Flatsome Theme Review: Still Good Fit For Your Store? (2024)

Ease of Use

I would rate the overall ease of use of Flatsome at 4/5.

Here's why:

• The process of theme setting up and registering is made simple with a detailed video tutorial.
• Flatsome readymade WooCommerce features are highly customizable which means you can create any custom design to stand out your product, cart, and checkout page.
• The required plugins and demo content can be installed and imported right from the setup wizard which saves time.
• Importing all demo pages at once is unnecessary for some users. You don't require multiple home pages for your website. It would be more efficient to import only the necessary demo pages.

Installation Process

You can only purchase and download the Flatsome WooCommerce WordPress theme from the Envato Marketplace.

The theme installation process is pretty simple. First, you need to log in to your website dashboard area and follow the below steps.

• Go to appearance > themes > add new > upload theme
• Browse through your files and upload Flatsome
• Click the install now button

Next page, you need to hit the activate link to complete the theme activation.

After that, your next step is to set up the Flatsome theme.

Theme Setup Wizard

There is no need to set up the theme after installation. You can skip it and do it later whenever you want. You can even update the theme setup as per your preference.

But if you want to start setting up the theme, it's simple — just hit the let's go button.

On the next page, you’ll get the option to register the Flatsome theme.

Insert the purchase code and hit the continue button.

A child theme is a duplicate of the parent theme that is utilized as a safe space for customizations. It's similar to a playground where you can make modifications without altering the original theme.

This means that when the primary theme gets updated, any changes you've made will remain untouched and secure.

It’s good to see that Flatsome gives you the option to create a child theme.

Simply click the create and use child theme button to start the process.

Now, it’s time to install the default plugins. Hit the continue button and wait a while until the installation.

You can import the demo content while setting up the theme. You can select particular content for import but Flatsome recommends importing all the content.

Hit the continue button to start importing.

If you want to upload your website logo during the theme setup, click on the upload new logo button.

Don't worry! You can upload it later as well.

After that, you need to agree with the terms and conditions of Flatsome.

Congratulations! You’ve completed the theme setup successfully.

Now, you can set up your WooCommerce store right here or do it later whenever you want.

To check your current website, you can click the visit your new website button.

Now, you’re ready to customize the theme to your preference.

👋 My thoughts here

An overview of the installation and setup:

• Flatsome installation process was straightforward as expected from WordPress premium themes.
• The setup wizard is user-friendly and fast, with no delay faced during the process.
• After activating recommended plugins and demo content, your website is ready to use and customize.

I encountered a problem when visiting the new website as there were no real images, only placeholders.

Here how it looks like:

Overall, Flatsome is an easy-to-use, customizable, and reliable WordPress WooCommerce theme.

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Features

I would rate the overall features at 4/5.

Here's why:

• It comes with a visual frontend editing feature that lets you design interactive headers and footers, pages like shop, cart, checkout, product carousel, and more.
• Its built-in WooCommerce features are very unique.
• Its easy-to-use UX Builder makes it more powerful. The combination of UX Builder with default WordPress blocks takes your website to a new level.
• Flatsome is also responsive, fast, multilingual, SEO-friendly, and works with major plugins and browsers.

Flatsome is a multipurpose WordPress theme that offers advanced features and functionalities to suit any website's needs. 

Core Features

Here are the core features of Flatsome:

1. Theme Options

Under the theme options, you’ll get tons of settings.

The website header is a key component, particularly for important elements such as the logo and navigation menu.

A highly customizable header can make a difference in user experience and functionality for significant websites such as ecommerce platforms.

Flatsome understands the user's needs and comes with a header builder option so you can make your custom header.

Here you can manage:

• Site logo
• Top bar
• Sticky header
• Dropdown style
• Buttons
• Account
• Cart
• Search
• more

Under the main header menu, you can customize the header width and height. You can change its default text and background color and be able to add a background image if required.

The settings offer options to manage the navigation style, size, height, spacing, and color for both text and icons. You can set transparent header height and background color to make it more stylish.

