Looking for honest design feedback after 2 Shopify Theme Store rejections – Mangal Studio

Theme Store
1

Hi everyone,

We’re looking for some detailed feedback from experienced Shopify theme developers, designers, and, if possible, members of the Shopify Theme team.

We recently submitted our fashion-focused theme, Mangal Studio, to the Shopify Theme Store. Unfortunately, it has now been rejected twice.

The most recent feedback was not about a specific Theme Check error or technical issue. Shopify mentioned that the theme needs a significant improvement in overall design quality, intentionality, sophistication, consistency, accessibility, customer experience, and merchant experience, and that new themes are expected to compete with or surpass the quality of themes already available in the Theme Store, including Shopify’s free themes.

They also recommended looking at sources such as Awwwards for design inspiration and stated that a substantial redesign would be required before another submission.

Our technical side is currently in a good position:

  • Theme Check: 0 errors
  • Lighthouse accessibility: 100 on the pages we tested
  • Strong performance results
  • Responsive desktop/mobile layouts
  • Mega menus and predictive search
  • Collection filtering and sorting
  • Flexible product-page blocks
  • Quick view / quick buy
  • Build the Look
  • Shop the Look
  • Interactive product hotspots
  • Product recommendations
  • Cart drawer and merchandising features

However, Shopify still feels the overall design/product experience is not yet at the level required for the Theme Store.

Demo store:

Password: letmein

We would really appreciate feedback specifically on the weak points, rather than general compliments.

For example, we would love opinions on:

1. Overall visual identity
Does Mangal Studio have a recognizable design language, or does it still feel too similar to other premium Shopify fashion themes?

2. Homepage
Does the page feel like a cohesive premium fashion brand, or more like a collection of different theme sections?

3. Header and navigation
Does the navigation feel sophisticated and distinctive enough compared with current Theme Store themes?

4. Product cards and collection pages
Do these areas feel too conventional? What would you expect from a newly approved premium fashion theme in 2026?

5. Product page
Is the PDP visually differentiated enough, or does it still follow the standard Shopify theme structure too closely?

6. Mobile experience
Are there areas where the mobile design feels like a reduced desktop layout instead of a deliberately designed mobile experience?

7. Build the Look / Shop the Look / hotspots
Are these still meaningful differentiators, or have these features become too common in current Theme Store themes?

8. Demo-store art direction
Do the photography, colors, typography and section sequence feel cohesive enough to represent one real premium fashion brand?

Most importantly:

If you were reviewing this for the Shopify Theme Store, what are the top 3–5 things that would make you reject it from a design/UX perspective?

We are intentionally asking for critical feedback because this was our second rejection, and Shopify has warned that another unsuccessful submission may result in a 90-day submission suspension. Therefore, we don’t want to simply make small cosmetic changes and resubmit.

We are planning a significant redesign before the next submission and would like to understand the weaknesses as clearly as possible before changing the theme.

Any detailed feedback, screenshots, references to existing Theme Store themes, or examples of how you would improve specific areas would be extremely helpful.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to review it.

Vijay
Mangal Studio Theme Team

2

Hi Vijay,

Hopefully others with theme store submission can provide read-world insight. Here is my input.

Given that your theme is inline with what theme’s offer, and there’s only so much one can do for effective online ordering experience, it gives the impression visual identity is lacking with minor elements to tweak.

Currently there are 2 main styles within your themes:

  • Bright and approachable, associated with general fashion (your homepage)
  • Muted and subdued, associated with sophisticated boutiques (your product pages)

The first thing I would do is review current theme store offerings against your target industries.

Then, work on establishing 3-5 preset styles Create fake businesses & visual identity for each. That could look like another preset/store is menswear, another could be accessories for example.

Finally, rework by adding more products for fuller collections, and create a richer collection experience with more sections. Overall, the home and product pages are quite effective.

