- Nourish for snacks
- Swagger for selling environmentally friendly products
- Fresh for natural produce
- Glow for cosmetics and beauty product
- Emporium caters to home decor and luxury items
- Luxe is specifically for jewelry
- Bloom for selling CBD oil and other related accessories
- Trending for clothes
There is a comprehensive icon library available, that can be used to enhance the look of the website. The flex scheme also has beautifully designed demo shops, that be used for newbies to set up their websites. The style collection and the template structures are growing and are showcased in the settings section.
Add ONS and features
Both the Flex and the Turbo themes are designed in such a way that they are self-sufficient to support a website without the help of any third-party app or external software. These features have been included in order to increase traffic to the websites, to be able to display huge product loads, to be able to make a friendly user interface, and also to be able to create an email list, and build a customer database.
Some features that Flex includes are:
- Announcement bar
- Currency converter
- Top bar/top menu
- Megamenu
- Interactive cart
- Cart icon options
- Customer login
- Customer reviews
- Phone number
- Social icons
- Sticky header
The themes are regularly being updated to keep up with the changes in the market and the advent of new technology
In terms of functionality, flex themes have more options and regular updates compared to turbo themes.
Both themes allow payments to be processed in multiple currencies. This feature enables transactions in different countries having different currencies without the need to customize different pages. This helps enhance the conversion rate of customers to the site as they can pay easily in their own currencies without the hassle of conversion charges and transfer rates.
Shopify Flex Theme
You can view Shopify Flex Theme In Action here.
Shopify Turbo Theme In Action
You can view Shopify Turbo Theme In Action here.
Image loading styles
The image loading style in flex is:
Customize > Theme settings > layouts
Appear, blur, fade, dominant, color, and none
The image loading style in Turbo is:
Customize > theme settings > performance
Appear, blur, fade, dominant, color, and none
Cart options
Both the flex and the turbo layouts have the cart options:
- Mini cart
- drawer
- page
- refresh.
The cart options that Flex provides under the cart theme settings are:
- Cart
- Basket
- Bag
- Box
Turbo offers options of cart and bag as icons for cart settings.
Speed and Optimization for Mobile
Any website these days receives more traffic from mobile phones rather than desktops. Needless to say most of the purchase and conversion of customers also happens on a mobile phone app. For this simple reason, both the themes Flex and Turbo have been designed in a way that they both run smoothly on the mobile application.
It has been observed that Turbo is better in terms of speed and SEO compared to Flex. The strongest part of the turbo theme is its speed of loading the landing page. For this very reason, Turbo themes rank higher on Google search as Google prefers fast-loading sites.
The turbo theme comes with the page pre-loading component which makes this theme work slightly faster on the browsers. However, this feature Is not compatible with all websites and some third-party applications.
Flex is also a high-performance theme, with one difference to the Page pre-loading component which has been approached differently in flex. The flex preloading component is designed keeping in mind the modern browsers so that they work seamlessly on them.
Both are themes that help with Search Engine Optimization and rank higher on Google search compared to its competitors.
Updates and support
The Flex and the Turbo themes are created by Out Of The Sandbox team (OOTS), which specializes in Shopify. Shopify being the owner of Out Of The Sandbox makes sure that all the updates pertaining to Flex and Turbo themes are suited for Shopify and works to help it make it better. Recently, the shipping calculator has also been added to both themes.
Though Shopify has many themes, Flex and Turbo are the best, since, at the time of purchase of these themes, it comes with one-year free support and upgrade. The updates are usually done through an app that can be installed, and updates are done without the need to reload the themes again and again. The app is simple and can be downloaded from the app store.
After the expiry of the free period, upgrades can be availed by enrolling with the basic or the pro support packages. The basic package offers regular free updates and basic custom code that can be transferred.
The Pro package offers support with priority theme support, the ability to view all code customizations and the transfer of language files.
In terms of support, the Out Of The Sandbox team does not provide live support over chat and emails but you can avail of the support by raising a ticket and submitting it to the team which gets addressed in due course.
Review and testimonials
As Turbo was the first theme that was developed by Out Of The Sandbox for Shopify to have a lot of features and functionalities, users have been referring to Turbo for a long time. Therefore, the Turbo theme has received many reviews and positive testimonials from users.
Flex is relatively new and had been launched by the Out Of The Sandbox team considering that users prefer to deal with more niche products these days and requires diverse kinds of layout for the website pages. Though the flex theme also comes loaded with many added features, it is slowly gaining popularity with users.
Price comparison between two themes
The price point of both themes is comparatively higher than the rest of the themes that are available in the market. However, if you need a quality theme and want to make a website that is impressive and attracts customers, both themes are worth the price.
This being said the purchase of both themes comes with a one-year free subscription of upgrades. These upgrades are completely app-based and do not need any manual interference. The upgrades are done automatically as and when they are available in the market in terms of coding and technology and are taken care of by the Out Of The Sandbox team. This makes it easy for the user as they do not have to intervene in any of the updates.
What’s best about the price point is that both the themes come with a 14-day money-back guarantee which ensures all the users that if the theme is not as per their requirement, and does not support the kind of function that they are looking forward to, then they can get the refund after 14 days of usage.
Claiming a refund is also easy and it is taken care of by the Out Of The Sandbox team, upon raising a ticket let them know that the user is not satisfied with the provisions of the themes and needs the refund.
Discounts
When both the themes were launched they came with a discount of 10 to 20% for new users. However, from time to time, the order of the sandbox team makes sure that they provide some discount to the users to lure them to purchase these themes.
There are also seasonal discounts that are available to users.
Flex Vs Turbo – What Does Reddit Think About This?
They seem to lean in with the Flex theme as you can see they seem to have a positive experience with the Flex theme. Now that being said that doesn’t mean that the Turbo theme is useless.
Where to get Shopify Flex Theme? Shopify Flex Theme Discount
You can get the Shopify Flex theme at a discounted rate here.
Where to get Shopify Turbo Theme? Shopify Turbo Theme Discount
You can get the Shopify Turbo theme at a discounted rate here.
Wrapping Up: Flex Theme Vs Turbo Theme
In terms of quality and functionality, both the flags and the turbo themes are the best things available in the market that are compatible with Shopify.
You can select any of the themes based on your requirements. If you have the requirement for better layouts and want more choices in terms of the design layout, then Flex is the theme for you. However, if you need speed, and want to build a website that is fast loading and is optimized for application on mobile, then Turbo is the theme for you.
Merchants have been coming back to Turbo owing to its features to build more shops with the same solid foundation and performance.
The flex theme is for the ones who want to explore their creativity and build something truly unique. You can build the website for yourself or build it for your clients and impress them. Small business owners and entrepreneurs can also build their unique websites and showcase their products without the need for developmental knowledge.
In terms of pricing, Flex is a little more expensive than Turbo as it offers more options to users in order to create their web pages, and both the themes come with a support system, that helps the users to optimize their web pages as per their requirements.
If you are wondering about the Best Out Of Sandbox Themes then check out this article!
