How to replace the demo content that ships with the theme

Last checked against Splash 1.0.0 / 2026-08-15

The home page you see after installing Splash is not preview data. Its heading, its category tiles, its six customer quotes and its four certification numbers are saved inside the theme, and they are your live storefront until you edit them. The same is true of the announcement bar, the mega menu panels, the footer, three FAQ sets, the contact form, the quote form and a block of theme settings.

What ships, and what does not#

Three different things happen to demo content on your store, and it helps to know which is which before you start.

Note The logo, the favicon and the seven social profile fields ship empty on purpose, so you do not inherit the demo store's marks. Filling them is covered in Apply your brand.

Everything below is reached from Shopify admin, Online Store, Themes, then Customize. Work through it in order and the store is clean when you reach the end.

Home page#

Open the theme editor with Home page selected in the template picker. Six sections carry demo content.

Masthead#

The Caption field ships empty. Four Highlight blocks sit under the hero: Premium Materials (Warranty icon), 25 Year Warranty (Verified), Expert Installation (Wrench) and Free Delivery (Shipping). Each is a claim about the demo store. Rewrite them, or delete the blocks and the row disappears.

Check Free Delivery against your own rates. The announcement bar qualifies the same claim as Free delivery over $500 and Theme settings publishes a $500 threshold to search engines, while the highlight states it without a limit. Each Highlight block carries an unused Text field, which is where a qualifier goes.

Replacing the hero photographs is covered in Set up the home page, including the sizes each of the three slots wants.

Collection index#

The section is headed Shop by category. It ships with the caption Browse, the intro "Each range carries the one figure that decides it.", Show category images turned on, Show product count turned off, and six Collection blocks.

Each block's Hint label is deliberately empty and the value carries its own unit, because the label is dropped on narrow phone tiles. Keep that habit: write 26–160 GPM, not 26–160 with a label.

What failure looks like: on a store without those six collection handles, every tile is skipped and the entire section, heading included, renders nothing on the storefront. It still appears in the theme editor, which is how you can tell it is a missing collection rather than a missing section. Point each block at one of your own collections, or delete the blocks and set Collections to show instead.

Requires The photo tiles read the image set on the collection itself, in Shopify admin under Products, Collections. They never fall back to a product photograph. A collection with no image keeps its tile at full size and draws the dashed empty-slot panel inside the frame, so the row keeps one shape.

Featured products#

Caption Best sellers, an intro describing SKUs and stock counts, Collection pointing at a collection handled best-sellers, and Products to show set to 6.

What failure looks like: with no such collection, the section falls back to every product in your store in no meaningful order, and the view-all link points at your full catalog. It looks populated, which is why this one is easy to miss.

Testimonials#

Six quotes ship, and every name, place, year and product link in them was invented for the demo store.

Replace them with your own, or delete the blocks. A block with an empty Quote field shows nothing, and when no quote has text the whole section disappears from the storefront, so clearing the six is a safe way to switch the section off while you gather real ones. The section heading and caption are "What owners report" and Owners.

The product link is optional, and a deleted product drops the link without affecting the quote. Splash publishes no star rating and no review markup from these quotes, which is explained in What Splash never invents.

Quote request band#

Heading "Custom pool design and construction", the tagline "High-ticket work is handled with a considered quote, not a cart. Share your site and your plans, and a designer replies with a measured proposal.", button label "Start a quote request" pointing at the page handled quote-request, and the note "No obligation. Typical reply in 2 business days." The image slot points at a demo file and is empty on your store.

The note is a promise about reply time. Change it to yours or clear it.

Certifications#

Four marks ship, with Show verified badge turned on for each. They name real accreditation bodies with reference numbers that were invented for the demo store and will not check out.

Replace all four with credentials you hold, or delete the blocks and the band disappears. If you hold a credential but do not want to publish its number, clear the Reference number field: it is optional, and the mark, caption and verified tick still show. Turn Show verified badge off for anything you cannot evidence.