In the meantime, here are a few comments to review:

  • White bounding wrappers work well but may need to be removed in product page There are too many elements. Consider a preset that is white background. Or create a visual style based on this, like your collection filter modal.
  • Do full-width layouts need to be introduced or already setup?
  • Do AI watermarked images negatively impact review process?
  • One thing to flag - /collection/all has a pagination issue and only outputting 10 products.
3

Hi cee_em

Thank you very much for taking the time to review the theme and share such detailed feedback. This is extremely helpful and gives us a much clearer direction for the next revision.

Your point about the theme currently having two different visual identities makes a lot of sense. We are now reviewing the current Theme Store offerings in our target industries and will work on creating stronger and more consistent preset identities. We also like your suggestion of creating 3–5 realistic demo businesses/presets, for example womenswear, menswear and accessories, rather than trying to demonstrate everything through a single store.

We will also review the other points you mentioned: reducing some of the white bounding wrappers on the product page, introducing/using more full-width layouts where appropriate, replacing any AI-watermarked demo imagery, adding more products for fuller collection experiences, and fixing the /collections/all pagination issue.

I also wanted to ask you one important question while we are reworking the theme.

We originally used Shopify Dawn as the base structure for development. Since then, we have substantially redesigned and rebuilt the theme — including the visual system, sections, product cards, collection experience, product pages, navigation, styling and interactions. Even some sections that may not currently be visible in the demo storefront but are available through the Add section library have been customized from the original Dawn versions.

From a Theme Store review perspective, does using Dawn as the original development base create any concern by itself, even when the final theme has been substantially customized and visually/functionally differentiated?

Or is the main consideration the quality, originality and differentiation of the final theme rather than what base theme was originally used during development?

This would be very helpful for us to understand before we go deeper into the redesign.

Thanks again for the constructive feedback. We really appreciate it.

4

Hi Vijay,

To be honest, your design is nice. but design and code is based on Dawn theme and the visual storefront clearly depicts that… that is unfortunately not allowed by Shopify theme store review team..

“does using Dawn as the original development base create any concern by itself, even when the final theme has been substantially customized and visually/functionally differentiated”

  • “based on dawn theme or horizon theme or any of shopify’s free theme code base” is strictly not allowed.

Regards
Muthu

5

(post deleted by author)

6

Hi Muthu,

Thank you for your response. I’m aware that Dawn and other free themes aren’t permitted for submission. I actually came across this warning while developing my theme, so I looked into it further and found a reply from a Shopify staff member, Liam-Shopify, in the community forum. He mentioned:

“If the theme is visually quite distinctive from Dawn and includes features and functionality that is not within Dawn, then you can still submit and have this theme hosted on the Shopify Theme Store. The requirement you’re referring to is to prevent submissions where themes are simply forks of Dawn with minor adjustments.”

(Here’s the link to that conversation: Shopify Theme Store Forum Board)

Based on that, I decided rebuilding from scratch wasn’t necessary. That said, if this is still likely to be a major issue for submission, I’m willing to rebuild my theme using the Shopify theme skeleton.

7

Hi Vijay,
Glad that you are aware of the submission requirements… Now the Shopify theme store quality bar has been raised very high.. you should have visually distinct design elements and structural uniqueness and the theme should be deliberately designed…

Regards
Muthu

8

Hi Muthu,

Thank you for the clarification, and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the current quality bar for the Theme Store.

I’d love to make sure my theme meets these expectations properly. Could you please guide me on what specific modifications would be needed to achieve visually distinct design elements and structural uniqueness? Any suggestions on which areas — layout, sections, styling, or functionality — I should focus on to make the theme feel more deliberately designed would be extremely helpful.

I’m committed to putting in the work needed to get this right, and your guidance would mean a lot to me.

Thanks again for your time and support.

9

Hi Vijay,

Shopify does not consider the following sufficient:

  • Different colors
  • Different fonts
  • Different spacing
  • Different border radius
  • New animations
  • A few new sections
  • Additional theme settings
  • Slightly different header
  • Reordering existing sections
  • Taking an existing theme architecture and restyling it

Their requirement is that the theme be fundamentally different from other Theme Store themes, including your own themes.

They evaluate uniqueness across the overall experience, including:

  • Header/navigation
  • Product cards
  • Media treatment
  • Page structure

So, I think you should consider changing the design completely..

Regards,
Muthu