Occasionally I answer questions, comment on answers over at Quora.com

Often clients at the beginning of a website project want to buy or have their eye set on a premium WordPress theme.  The demo’s of these themes are always enticing with quality stock imagery, pixel perfect layouts and overall present a perfect version of the theme they’re selling.

However, once you get into the theme and begin on a blank canvas, and more importantly start creating client copy which is very different from the demo, things start getting complicated.

Some pointers before purchasing a WordPress premium theme.

1) Sales & reviews
– bigger the sales volume, better the support and probably better ongoing updates.

2) Theme Panel
– how easy is the theme to customize and roll out. Good themes have a very intuitive and extensive customization panel. You shouldn’t have to hassle with custom css lines.

3) Compatibility
– make sure it can work with what you plan on doing. eg. If you’re rolling out a WooCommerce store, make sure the theme has some decent WooCommerce integration.
– goes without saying, it should be compatible with the latest version of WordPress