eCommerce is one of the online business where you can surely succeed with the right strategy and with the help of accurate ecommerce website development techniques, you would be reaching your business goals in no time.
But the main questions that comes in mind while going for eCommerce development are:
How much is the investment for the business? And how much does an ecommerce web development cost?
The answer to the first question is something which you could find anywhere, but when you try to know how much an ecommerce website costs, you get so many different answers, which would eventually confuse you.
The reason you get so many different answers is that there are that many different options and methods while budgeting for an ecommerce website. When you want your website built by someone, you would go online and look upon two options: either a best ecommerce development company or a freelancer.
Not many go to a freelancer because of the complications and reliability.
And If you approach an ecommerce marketplace, you need to be prepared to answer the below questions.
- What are your goals with your site?
- How big will be your product range?
- What kind of products would you be selling?
- Who is your target audience?
- What demographics are you targeting?
Okay, so these are just the basic questions you need to know yourself, which would help you and the web development company design and build your website with ease, and you both would be on the same page of this project.
Answers to these questions will help you, and the web development company coordinate easily and help build your ecommerce website faster and hassle-free.
Factors that contribute to the cost
Many factors contribute to the final cost of your ecommerce website. Things such as
- Design
- Custom functionality
- Web hosting
- Marketing
- Ecommerce Development company
- Platforms
These are the primary factors that would either add up or decrease the cost of your ecommerce website.
Before we start factors, you might also be interested in knowing “12 Must Have Pages On Your Ecommerce Site”
Design
The website’s design entirely depends on the platform you choose or suggested by the company you have approached.
There are hundreds on platforms in which your website could be built. We cannot judge that a platform is wrong because different platforms are for different types of businesses, and your mission is to choose the right one for your business.
All the platforms indeed come with Pros and Cons, but nothing could stop you when you could find a platform with your requirements.
But there is an alternative that would save you from this hassle of finding the right platform, which is the custom ecommerce development.
Custom ecommerce development is something where an ecommerce website development company builds a custom website according to your requirements. This is one of the best options
if you ask me, but there are a couple of Cons to this. It would cost a lot and requires much time to build.
Since there are many successful web design templates available already in the market, it’s always better to go with a platform that already offers a rough design. But if you are someone who would like to stand out of the crowd, build a custom ecommerce website.
Custom functionality
Since 7/10 people buy things online, they know how websites function. Copying a template is a cheaper hack, but people wouldn’t show much interest in your website.
This is why entrepreneurs go for custom functionalities, which make their website unique and give out a better user experience, ultimately resulting in more people preferring your website.
Custom functionalities may take a lot of time and money simultaneously, but if they are executed, entirely there is nothing that could stop your website from making money to you.
Also, remember you shouldn’t go crazy with the custom ideas; things should be visible and functionality must be fluid.
This means the user should not be confused about operating your website; the user should never search or get confused about what to do next. Because this will lead to abandoning carts or not reaching the landing pages, you’ve determined.
Custom functionalities are robust, accurate. But it would help if you used them in the right way.
Web Hosting
This is one of the most predictive factors because there is nothing like a custom.
Web hosting and the packages of web hosting depend upon how big your business is likely to be.
You could start with smaller packages and then subscribe to packages according to your business size. You could start with a package of $20 and then upgrade to $250/month for a website with decent business.
So you shouldn’t be much worried about web hosting, but it’s on the list because it varies according to your business size.
Marketing
This doesn’t have anything to do with your website, but it has everything to do with the business you would be doing with your website.
An ecommerce website is nothing without marketing; people aren’t waiting for you to start a store unless you are Kim Kardashian coming up with a new makeup or clothing lineup.
You need to put in some money and efforts to get your website some momentum; it just doesn’t happen that you start a website, and the products go on sale. Nope! It doesn’t work that way.
Marketing strategies should last from somewhere between 3-12 months, depending upon your online presence and results.
Google and Facebook ads are most effective, but there are some things you need to be careful about, especially when you choose Pay Per Click (PPC); make sure you work on your keywords, don’t waste your investments by being lazy.
Ecommerce Development Company
An ecommerce company plays a vital role in determining your website development costs, because there are different ranges of price lists depending upon the company you approach.
With ecommerce website development USA being the highest, countries like India provide the same services with the lowest cost but the same product.
