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A Detailed Analysis To Study The Cost Of An Ecommerce Website Development

In today’s time, eCommerce websites have become some of the best ways to make money online. However, in order to get your site up and running, you need to get your website developed from a professional agency. With this comes the question of which the entire blog is all about and that is – ‘What is the cost of e-commerce website development?’

The question is a little tricky but is quite relevant. Online store websites have become so popular these days, that people are increasingly getting interested in knowing about the price of their development. 

In the end, such ecommerce platforms can increase the profitability of your ‘offline’ business and can also be the major source of your income. This is the reason why so many entrepreneurs today are trying their best to figure out how to build an ecommerce website at no extra cost.

Understanding and realizing the cost of developing an ecommerce website is crucial as it helps you to calculate the investment that you will require so as to begin your new online business idea. 

The challenge here, however, is the fact that there are a number of factors that are involved in the development of an ecommerce website, and all of them will somehow affect the overall cost of your online business. 

When you don’t have a clear action plan in place, you can easily end up overspending for your project. But, do not fret… 

Here, in this blog, we will provide you with all the information you need to analyze the cost of an ecommerce website development. We will also share with you ways so as to avoid overspending in the process and maximize profits.

So, let’s get started…

Things You Need To Consider Before You Start An Ecommerce Website 

First and foremost, you should try to create your own ecommerce business plan. This should be the very first thing to think about. Without any plan, it would get really difficult to figure out what to consider, where to start, what you can economize on and many such aspects. Therefore, we would strongly suggest that you spend some good time reflecting on your ecommerce business strategy. 

Key Steps For Ecommerce Website Development

  • Objective of Ecommerce Website Development 

Before figuring out the process to develop an ecommerce website, the first step is to determine your objective. The more precise the task is, the cheaper and faster the process of ecommerce website development will eventually be. 

This simply means that as the business owner, you must clearly understand what exactly you expect from your resource, how it should appear, and what you want to achieve from it. 

Below are some of the questions you should try answering:

  • What kind of ecommerce website are you expecting to build?
  • What is your budget for ecommerce web development? 
  • Do you already have a brick and mortar store and just wish to increase your profits via digitalization? Or, perhaps, you simply plan to sell your products and services through your website?
  • What would be the size of your project? Will it be scalable?
  • What are your shipping options?

There can be many more such questions for ecommerce web development which one should have clear answers for before starting with the project. However, these five questions are enough to begin. 

Know that you can carry out your project at a high level only when you understand what you want to get as a result. In case, developers fail to understand what exactly you expect from them, you’ll ultimately end up being disappointed. 

Thus, it is imperative to first clarify your goals and objective and only then proceed further to build the online store. This is the only way to succeed at your plan. 

  • Domain Name and Website Hosting 

These two are one of the most important aspects of a website development which people often overlook. You shall not make this mistake and have a closer look at these two crucial factors. 

A domain name should be the one which is consistent with your project or company name, easily pronounced, easy to memorize and should be free. When we talk about your brand, it should represent one of the successful online stores. 

The hosting of your website must ensure the proper performance. There are three options such as Shared hosting, Virtual Private/Dedicated Server (VPS/VDS) and Dedicated Server. 

  • SSL Certificate

Now, the question is how to make your online store trustworthy and reliable? This question needs to be taken care of beforehand as you are here dealing with payments. 

We recommend you to take assistance from an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) that provides secure data transmission via authentication and encryption technologies. 

The SSL protocol is the guarantee of the absence of even the slightest threats or danger of hacker attacks during your server’s interaction with the visitor’s browser. It helps to transmit the coded data via HTTPS. In order to return information to the decoded format, one must take advantage of a secret digital key. 

This entire operation requires the installation of the SSL certificate, which is a unique virtual document characterizing the online store website’s level of security. 

Depending on the validation required, there are three types of SSL certificates – Domain Validation, Business Validation and Extended Validation. Know that only the Extended Validation certificates provide a website with a green address bar in the browser. 

  • Payment Gateway

The cost of ecommerce website development is not the only significant factor. It is also crucial that your resource be profitable. Thus, you need to think about the payment system – a payment gateway and credit card processor. For instance, try taking the help of websites like 2checkout.com and Authorize.net.