The section caption and heading are Authority and "Certified, and published as evidence", with an intro that promises a reader can check the reference. Do not leave that sentence over marks you have emptied.

Header#

Open the Header group in the editor sidebar. It holds two sections.

Announcement bar#

Five messages ship.

All three left-hand claims are the demo store's terms and the two figures are its numbers. The warranty term, the free delivery threshold and the servicing claim each need to match what you actually offer, and the $500 here should agree with the threshold in Theme settings.

Track order links to the typed path /account. It works if customer accounts are enabled on your store. If they are not, repoint or delete the message.

Trade program points at a page reference. On a store with no page handled trade-program, the message still shows but as plain, non-clickable text rather than disappearing, so a reader sees a dead label. Create the page, repoint the link, or delete the block.

Note The announcement bar has no preset, so it does not appear in the Add section list and cannot be added back once deleted. Hide it with the eye icon instead.

Header mega menu panels#

Two Mega menu blocks ship. Each attaches itself to a top-level navigation item by matching the Menu item field against the item's name. Capitalization and surrounding spaces are ignored, so EQUIPMENT and Equipment both attach, but the words themselves have to match. The shipped values are Equipment and Pools, so on a store whose menu uses other words, both blocks attach to nothing and no featured panel appears.

What failure looks like: the Equipment panel's link is a typed URL, not a collection reference, so it cannot fall back. Without a collection handled pumps it leads to a 404 page. This is the one demo value that produces a hard error rather than a quiet blank. Fix it or delete the block.

The Header section also ships Popular searches menu set to a menu handled popular-searches. Without that menu the search panel opens with the field alone and no suggestions, which is a working state. Building it, and building the menus the mega panels sit on, is covered in Navigation and mega menus.

Footer#

Open the Footer group. Two values are the demo store's.

• Brand, Text reads "Measured luxury for swimming pools and outdoor living."
• Newsletter, Heading reads "Get 10% off your first order".

The Menu setting points at a menu handled footer. Without it the footer shows only the brand column and the newsletter column.

Requires The newsletter form collects an email address and tags the contact newsletter. It creates no discount code and sends no email. If you keep the 10% heading, set up a matching discount under Shopify admin, Discounts, and an email automation that sends it. Otherwise change the heading, or use the default wording "Newsletter".

Theme settings#

Open Theme settings from the bottom of the editor sidebar. Three groups carry demo values.

Product specs#

The three specification slots ship pointing at metafields that exist on the demo store.

These are pool pump measurements. Either create product metafield definitions with those exact namespaces and keys, or point the settings at definitions you already have.

What failure looks like: nothing at all. A key that matches no definition and a product with no value look identical, with no error and no empty-state message. Show specifications on product cards ships off, so turning it on before the metafields exist changes nothing visible either. The whole subject is covered in Show your specifications.

Quote requests#

The tag and the button label are generic and can stay. The note is a promise about reply time: make it yours. The page reference is the one that matters most.

What failure looks like: until a page with that handle exists, every quote button in the store links to your home page. There is no broken link and no error, so it looks like the buttons work. Create the page, assign it the quote theme template, and confirm this setting points at it. See Quote-only products.

Shipping and returns#

These live under SEO and structured data. Both switches ship turned on, carrying the demo store's terms. The theme's own defaults for both are off, so this is shipped content rather than a default you can restore by resetting.

Every one of these appears on your product pages and is also sent to search engines as structured data. Publishing another store's return window and shipping rates is the single highest-cost item on this page. Either correct all thirteen values or turn both switches off until you are ready. Shipping, returns and search engine details covers what each field means and what search engines require.

Product template#

Switch the template picker to Products, then the default product template, and open the Product section.

Arranging and removing these blocks is covered in Arrange the product page.

