Poster hero, motion & card upgrades

The Theme Builder recently gained four upgrades that make your storefront feel bigger and sell harder: a Poster layout for the Hero Banner, a Heading scale choice, an Animations toggle, and smarter product cards. Everything below is live the moment you click Save & publish, and every default keeps your store looking exactly as it does today.

Poster hero — text over image

Your Hero Banner can now put your words directly on top of your photo.

1. Open the Theme Builder, go to the Pages tab with Home selected, and click your Hero Banner section.
2. Under Layout, pick Poster — text over image.
3. Your first slide’s image becomes a full-bleed background, with the headline, subheadline, and button sitting over it.

Fine-tune how it looks:

• Text position — place the text block on the left, center, or right.
• Overlay strength (0–90%) — darken the photo so light text stays readable on busy images.
• Text color — optional; set it if the automatic choice doesn’t suit your photo.

No image yet? The section renders a tasteful dark gradient instead, so your headline and button still look right from day one.

Tip: Photos with one clear subject and some empty sky or wall work best — raise the overlay strength if your text fights with the picture.

Heading scale

Want bigger, bolder headlines?

1. Open the Design tab.
2. Under Style, find Heading scale.
3. Choose Balanced (the default) or Dramatic.

Dramatic uses fluid sizes that grow with the screen — section titles, category page headers, and the product name on product pages all get a big editorial look. Balanced is exactly what your store shows today, so switching is safe to try and easy to undo.

Tip: Dramatic shines when titles are short. If your section headings run long, preview on mobile before publishing.

Animations

A single toggle adds gentle motion to your store:

1. Open the Design tab.
2. In the layout area, turn on Animations.
3. Choose a Motion intensity — Subtle or Normal.
4. Click Save & publish.

When it’s on, sections softly reveal as shoppers scroll down, and product cards get softer shadows with a gentle lift on hover. It’s off by default, and it switches itself off automatically for shoppers whose devices prefer reduced motion — those visitors simply see your store without movement.

Subtle keeps every reveal short and small; Normal gives the same effects a little more travel. Existing stores are unaffected until you change a setting yourself.

Motion per section

Every section now has a Motion group in its settings, so you can decide how each block arrives:

• Reveal — Use global setting (the default), Fade up, Fade, Slide from left, Slide from right, Zoom, or None to keep that one section still.
• Stagger items — on grid-style sections (product grids, Banner Row, Trust Badges, Testimonials, Category Showcase), items appear one after another instead of all at once.

Hero motion

The Hero Banner gets two extras of its own:

• Slow zoom on poster image — a slow, gentle drift (Ken Burns) on the Poster layout’s background photo.
• Slide transition (slider hero only) — Fade, Slide, or None, plus a transition duration.

Small touches that come free

With Animations on, a few details polish themselves with no settings needed: linked banners zoom slightly on hover, product-description tabs and accordions fade in, the header’s category menu fades open, the sticky header picks up a shadow once you scroll, the cart badge pops when its count changes, and buttons press down on tap.

All of it respects the “reduce motion” setting on a shopper’s phone or computer. The merchant mobile app’s Theme Builder has the same Animations toggle and Motion intensity choice.

Tip: Leave it on only if it feels calm in the preview. Motion should draw the eye to your products, not away from them.

Product cards that do more

Every product card across your store now carries three quiet upgrades:

• Second photo on hover — if a product has two or more images, desktop shoppers see the next photo when they point at the card.
• “Only N left” pill — an amber low-stock notice appears when stock is 5 or fewer. It needs Track inventory turned on for the product.
• Wishlist heart — a heart icon on every card lets shoppers save items; their picks live in their account, or in local storage if they’re not signed in.

Tip: Give your best sellers a second photo — a back view or the product in use — so the hover effect has something good to show.

What’s next

• Build your homepage.
• Customize your store (Theme Builder).