Let’s not get into who is excellent and who is not, but yes, a company will make a difference in the cost.
Larger companies have bigger teams and a more streamlined process in developing your website, while smaller companies strive to do the same but with lesser price and a little bit more time than the established ones.
It matters whom you choose, chooses the company with an excellent record of accomplishment, and tries to ask them how the project will be. Ask for the client list and try to communicate with the clients to know anything you need.
Also, be aware of the market prices; different regions have different price ranges, as mentioned above.
Platforms
There are several platforms you could choose from for building your ecommerce website in which Magento and Shopify are the most popular of them all; there are several other custom platforms like WordPress, in which your website could be built.
But as mentioned earlier, a template platform costs lesser than a custom website because of the work involved in building a custom website.
So, if you think your requirements could be only satisfied with a custom website, you should go ahead; otherwise, a template website will do the job for you.
Okay, no, that you know the factors that could determine your website’s cost, it’s time to know how much it cost to build an ecommerce website, and let’s individual breakdown stages in building a website and its costs.
Purchasing Pages for your Ecommerce Website
One of the essential things which matter in an ecommerce site is the number of pages because you would be displaying your products, and since the products need to be displayed in detail, the number of pages you would be needing is a lot.
If you ask me how many pages, a website with the appropriate amount of business has about 150+ pages. Yep, that’s how many you would be needing.
That means your cost for pages will be significantly higher than websites that generate business leads from a handful of pages.
But the brighter side of this is, each page would probably pay for itself quickly with how many products you sell.
You have to categorize pages to show off all of your products. You can even decide to add personalized profile pages for customers who make accounts.
Even though the choice is yours, you will need many pages by the end of the day.
Which means your initial investment more, but with more potential for revenue in the long run.
And how much do these pages cost? Somewhere between $100 to $2000 depending upon the number of pages you choose.
Determining Your Ecommerce Site’s Design
We have already discussed how the design will be a factor for the price of your
ecommerce site, the design part is what makes the first impression to your customers; sometimes, it may not be the product but the design of the website, which might make your website do some business for you.
Web designing is usually broken into four main categories.
- Simple and elegant
- Moderately stylized
- High end
- World Class
Simple websites look fine and function the way you would expect. There aren’t many surprises, but it’s a great way to start a website.
Moderately stylized sites can take a few liberties and do more with space they have available, which could mean extra graphics, more convincing color schemes, and other design elements that make the website look better.
A professional and distinguished appearance characterizes high-end websites. They’re clean-cut with high-resolution images and color schemes that are appropriate for the website’s primary demographic.
And finally, the World-class websites. These sites are designed to go above and beyond the competition by utilizing interactive elements, high-resolution images, videos, and a whole range of intuitive features.
A world-class website doesn’t just give users perfect shopping experience, but it also earns awards for you.
If you would want to be the next Amazon, a world-class website is for you.
But if you want to serve your customer base, you can get by with a simple or moderately stylized website.
The design of a website could range from $200 up to $20,000.
Buying Pages of Copy for Ecommerce
Copywriting is essential for any website, and that includes ecommerce.
Fortunately, ecommerce companies don’t need as many text-only pages as other websites.
The main pages, you must worry about our terms and conditions, privacy conditions, and other technicalities, which help you with the sales and after-sales.
If you want, you could also create pages that let you target specific parts of your market. For example, if you wanted to get more traffic from New York, you could create a page called.
“Buying a product in New York” or something along those lines.
Copywriting costs are based on what you want on your pages and how much you want to add.
Short pages with a few hundred words and no images won’t cost you a lot. But a 3000-word page with interactives, subsections, JavaScript inserts, and custom programming is going to cost a bundle.
But the money you would be spending is all worth it.
Shorter pages are great for conveying information in a few seconds, and longer pages are better at succeeding in search engines.
Using a strategic mix of both pages can ear much traffic and hence a decent customer base.
The cost per page of copywriting could cost somewhere between $50 to $500.
Search Engine Optimization
As we all know, SEO is the process of ranking your website higher on a search engine, most preferable google, because I don’t even have to explain why.
It’s also a significant factor in the success of your ecommerce site over the long term; if you want to earn more revenue, you have to attract customers who use search engines.
Otherwise, you won’t have a steady stream of new and repeated customers that you need to survive.