Having a mobile header is crucial because a huge number of users are using smartphones. To ensure a better mobile user experience, Flatsome comes with decent settings to manage the mobile header.

It lets you set the header height, logo position, menu icon style, overlay, and item behaviors such as open link or toggle submenu.

It also gives you options to set submenu effects and manage elements that you would like to include in the mobile menu.

Flatsome is one of the best in terms of WooCommerce features.

There are:

• Quick view
• Custom top content
• Sale bubble
• Product Videos
• Next/prev navigation
• Quick zoom
• Product variations
• Product gallery

You’ll get all the settings under the WooCommerce menu.

In the product catalog menu, you’ll get the settings to manage your shop page design and its content. You can set the page layout, item list style, products per page, and more.

You can also customize the bubble, cart button, box layout and make other necessary changes as you prefer.

To make your product page more engaging, Flatsome has lots of different settings.

It gives you the options for changing the layout, gallery, product summary, tabs, and upsell style and their content.

Flatsome cart and checkout page settings are very handy. You can customize every aspect of your cart and checkout page design to make it more user-friendly.

You can change the layout and content in a more organized way that feels like you implement your custom design.

Make your website footer as you like with Flatsome's uncompromising flexibility. You can add your custom footer block and edit your widgets.

It gives you options to manage the footer column, and its text style, and add background images as you prefer. You can also add your copywriting text and enable the back-to-top button in your way.

2. UX Builder

Flatsome has a page builder named UX Builder. You can utilize it to create custom pages and design layouts with its drag-and-drop elements.

It’s time to show you how to use UX Builder.

To show the demonstration, I’ve created a new page called ‘test page’. Now, you need to hit the edit with UX Builder button to open the page to Flasome's page builder.

If you prefer, you can import the readymade page demos. Simply click the suitable demo for import.

Otherwise, you can hit the add elements button to open the element library.

In the following, you’ll get all the Flatsome elements. Select any particular element and add it to the page.

Now, you can add content and do the necessary customization to complete the design.

Pre-Built Websites

Flatsome offers 19 readymade demo pages where 15 are for shops and others are for business websites. The demo pages are highly customizable. It lets you import all the demo pages at a time while configuring the theme.

Apart from these demos, Flatsome comes with tons of pre-designed layouts and wireframes for different website elements. You can easily import and customize them to create your unique design.

Now, I’ll show you how to easily utilize the Flatsome pre-designed layouts.

Click the Flatsome studio button. It’ll redirect you to the studio page.

On the next page, you’ll find hundreds of page templates for several categories. Choose a suitable one and hit the import button.

Wait a while until the import finishes. After completing the import, you can hit the publish button to save the current changes.

Here is the current look of your website if you’ve chosen and imported the same demo.

Quick and simple!

Reliability

I would rate overall Flatsome reliability at 4.2/5.

Here's why:

• Flatsome moves forward in terms of speed and efficiency, ensuring a solid First Contentful Paint (FCP) of 644ms, which is comparatively better than its competitors.
• The entire page is loaded in just 1.0 seconds.

• The landing page template is minimal with a total page size of 348 KB.
• It manages 36 total page requests. Additionally, its total blocking time of 0ms and DOM interactive time is only 693ms.

Performance

No doubt Flatsome is one of the fastest themes on the Envato market.

I imported a pre-designed landing page template and ran it through GTmetrix.

Here are the results:

It achieved an A grade with 98% performance, with Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) taking only 884ms and a Total Blocking Time (TBT) of 0ms. Overall, the performance was good.

I was impressed with the Flatsome's performance and reliability.

⛔ Warning: The results from GTmetrix aren’t conclusive and won’t always hold as the themes continue to update. However, they are a good indication of the themes’ performance and speed insights.

The speed of your website hinges not just on a solid theme like Flatsome, but also on the strength of your hosting service.

Updates and Maintenance

Since its introduction in 2013, Flatsome has been continuously moving forward to maintain compatibility with the latest version of WordPress and WooCommerce and introducing new features to enhance the user experience.

Additionally, it resolves existing bugs while reinforcing performance and security. You receive these updates free of charge.