To organize a secure payment system is never an easy task. One needs to spend a lot of time in order to get approval so as to use this technology. However, there’s simply no way to avoid this laborious process. It’s the only way to figure out how to develop a successful ecommerce website. 

  • Marketing and Promotion Strategy 

The promotion of your resource is a critical step. To put it simply, you must have an outstanding ecommerce marketing strategy in place. 

There are a number of ways available so as to popularize your resource and draw new customers such as affiliate programs, SEO optimization, Google Shopping Campaign, banner and context advertising, and much more. 

Furthermore, we recommend you to pay attention to such resources as PitchBox, which is aimed at providing help to companies and brands to make their web content popular, and HARO, which guarantees the best media coverage. 

Additionally, you must also not lose sight of the social networks and the numerous opportunities they provide. It is just not enough to integrate with Instagram, Facebook, and other similar resources. Creating a specialized page of your brand or company in all key social networks is also important. This would not only represent your brand, but would also demonstrate the product catalog, as well as advertise the ecommerce website.  

Thus, in the process of ecommerce website development, integrating additional marketing tools has its own importance which you need to address before starting the work. 

Factors That Influence The Cost of Ecommerce Website Development

So, now after understanding the various steps involved in the making of an ecommerce website, it’s time to understand the various factors that majorly affect the cost of ecommerce website development. Although there are many more factors, we will discuss three major ones here. Let’s break down the individual factors and study about each one of them. 

1. Ecommerce Platforms 

Based on the complexity of the ecommerce platform and the licensing costs, the costs of the ecommerce website development may vary dramatically. There are integrated solutions on the ERP systems, industry-oriented solutions, and SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings which have been designed so as to make the business owners comfortable to setup and configure themselves. 

At the lowest cost, when you don’t require any help from outside, some SaaS offerings begin at $20-$30 per month. More customizable and configurable offerings such as Magento and Magento Enterprise are not designed to be set up by a business owner without the help of an expert. Thus, at a minimum, you are most likely to invest $5,000 with a sound domestic vendor just to set up your online store and do basic configuration as well as training.

2. Ecommerce Website Design Pricing 

Your ecommerce website’s overall design is yet another important factor to consider for success. 

Think of your site’s design as the first impression that you make on new customers. In case your design appears outdated or sloppy, potential customers will assume your company to be the same way.

This means that you’ll straightaway lose out on customers left and right. Thus, to avoid this, you require a web design that fits your brand perfectly. 

Web designs are divided frequently into four categories – Simple, Moderately Stylized, High End, and then World Class. 

When it comes to Simple websites, there aren’t many surprises that you could expect. However, it’s a solid start to a website. 

With Moderately Stylized sites, there are a few liberties associated such as a more robust color scheme, extra graphics, or some other additional design elements. 

High End websites can be distinguished by a more professional appearance. They are simply clean-cut having high-resolution images with color schemes that are suitable for the primary demographic of the website. 

And then, finally, we have World Class websites that are designed so as to go above and beyond any competition by leveraging high-resolution images, videos, interactive elements, and a complete range of intuitive features. 

Although, you don’t really require a World Class website, but yes, you do require a great content to go with. 

If you simply wish to serve your customer base, then a simple or moderately stylized website would work fine for you. 

On the other hand, if you are looking forward to being next to Amazon and earn awards, then definitely a world class website is the perfect choice for you. 

3. Ecommerce Website Add-ons and Extensions 

Including all the features you need into one software is simply not possible for an ecommerce platform. Even if tried somehow, things would get really messy and it would become difficult to use the software. 

In order to fix this issue, most of the ecommerce softwares is developed with a modular approach. This allows for the extension of the core software using add-ons and apps.

These extensions or add-ons enable you to add new features to your ecommerce website and thus extend its functionality. Many of these add-ons and extensions are paid and purchasing them will increase the cost of ecommerce website development. 

Closure

Hope this blog provides you with the much required idea on the cost of the ecommerce website development. 

Do you also have a new online business idea? And, are you looking for a good ecommerce development company to bring your idea into reality? Then, know that we are right here to assist you as your tech partner. 

You just need to drop us an email describing your requirements and rest assured that our team will reach out to you very shortly with the right solution.

Puneet Singh Raghav

Hey, this is Puneet Singh Raghav. An Experienced Digital Marketing specialist (Sr. Executive) with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Landing Page Optimization, Website Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Google Analytics & Reporting.

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