This is a live demo — click the dots. The same popup runs on a Horizon storefront.
What Horizon gives you out of the box
Horizon is the theme generation Shopify now ships by default: launched in 2025, it comes as a family of polished presets and rethinks how pages are built. Instead of rigid pre-defined sections you compose nested theme blocks — blocks inside blocks — and bundle related elements into reusable group blocks. The theme editor also plugs into Shopify's AI: describe a block to Sidekick and the AI block generator writes the Liquid, HTML and CSS for it in seconds.
For imagery that's a real step up. You can build editorial layouts that used to require a page builder: a full-bleed lifestyle image, overlapping text, a product grid beside it — all native, all fast. Plenty of Horizon stores stop there, and if the goal is mood, that's enough.
Where Horizon stops
- The photo itself isn't buyable. No hotspots, no tap-to-see-price — even the fanciest AI-generated block leaves the image as decoration.
- AI blocks are static. The generator produces presentational Liquid and CSS. It doesn't wire up live prices, variant pickers, inventory state or add-to-cart — the moving parts a real Shop the Look needs.
- Shoppers leave to buy. Buttons on image blocks link out to product pages; every extra product in the shot costs another round-trip.
- No set incentive, no proof. Horizon can't discount a look bought together, and it can't tell you which photo earned which orders.
A real Shop the Look completes the sale inside the image. On Horizon there are two ways to get that: custom development on top of the theme's block system, or an app block. The rest of this guide is the app path, which takes minutes and doesn't touch Horizon's code.
Shop the Look on Horizon, in five steps
1. Install the app
Install Hotspot Studio from the App Store. The free plan is enough to publish your first shoppable image, and installation adds nothing to Horizon's theme files — the app is a standard Online Store 2.0 block, so uninstalling later leaves no trace either.
2. Create a section and tag the photo
In the app, create a new section and upload your lifestyle shot — a photo or a short looping video — or start from a template if you want a working layout to edit instead of a blank canvas. Drag a hotspot onto each product in the frame and pick the matching product from your catalog. Popups get the live price, variant picker and add-to-cart automatically; sold-out items say so instead of failing at the cart.
3. Match Horizon's look — and phones
Horizon's presets lean clean and editorial, and the popup should read like part of that. Pick a style preset and tune colors, corners and type — no CSS involved. Two options are worth switching on right away: a separate mobile image (a tighter crop with its own hotspot positions, so dots sit exactly on the products on phones too) and Shop the Look — the one-click buy-the-set button, optionally with a look discount that applies only to items bought from this section.
4. Add the block in Horizon's theme editor
Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize on your Horizon theme. On the page where you want the look, click Add section, open the Apps tab and choose Hotspot Studio. The block follows Horizon's edge-to-edge layout and renders full width like a native section — drag it into position and hit Save. That's the entire theme-side setup.
5. Put looks on product pages automatically
For product pages, add the block to Horizon's product template once. Then, back in the app, assign each section to products, variants or whole collections — the right look shows up on the right product page by itself, and swapping a product's look never means touching the theme editor again. Variant-level assignment even lets the gallery swap when a shopper picks a different colorway.
Tips that matter on this theme
Full width by design
Horizon lays sections out edge-to-edge, and the app block follows — no boxed column, no manual width fixes. It looks native on every preset in the family.
The drawer stays in sync
Horizon's cart drawer is driven and refreshed automatically after every add — from the popup, the variant picker or Shop the Look. One store-wide setting changes the behavior if you want something quieter.
AI blocks + app block
Use Sidekick's generated blocks for what they're great at — decorative layout — and put the selling layer on the photo with hotspots. The two compose cleanly on the same page.
Keep it editorial
Horizon reads minimal and photography-first. Style presets keep popups in that register — quiet colors, soft corners — and markers stay readable on busy photos.
Crop for phones
Upload a tighter mobile image with its own dot positions instead of letting a wide desktop shot shrink. On Horizon's full-bleed layouts the difference is dramatic.
Check the numbers weekly
Attribution shows the funnel per image — impressions to orders to revenue. Keep the photo that sells, reshoot the one that doesn't. That habit beats any layout tweak.
Horizon + Shop the Look, answered
Does Horizon have a built-in Shop the Look section?
No. Horizon's stock sections and blocks can compose a look page — a big lifestyle image with a product grid below it — but nothing in the theme puts tappable hotspots with live prices on the photo itself. To sell from the image you need custom code or an Online Store 2.0 app block.
Can the AI block generator build a Shop the Look block?
Not a real one. Sidekick's AI block generator produces static Liquid, HTML and CSS — great for decorative layouts, but a working Shop the Look needs live prices, variant and inventory state, add-to-cart wiring, separate mobile hotspot positions and revenue attribution. That's app-block territory.
Do I need to edit Horizon's theme code?
No. Hotspot Studio is a standard Online Store 2.0 app block: you add it from the theme editor's Apps tab like any native section. Nothing is injected into Horizon's Liquid, and uninstalling leaves no leftover code.
Does the app block go full width on Horizon?
Yes. Horizon lays sections out edge-to-edge, and the block follows that layout instead of shrinking into a boxed column — it renders full-width like Horizon's own sections, on every preset in the family.
Does add-to-cart work with Horizon's cart drawer?
Yes. A store-wide setting controls what happens after add-to-cart: open the theme's drawer (Horizon's is driven and refreshed automatically), refresh the cart quietly, or do nothing special. Pick what matches the rest of your store.
Does this work on every Horizon preset and other OS 2.0 themes?
Yes. Everything in this guide applies to the whole Horizon family and to any Online Store 2.0 theme, including Dawn and the many themes built on its architecture. The app block is added the same way from the theme editor.
Shop the Look for Shopify
The theme-agnostic guide: why looks lift average order value and what a converting section needs.
Shop the Look on Dawn
The same step-by-step for Shopify's classic reference theme — what Dawn can do alone and where the app takes over.
Shoppable video
Every slot takes a video too — hotspots on a looping clip is one of the strongest hero patterns.
Make your Horizon store shoppable today
Free plan included, paid plans from $7.99/mo with a 7-day trial — and the photo you already have is enough to start.