If you have just created your store on Salla, you have two ways to design it: guided steps that build a simple storefront for you, or advanced customization inside a theme you choose. Either way, the right order saves you hours of redoing work: decide the theme before the colors, prepare your materials before you open Customize (تخصيص), and design for the phone before the computer.

This guide does not cover color theory or logo design; Salla covers those in its guide to designing online stores (in Arabic). Here we focus on what you do inside your store's dashboard, and in what order.

Full disclosure: we at AfterAds make the Angel theme. It has its own section near the end of this article.

Simple or advanced design?

When you set up a new store, Salla offers guided design steps that start with choosing a storefront style (Designing your store with guided steps, in Arabic, updated 3 September 2026):

  • Simple design: you choose Simple Storefront (واجهة بسيطة), and Salla builds a design automatically from your answers in three steps.
  • Advanced design: you control every detail of the theme, from colors and fonts to how content is laid out.

The three steps of the simple design are:

  • Store identity: logo, description, color and font.
  • Trust: your exchange and return period, links to your social accounts, and your business-platform certificate number for stores in Saudi Arabia.
  • Home page: banners, customer reviews and store features.

You can switch from simple to advanced at any time with Go to Advanced Customization (الانتقال للتخصيص المتقدم).

Which one should you pick? Simple suits you if you want to launch within days with a few products and come back to the details later. Advanced suits you if you have chosen a specific theme, prepared its materials, and want to control the order of every section. The rest of this guide follows the advanced route.

Decide the theme first

Choose the theme first, because every theme has its own settings and elements. Theme settings and home-page sections do not carry over as they are to another theme, so switching themes a week into your design means rebuilding the home page.

Pick a theme from your industry, and try it on your store before you buy it if your plan allows. To judge themes against clear criteria and measure their mobile speed, follow our guide to choosing a Salla theme.

What to prepare before you open Customize

Gather your materials in one folder before you start. Design work usually stalls because an image or a line of text is missing, not because a setting is hard.

  • Logo: a version with a transparent background, and a light version that shows on dark backgrounds if your theme supports dark mode.
  • Product photos: one aspect ratio and similar backgrounds, so cards line up on the category page. Decide the ratio once, square for example, and stick to it.
  • Banners: in the sizes your theme's documentation gives, plus a phone version if the theme accepts one. Do not guess the size: a banner in the wrong ratio gets cropped or leaves gaps.
  • Short texts: one line per banner, three or four facts for your store features such as delivery time, return period and payment methods, and a short "About us" text.
  • Category list: with the words your customers search for, in two levels at most, since Salla allows a main category and a subcategory.

The first screen on a phone

Open your store on your phone and do not scroll. What you see now is what your customer decides on: the logo, the menu, search, the cart, and the first element of the home page.

Three rules for this screen:

  • A product in two taps: your customer should reach a category or a product in one or two taps from the first screen, through the menu or the first element.
  • One message: if you open with a slider, make the first slide enough on its own, and do not put an important offer on the third slide.
  • Readable text: text baked into a banner image shrinks on a phone screen, and search engines do not read it as text. Use the text fields in the banner element if your theme renders them as text, as we explain in our guide to Salla store SEO.

The menu is part of this screen. Put your main categories in it with short names your customers know, and leave pages such as "About us" and your policies for the footer. A long menu on a phone makes your customer scroll instead of buy.

Then order the remaining elements by what your customers look for, for example: categories, then best sellers, then offers, then customer reviews. Start with a few elements, and add one when you have a reason for it. Each extra element makes the page longer and adds images your customer's phone has to load.

To preview at phone width on a computer, open the developer tools in Chrome and press Ctrl+Shift+M. But a real phone in your hand has the final say.

Colors and fonts that stay readable

  • One main color: pick one color from your identity for buttons and links, and keep the rest of the page neutral. When everything is colored, the buy button stops standing out.
  • Enough contrast: normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (WCAG 2.2). Check text on buttons and on banners too.
  • A clear Arabic font: test it on prices, option buttons and the footer, the smallest text in your store. Make sure numbers and the riyal symbol display clearly.
  • Dark mode: if you turn it on, open every page in it and make sure the logo, prices and text are readable.