Collections list page#

Switch the template picker to Collections list. The Collections grid section ships with its Menu setting pointing at a menu handled category-directory. Without that menu the page lists every collection that holds products, alphabetically, which will include any collection you use as a mechanism rather than a category, such as the one feeding the featured products row. Either build a menu of the collections you want listed, in the order you want them, or clear the setting and accept the alphabetical list. See Collection and search pages.

Global FAQ#

The Global FAQ group appears in the editor sidebar on every template. Three sets ship, and all three are written about pools.

Rewrite the questions, or delete the sets you do not want. Each set can be pointed at different page types, which is covered in Add FAQs.

Contact page#

Switch the template picker to Pages, then the contact template. The whole form is demo content, and the column beside it carries the demo store's real-looking contact details.

• Headings: page heading "Contact us", caption Contact, form heading "Send us a message", button "Send message", fine print "We reply within one business day", and a success message repeating that promise.
• A dropdown, What can we help with?, with the answers General inquiry, Request a call back and After purchase. Eight fields below it appear and disappear based on that answer.
• A section break inside the After purchase branch reading "Returns are free within 30 days. We email a prepaid label once we have your order number." That is a policy statement, not layout text.
• Phone: (555) 018-4400, linked as tel:+15550184400, noted "Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm PT".
• Email: support@splash.example, linked as a mailto. This address does not exist and cannot receive mail.
• Showroom: 1420 Cascade Ave, Portland, OR 97209, noted "Open Sat 10am-4pm".
• Opening hours: Monday to Friday 8:00 to 18:00, Saturday 10:00 to 16:00, Sunday closed.
• A Callout headed "Looking for a build?" with a Request a quote button pointing at the page handled quote-request.

Replace the three contact methods and the hours before the store opens. Everything else can stay as a starting shape. Editing the fields is covered in Build the quote request form and Conditional form fields.

Quote page#

Still under Pages, switch to the quote template. The form that ships is written for a pool builder.

• Headings: page heading "Request a quote", form heading "Tell us about your project", button "Submit request", fine print "No obligation · We reply within 2 business days".
• Fields: Full name, Email, Pool length and Pool width, both numbers carrying the unit ft, and Project type with the answers New construction, Renovation, and Spa or hot tub.
• Age of the existing pool appears only when Project type is Renovation.

The two dimension fields and the project type answers are the parts to rewrite for what you actually quote. A field's label is also what a conditional field matches on, so if you rename Project type, update the field that depends on it in the same pass.

Empty-slot and translated wording#

While an image slot is empty, the panel in its place names the subject it expects: "Outdoor pool, luxury imagery panel" on the hero and "Custom pool build, outdoor living" on the quote band. These disappear the moment you upload a picture. If you want to change the wording rather than fill the slot, it lives in the editor under Actions, then Edit default theme content, not in a section setting.

Check your work#

When you think you are done, run this pass rather than trusting the list.

1. Preview the home page, a collection, a product, the cart, search results, the contact page and the quote page, at desktop width and at phone width. The category tiles and the testimonials behave differently on a phone, and an empty section shows in the editor but not on the storefront.
2. Use your storefront's own search, and your browser's find-on-page, for the word pool. It appears in FAQ answers, form labels, empty-slot panels and section text, which are the places most often missed.
3. Search for Splash. It survives in handles more often than in visible copy.
4. Look for any figure you did not type: $500, $49, 10%, 25 Year, 10 yr, 30 days, 26–160, (555) 018-4400.
5. Open any product page and read the Shipping and returns band end to end. Those exact words are also what search engines are being told.
6. Click every button on the home page and every pinned link in the announcement bar. A quote button that lands on the home page means the quote page reference is still unresolved.

If something still reads as demo content and you cannot find the setting behind it, Section and block reference lists every block by section, and Theme settings reference lists every global setting. Support is there if it is neither.

Something wrong here If a step does not match what you see, say so and it gets fixed. Documentation goes stale, which is why the line under the title carries a date.