You can check the theme changelogs here.

Here are some highlights from the changelog:

• The Mini Cart Quantity feature now automatically removes items when their quantity reaches zero, ensuring a more intuitive shopping experience.
• The ‘maintenance bypass key' option has received a makeover with a more refined description, enhancing user understanding.
• In terms of fixes, adjustments have been made to Widget link colors to prevent interference with the mini cart widget.

⚠️ Note: In certain cases, such as when WP Global styles were disabled by a performance plugin, custom theme colors defaulted to their original values.

Support

I would rate overall Flatsome support at 3.9/5.

Here's why:

• Flatsome offers several dedicated support systems for its customers.
• You can contact them via email, ticket, Facebook group, and YouTube channel.
• The support portal also includes documentation and FAQS.
• If you require an immediate response, they may not be able to provide it promptly.

This author's response time can be up to 2 business days. Before you make a support request they recommend some troubleshooting.

• Keep your theme, plugins, and translation files updated
• After updates, reset all caches
• If issues persist, disable all plugins except WooCommerce to check
• Look for errors in the browser's dev console (F12)
• Check any custom CSS or code snippets in function.php if problems persist

Customer Service

Flatsome comes with multiple support platforms so customers can get a proper service.

You can get support from:

• Video tutorial
• Online documentation
• Premium email support
• Facebook community
• YouTube channel

The good thing is you can easily access their support portal from your WordPress website admin area.

To see available support portals, you need to navigate to Flatsome > Help and guide area.

You can use the search documentation button to easily access necessary docs from your website's admin area.

Documentation

Under the official documentation page, you’ll get all the articles and tutorials. The documentation area is well structured and categorized into different topics.

For example, if you want to read the theme installation articles, you’ll get a particular category for this.

I checked some of their knowledge-based articles and I found them well-written with necessary images. Also, there is a print button in the article that you can use to print the article as per your preference.

Community Support

Flatsome provides community support in their Facebook group. They have a huge audience based on more than 35.0K members.

Apart from the Facebook group, they have an official YouTube channel where they upload video guides. Though they have 8.74k subscribers, only 11 videos were published.

I noticed that the last video was published three years ago, indicating a lack of updates to their older videos.

Pricing

I would rate the overall pricing of Flatsome at 4/5.

Here's why:

• Flatsome costs $59 for its single license and is quite similar to other Envato themes.
• You will get the PSD files and assets at no additional cost.

Also, you will get free support and lifetime theme updates means you always enjoy the latest features.

Cost Breakdown

Flatsome comes at an affordable price considering its extensive collection of features.

You can buy it directly from the Envato Market:

For $59, you’ll get access to the following:

• Everything that Flatsome offers
• UX Builder support
• Future updates
• 6 months of support from the theme’s author

⚠️ Note: The only downside to buying a theme from Envato Market is that the regular license is limited to just one website.

Flatsome can only be purchased from the Envato Market. Keep in mind that there may be extra expenses involved.

• The handling fee for using a credit card during purchase.
• You will need to pay $17.63 to extend support to 12 months.

Money Back Guarantee/Refund

Please note that the refund policies of Envato Market apply since the Flatsome WooCommerce theme is exclusively available for purchase there.

Here’s a summary of their refund policy:

For Themeforest and CodeCanyon unsupported items and other specified Envato Market items.

Final Thoughts

Flatsome stands out as a multipurpose theme specifically crafted for launching WooCommerce stores. Its advanced drag-and-drop builder, pre-built page templates, and extensive customization options make website creation a seamless experience, even for beginners.

The integration with WPML for multilingual support, coupled with exclusive WooCommerce features, positions it as a top choice for Ecommerce businesses.

However, this focus on WooCommerce might feel limiting for websites not centered around product sales.

If your website's primary objective doesn't involve selling products, Flatsome might not align with your needs. It's crucial to consider the pros and cons carefully before immersing yourself in the Flatsome ecosystem.

Consider how you will manage updates and support when weighing the benefits of using Flatsome for your website.

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