Dawn is Shopify’s reference storefront. It is fast, documented, and free. That combination makes it the correct prototype for almost every new catalog. It is also how stores get stuck: the theme was free, the freelancer was not, and the third year of edits still lives in a snippet the theme editor does not expose.
Where Dawn is enough
A sample shop, a two-week leadership review, or a catalog small enough to manage by hand. Write an end date. When the date arrives, choose again.
When to leave
Public ads, more than a couple of hundred SKUs, a second market, or a wholesale price. Those are the rows that change cost. Dawn can display products. It will not finish a company order, and it will not give you industry sections without apps stacked on the same product form.
If you start on Dawn, keep the handles you can keep and redirect the rest. Move to Ariella or an industry DEVDIY theme as an unpublished copy. Check one purchase before you publish.
