Gutenberg WooCommerce Themes: Should you use them?

So you’re starting an online business. 

That’s wonderful. We love the spirit. 

And, by choosing to go with WordPress and WooCommerce, you’ve already made a great choice. After all, the market share of WordPress makes up “64.2% of all the websites whose content management system we know”, according to W3Techs. 

And when it comes to a WordPress e-commerce tool, over 5 million websites use WooCommerce. They must be on to something!

And even though we know you can’t wait to start selling, there’s still the decision of the theme you’re going to use for your WordPress website. Please don’t rush it – because this decision will determine how much cost, effort, and, let’s face it, nerve you’re going to have to invest in the long run.

So.. which is the best WordPress theme for WooCommerce?With all the changes in the world of WordPress, especially since the release of WordPress 5.9 and full site editing, we’re here for you to find the best-suited theme that will future-proof your WordPress web presence and shop!

Why should you use a special Gutenberg WooCommerce theme?

On January 25th this year, WordPress 5.9 was released – and it was an incredibly important milestone in the development of the CMS.

Why?

Because the update brought us a lot further toward full site editing. 

The downsides are quite limited, although maybe shocking at the first glance – the customizer, navigation admin area, and the widgets are – poof – gone!

At this time, a major share of WordPress tools, plugins, and themes still have their core features deeply rooted within the customizer. One of those tools is, of course, WooCommerce – which is also why, should you install it when using a full site editing theme, the customizer would reappear.

Many of these tools are, well, kind of in trouble. After all, what are they going to do if the customizer is eventually dropped completely?

This is why, as tough a decision it may seem, if you’re setting up an e-commerce business in 2022, you should use as many of the native WordPress features as possible. 

As we’ve already stated in our blog post WooCommerce and Gutenberg blocks, both Gutenberg and WooCommerce are from Automattic, which is the company behind WordPress. For us users, this means simply that all the tools are maintained, developed, and kept safe, sound, and future-proof by WordPress itself.

Are Gutenberg themes faster?

Long-term solutions rock, sure, but I’m completely aware that we want results right now.

This is where page speed comes in. 

Considering how strongly site speed will affect your future conversion rates, you’ll have to make sure you choose a fast WooCommerce theme. 

To make sure you don’t lose customers over endless load times or a bad SEO rank, we recommend going with Gutenberg.

Pros and Cons with WooCommerce Gutenberg themes

Do you need a Gutenberg-optimized theme for WooCommerce? Technically, no, you don’t. But, as already mentioned, Gutenberg and WooCommerce are both made by Automattic, which will ensure perfect compatibility, elegant code, and fast load times. 

Unfortunately, by using just the two tools, the user experience still has a long way to go. There’s a lack of customization options (unless you’re willing to do some coding yourself), there aren’t enough options for responsive design, and WooCommerce on its own slows down websites because its scripts load all the time, even if not necessary.

Are Gutenberg WooCommerce Themes free?

As we’ll see, all of the list items below come in a free and a premium version.

The 8 Best Gutenberg WooCommerce themes (Paid and Free)

As promised, here are some of the best-rated Gutenberg WooCommerce themes, and as a special goodie there’s a solution that’s not only able to give you a great WooCommerce experience, but that’s also natively integrated with Gutenberg.

Let’s go!

via GIPHY

OceanWP

Rating: 5/5
5,259 WordPress ratingsOceanWP is a super lightweight multi-purpose theme that’s fast and responsive, and it works with many page builders, as well as Gutenberg. Even though it’s fast by itself, you might run into problems when trying to install any page speed plugins, because of its static header.

Astra

Rating: 5/5
5,073 WordPress ratings

Astra by Brainstorm Force is another WooCommerce and Gutenberg-ready WordPress theme, that’s fully customizable, lightweight, responsive, and extendible with some premium add-ons. Just like OceanWP, Astra comes with the problem of the static header, so javascript will not be working. Also, beginners might be a bit overwhelmed by the number of options for customization.

GeneratePress

Rating: 5/5
1,330 WordPress ratings

GeneratePress by Tom Usborne focuses on speed and usability. It is fully compatible with WooCommerce. It has extensive documentation, great support, and is updated regularly, but users will have to know some code to change the default layout.

Neve

Rating: 5/5
956 WordPress ratings

Neve is a Gutenberg- and WooCommerce-friendly theme with an impressive number of features, developed by ThemeIsle. It’s easy to use, super-fast, and also has a lifetime plan available. If this is an issue for you, keep in mind that support is not always reachable.

Blocksy

Rating: 5/5
656 WordPress ratings

Blocksy is an innovative, Gutenberg-ready theme that’s easily customizable, even for people who don’t know any code. It comes with WooCommerce customizations like Product Quick View, Ajax Add to Cart, and many more.

Hestia

Rating: 5/5
508 WordPress ratings

The Hestia theme is marketed towards professionals. Just like the Neve theme, it’s created by ThemeIsle. It is extensively customizable, enables live editing, it’s responsive, and allows for centralized customization.

Kadence

Rating: 5/5
157 WordPress ratings

Kadence is a lightweight, easy-to-use WooCommerce-integrated WordPress theme that provides multiple starter templates, as well as numerous other features. It is also known for its extensive 3rd party plugin integrations. There’s no white label option, so keep that in mind if it’s important to you!

GREYD.SUITE

If you want to integrate a WooCommerce store in a Gutenberg website, and you’re done messing around with multiple tools, themes, plugins, and extensions that will eventually slow down your website, hear me out:
GREYD.SUITE is the best solution for you. Although (or especially because) it’s not a theme in the classical sense, this suite has everything you need to create a flawless WooCommerce store that’s built for performance:

• Global Design Settings
• Design edits without CSS
• Dynamic tags
• Native integration of Direct Checkout Button
• Individual templates for shop, product, account and other shop-related pages
• And state-of-the-art page speed optimization.

GREYD.SUITE is the world’s first block-based WordPress suite, and it eliminates the need for coding, page builders, or lengthy plugin lists.