However, SEO isn’t a once and done endeavor. You have to continually work on your site so that it generates more traffic.
If you neglect, you could fall behind your competition.
SEO generally costs between $200 to $1500 per month.
Responsive Design
If your website is not responsive, you will lose a lot of sales on your ecommerce website; with more people using mobile devices, making your mobile responsive is essential.
No matter what you’re selling, you’ll have customers looking at your site from their mobile phones or tablets.
You need to make sure it’s working on all kinds of devices with different shapes, sizes, and hardware.
And adapting responsive design does that for you. With responsive design, your ecommerce website will automatically fit to whatever device a person uses to shop.
Don’t forget the new breed of phones like the iPhone X or the Essential or Samsung Galaxy s8 with the bezel-less design. You would need to create a design so that your website fits perfectly on its screen.
Responsive design is the win-win that the internet always needed, especially on ecommerce sites. If you don’t have a responsive site, you risk losing more than half of your potential customers and sales.
To make your site responsive, it could cost somewhere around $2000 – $20,000.
Database integration for Ecommerce
Database integration may be optional for many websites but not in the case of ecommerce websites because it allows your company to store information about your products, employees, and customers all at a single place.
So if you want your whole company to have access to a universal hard drive that stores corporate information, you need database integration.
But it would help if you also had database integration for customers. A database lets your customers create accounts, set preferences, and enjoy a more personalized experience on your site.
You could also use database integration to store credit card numbers, which is essential nowadays because the customers don’t have to fill in their details over and over again when they shop on your site.
Or you could use it to store your customer’s usernames and passwords.
Whether you want to streamline company communication or simplify your customer’s shopping experience, database integration is mandatory.
Database integration costs around $5000 to $25,000.
Cost of eCommerce functionality
We did discuss this above in the factors, but we would know more in detail now.
Since you are creating an ecommerce site, you’ll naturally need all of the functionalities that go along with it.
Some of the essential functionalities of an ecommerce site include shopping carts, checkout processes, customer identity protection, and personalization.
You can also show multiple images of the same product or even a short video demonstrating how the product would look in the real world. Some items may also come with supplemental.
Information like certifications and other literature that is approved by the law.
But it’s still smart to think about these ideas ahead of time; there’s much work that goes into making an ecommerce site that’s effortless for your customers.
Functionalities on your ecommerce site could cost you somewhere between $500 to $5000.
Ecommerce Content Management System
A Content management system, or CMS, in short, is an interface that lets you make changes to your website, something like editing content or products without even using the code.
Some CMS programs are fantastic and most recommended for ecommerce, that is Drupal or Magento, others cost a little and are charged yearly, and there are some premium ones.
Since we are mainly concentrating on development, cost shouldn’t be a deciding factor. The most significant factor you need to consider is what kind of functionality you need for your ecommerce site.
Because you would be continually adding products to your site, you would want them to be in a consistent pattern, which eventually lets you reinforce your brand and create a familiarity and convenient experience for your users.
With these factors in your agenda, your CMS is an important decision that you should consider carefully. Look through what every company offers, consider your plans, and go with the option that makes the most sense, even If it costs a little over your budget.
So, considering all these factors and costs for each aspect, the price for an ecommerce website could cost you in the range shown below.
Well, these prices are only listed according to the US market, and they may vary a lot when it comes to other markets like European, Australian, Southeast Asian, and Indian markets. And they are much lesser than these prices, and you could get the same quality product.
Conclusion
The cost of an ecommerce website depends on your requirements and the ecommerce development company you would approach. Having a budget is always a good thing, but remember, you might probably have to stretch it a bit with proper reasons given.
Doing your homework does help in eliminating unnecessary costs in the initial and developing processes.
If you are prepared with your ecommerce idea or planning on one do get in touch in us for any kind of queries and development. Don’t forget to leave behind your valuable comments and feedbacks.
Author’s Bio
Mohit Maheshwari is Chief Strategist at NMG Technologies, a full service IT Company offering Ecommerce Development, Designing and Ecommerce Mobile App Development services. He has been in the industry since 2000 and focuses on long-term strategies, intuitive user experience and successful customer acquisition. Follow Mohit on Twitter and LinkedIn
Photos courtesy of istockphoto.com
