Nothing special, for an ecommerce site, was required. I used the WordPress plugin **WooCommerce** along with a pre-existing theme with a few modifications.
* I felt it was difficult to customise, although this may have been at least partly due to my inexperience.
* It doesn't really offer anything over Storefront, the WooCommerce theme from Automattic -- the core developers of WooCommerce itself.
The advantage of using a theme from the actual WooCommerce developers, is that we know it will be written to the same high standard without any compatibility issues and should always be up to date with the latest version of WooCommerce.
It does look a little different, but nothing substantial. Certainly nothing that couldn't be achieved with some customisation of Storefront.
* Doesn't do much to set it above all the other similar looking WooCommerce sites around. It looks clean and fresh, but nothing particularly stands out.
So, I feel it is perfectly fine for someone wishing to set up a WooCommerce with an acceptable theme quickly with little effort.
But, not so good for developers, who will most likely want to customise and would be better off starting with an alternative such as Storefront.
So, If I was to redo the site, I would almost certainly base it on the Storefront theme and include a lot more custom elements.
I feel a problem with WooCommerce is a lot of the sites are similar, with little to differentiate them.
This gives the perfect opportunity to make a site stand out a little more, and make it more engaging, by adding more interesting features.
Of course, it is important such features do not detract from the overall user experience.
We do not want flashy, distracting elements that will take attention away from the important elements.
This is why I feel classy and subtle is always the way to go for ecommerce sites.