Some identity items are set in Salla, not in the theme: the store name, the logo, the browser-tab icon and the store color. Salla explains them in Customizing your store identity (in Arabic), and they stay with you if you change themes later. Start with them, then move on to the theme's colors and fonts.

Apply your identity the same way everywhere. If your buy buttons use a particular color, do not use that color on something that cannot be tapped. If you chose a font for headings, do not add a third font in your banners. Customers learn how your store looks from the first page, and expect to find it the same on the next.

Product and category pages: where customers decide

The home page draws your customer in, but the decision happens on the product page. Review it on a phone with these questions:

  • Does the first image show the whole product clearly?
  • Do the name, price and add-to-cart button appear without long scrolling?
  • Are options such as size and color clear and easy to tap?
  • Does the start of the description give what your customer needs to decide, such as size, material and delivery time?
  • Can they find your return and exchange policy without searching for it?

The category page is your customer's path to the product. Salla allows two levels of categories, and one product can sit in up to 15 categories. Category images show only in some themes (Managing product categories, in Arabic, updated 31 August 2026). So name categories in your customers' words, make sure filters and sorting work on a phone, and check how your theme displays categories before you upload images for them.

Preview and publish without surprises

Do not design on the published copy of your theme. In Store Design (تصميم المتجر) you can duplicate a theme copy, customize it, preview it, then publish it (Managing and customizing themes, in Arabic). You cannot delete the published copy until you publish another one.

Salla's help center describes two kinds of publishing (Default and custom theme publishing, in Arabic):

  • Default: the copy shows to all customers.
  • Custom: the copy shows to customers in a specific country, city or language.

You can also schedule publishing for a set time, so pick a quiet hour. Before you publish, go through this list:

  • You browsed the full customer path on your phone: home, then a category, then a product, then the cart.
  • Every link in the menu and the footer opens a page that exists.
  • The English version is sound, if your store runs in two languages.
  • No sample text from the theme is left, such as a heading or description you did not change.

Your store is live? Where to start improving

If your store is already running, do not start by redesigning everything. Open it on your phone the way a new customer would, and answer three questions:

  • Did you reach a product in two taps?
  • Did the first screen tell you what the store sells?
  • Were the pages fast? Measure them with the method in our guide to choosing a theme, on the home page, a category page and a product page.

Pick the weakest answer, improve it in a duplicated theme copy, then publish and measure again. One change at a time tells you what made the difference. If you need something your theme settings do not offer, read our guide to custom CSS on Salla before you write a line.

Designing with Angel

This section is about our own theme.

If your store runs on the Angel theme, these documentation pages shorten the steps above:

  • Home page: Angel adds its own elements alongside Salla's, listed in Home page elements.
  • Banners: in the «صور متحركة (ملاك)» (banner slider) element you choose «مقاس البنر الأساسي» (main banner size) and «مقاس البنر في الجوال» (phone banner size), and the element's documentation gives the right image size for each option.
  • Dark mode: you choose «مظهر الثيم» (theme appearance) and upload «شعار المتجر في المظهر الداكن» (store logo in dark mode), as described in Dark mode.

Read the Angel page to see what the theme offers, or write to us with your question before you start.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a designer to design my Salla store?

Not necessarily. The theme provides the base design, and you choose colors, fonts and elements in its settings. You may need a designer for your logo and banners if you have no materials ready.

Can I start with the simple design and move to advanced later?

Yes. Salla lets you switch to advanced customization at any time from the design page.

How many elements should my home page have?

There is no fixed number. Start with what takes your customers to categories and products, add an element when you have a reason, and check page speed after each addition.

Do my customers see changes while I work?

No, if you work on an unpublished theme copy. Your store stays as it is until you publish the new copy.

Can I schedule when a new design goes live?

Yes. Salla lets you schedule publishing a theme copy for a time you choose.

What is the difference between designing and improving a store?

Designing builds the pages the first time. Improving starts from a live store: you measure, change one thing, then measure again.

Your next step

Gather your materials in one folder today: the logo, photos of five products in one ratio, one banner in your theme's size, and three facts for your store features. Then duplicate your theme copy and start with the first screen on a phone. If you have not created your store yet, start with our guide to creating a Salla store.

Last reviewed: 27 October 2026.