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This isn’t your typical how-to select a WordPress theme tutorial. Instead of comparing and contrasting features, we’re comparing and contrasting the expectations of a theme buyer and a theme seller.

This article should serve as a guide for buyers to understand where they should invest their money and for sellers to ease the pain points of selling themes in ruthless marketplace.

I’ve been selling themes for a while now, dating back to 2007, when I sold Drupal themes for the real estate market. Slocum Themes launched in late 2009 after I started my WordPress development shop, Slocum Studio.

Since then, we’ve been moderately successful with themes. The first year was abysmal, but as we’ve progressed, created new themes, and became more known in the WordPress space — it’s turned into a nice revenue stream for our overall business.

And that’s exactly how we (currently) look at our theme shop — as an add-on to the overall business. We’re not living off of theme sales, but we’re also not struggling to stay afloat just selling them. When it comes to marketing our themes, I take a very organic approach:

This nestles in nicely with our overall mission of being a client services company & a product company.

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Current state of the theme business

Everyone has the same inventory & features

“Commoditized. Cheap prices. Too much competition. Dominated by crapware.

Selling a WordPress theme is akin to selling a new car.

If you’re a Chevy dealer, chances are, there’s another Chevy dealer within 20-40 miles of you. You both, for the most part, have the same inventory available. If not, you could certainly get whatever it is you’re customer is looking for. Because of this, new cars, in terms of profit, are always the slimmest.

Everyone’s got ‘em and everyone’s looking to move ‘em. Even different brands have identical looks and features. Does this sound familiar yet?

For the buyer, you’ve got plenty of choices — and that’s great. It also means prices should stay pretty low — and they are. If you complain about a $59 purchase for a website that powers your business, dive into what should be right up your alley, Building Websites All-in-one for Dummies. This 747-page read is what you’ll have to plough through to get a better understanding of what went into building a theme. That and over a decade of learning & improving the craft.

What is a theme?

Our Modern Business theme in .org

Before we go too far, let’s define what a theme actually is.

It’s the presentational layer of your project’s content, data, and media across many devices. Most commonly presented as a marketing or presentational brochure and increasingly becoming a way to present products for sale.

It’s the pretty front-end of your website.

What about the concept of a theme or the utility, as it were?

For me, it’s very much the essence of the 80/20 rule. Something that is going to accelerate a project 80% of the way, with very little effort and at an affordable cost as it relates to the overall budget. A theme should be a fraction of your overall budget, while you spend the rest on expanding it, consulting, and building out the website.

That’s the final 20%  and the phase that is sorely overlooked.

When adapting a theme to your needs, that last mile is always the most challenging, so don’t expect it to go as smoothly as the first 80%. But this isn’t new to you, this is life:

Back to the car analogy, you can’t add a second set of doors to a 2-door coupe. It just wasn’t built that way. You also can’t order a new color that doesn’t come from the manufacturer. They already determined the best available colors for that vehicle, in that model year.

A theme is a great starting point for your project’s first iteration of an online presence. As your needs and audience change, you must reinvest and build something that meets your goals. A theme is either built as a generic use-case or to serve a specific niche vertical. In either case, it doesn’t deliver 100% on your needs, across the board.

Often, buyers get custom development and ready-made themes confused — and it’s not the same. If you find yourself forcing a theme to do something other than what it was naturally inspired to do — find another theme.

Remember, there are plenty.

Otherwise, asses your goals and understand what hinges on getting the perfect WordPress website for your business. If the most basic requirement is to generate tens-of-thousands in revenue annually, go custom. Don’t try and force a square peg into a round hole.

How to choose a WordPress theme (and ...