Moving on with the #ThemeThursday series, where I take a look at a lesser-known WordPress premium theme seller. Today we’ll focus on CPO Themes.
CPO Themes is managed by Manuel Vicedo. Even though the theme shop is relatively new, the company itself started back in mid-2000s as a web design agency. There is also a very lucrative affiliate program, which earns you 40% of each sale.
Theme Features
CPO Themes currently offers 13 themes, 4 of which are free. That’s not the largest collection of themes out there, but it is gradually rising. Within a few months, it is likely that CPO Themes will have many more offerings in its stable.
In terms of features, all the themes are fully responsive, cross-browser compatible, customizable and SEO friendly. Need custom shortcodes or custom page templates? CPO Themes will not disappoint you. How about localization-ready themes? You got it—and most of the themes come with Spanish translation right out of the box!
However, a general look at the collection left me confused in terms of design diversity—especially when I took a closer look at the themes that CPO Themes had sent me for review.
The themes are not, in any way, lacking in design or code. Yet, I believe that almost the entire collection could use a minor face-lift to bring them up to speed with recent design trends. Even the most minimal themes are just too loaded. The blogging themes, for instance, make little to no use of post formats and other bloggers’ features. Instead, that gigantic slider against a heavy background is super-imposed across all the themes.
More importantly, most of the theme designs look the same. CPO Themes’ forte is probably corporate/business style themes. This is a good forte to have, especially considering that not many theme shops focus on this genre of WordPress themes.
Pricing
CPO Themes have an extremely simple pricing plan: $60 per annum for a subscription, which entitles you to all existing themes as well as themes that are released during the life span of your subscription, coupled with premium support.
To be sure, $60 per annum is way cheaper than most other club membership plans out there. There are currently just 13 themes on offer, although with new themes being released every month, that number will surely rise. As of now (13 themes for $60/year), you are getting each theme for less than $5 per year, which is a pretty decent bargain. Note that there is no refund policy.
Support
Support is offered via forums (both English and Spanish, albeit the Spanish forum hardly has any activity). Each theme has its own forum thread, and you can ask questions regarding both free and premium themes (the latter is answered on priority, as expected). While the quoted response time is 24 hours for premium forum threads, on most occasions that I noticed, questions were responded to within a couple of hours on weekdays (and generally not at all on weekends, just in case you’re curious).
Theme documentation is divided into 3 sections: the first deals with general information and basic tips, the second covers shortcodes at length, and the third is about troubleshooting and known issues. Most of the documentation is in the form of “master articles”—there are no special docs for individual themes, nor are there any visual guides or installation videos. You have articles such as “Solving 404 Errors” or “The Theme Fails to Install,” which offer general advice that can be applied to almost any WordPress theme.
There are some special pages that help you customize your themes, such as Multi Language Integration. Yet, some screenshots or videos would have added another star to the documentation.
Verdict
So, how do CPO Themes perform overall?
Pros
- Special themes for corporate/business websites
- Competitive pricing ($60 per year)
- Localization (with Spanish translations out of the box)
- Good forum activity
- Bilingual support
Cons
- Repetitive and boring designs
- Documentation lacks even basic screenshots (no videos either)
While experienced in custom web design projects, CPO Themes have only recently started dealing in WordPress themes. The number of themes in their collection is rising—and with features like bilingual support and out of the box Spanish translation, they are surely a theme provider worth checking out! Furthermore, $60 per annum is not going to break the bank.
On the downside, I would have preferred to see more elaborate documentation—adding the odd video or two would make a visible improvement. More importantly, CPO Themes need to either present themselves as a theme shop specializing in WordPress theme design for business/corporate websites, or start offering some diversity in their designs.
With that, we come to the end of another instalment of #ThemeThursday. Also, if you haven’t done it already, be sure to check out the previous parts of this series: ThemeFurnace, ColorLabs & Company, DevPress and Okay Themes.
What are your thoughts on CPO Themes? Share them with us in the comment section below!
Sufyan bin Uzayr is a freelance writer and Linux enthusiast. He writes for several print magazines as well as technology blogs, and has also authored a book named Sufism: A Brief History. His primary areas of interest include open source, mobile development and web CMS. He is also the Editor of an e-journal named Brave New World. You can visit his website, follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook and Google+.
No Comments