Building an eCommerce website is not easy, it is one of the most complex websites.
The people who wish to develop their own eCommerce website should know what cost will be incurred in building one. Knowing the cost beforehand is very important, it gives the business owner an idea about the investment scale. Without knowing the basic costs, it will become very hard to manage the budget. Website and application development costs can go way out of hand if they are not known before. People have an idea about what they want on their website, so it would be better if they also know the cost to put that idea alive.
Push behind the demand of Ecommerce website:
- The ecommerce growth was touching the highs of $2.7 trillion in 2017, which is expected to cross $4.5 trillion in 2021.
- In the developed economy like the US alone, the retail market is alive with a 10 percent share of Ecommerce.
- Ecommerce industry is taking the development rate of 15% every year.
There are many challenges that the developers have to face while developing an eCommerce website. These challenges may affect the cost of building the website. Below in this article, there are points that will make all the factors that affect the cost of building an eCommerce website. The urge to find the best web development company insists on the cost go higher. Also, there is a great trend in the market to make the Progressive websites, which can later be converted into PWAs.
Microsoft based asp.net development services are ahead of others in leveraging the PWA development. Also, the use of javascript is now set to get replaced with Blazor.
Calculating the cost of building an eCommerce website
One of the easiest methods to calculate the cost of developing an eCommerce website is to compare various eCommerce websites. Know what are the tools that they have used, what are the add-ons, and some other additional services that one wants on their website. Additional services are decided on the basis of the requirement of the business.
This way the businesses can get an accurate estimation of cost that goes into developing an eCommerce website. There are many ways in which eCommerce websites can be developed. It is advised to avoid using the online eCommerce website cost calculators because their estimations are often inaccurate.
Below is a break down of the factors that are considered for estimation of the cost of developing an eCommerce website:
- Hosting charges
- Cost of payment processing
- Cost of Designing
- Cost of Add-ons and extensions
- The total cost of Developing the eCommerce website
Let’s look at the above points in detail
1. Hosting Charges
It is clear that no matter what kind of website is being developed, there is a cost that is to be included in the final budget, which is hosting cost. Hosting the website is the first step, and then for hosting it, a domain name is also important. Both hosting and domain name demand money. Both of them are compulsory, there are no alternatives to them. Hosting is important because that is how all the files of the website will be stored.
There are two ways to host a website and both of them have different costs and a different set of features.
Below are both the types with description:
a. Cost for Self-Hosted eCommerce Website: One of the most popular and successful eCommerce platforms in the world “WooCommerce” has been powering millions of small and large online stores. This is a free platform that is available as an application too. The users can easily download it and create as many eCommerce websites with the availability of the features of responsive web design services as they wish.
To install and use it, the users will require a WooCommerce web hosting account. What else is needed? A domain name and an SSL certificate. The websites can be created for free but the charge fees for hosting them have to be paid. The starter plan for website hosting is $7.99 per month. The charge for buying a domain name is $14.99 per year and the SSL certificate costs $69 per year. These are the costs that cannot be excluded. There are many other platforms like WooCommerce that offer these kinds of services and they might be offering the same in less price. It is better to do research before choosing the platform on which you want to host your eCommerce website.
Advantages of a self-hosted eCommerce website:
- The owners have full control over their website. They can design the website as they want, they can add the features which they like. There is no one who can interfere with the process of creation or hosting the eCommerce website.
- This is comparatively cheaper, the developers or the business owners can save a lot of money on hosting and domain name. They can use the money saved to improve the quality of the eCommerce website.
- The eCommerce website hosted this way can make unlimited sales, list unlimited products on the website, and add any payment gateway and method that the businesses like.
This is the one way for which eCommerce business owners can go for. There are some who don’t want to learn the process of installing their own eCommerce software and they prefer something to be done for them. For the people who prefer something already done, the SaaS eCommerce platform is the choice.
B. Cost for SaaS eCommerce Platform: If someone chooses the SaaS eCommerce Platform to host their own eCommerce website they might have to pay more but the process becomes very easy. In this, the developers or the businesses do not require to install software, manage it, or even host yourself.
The price of hosting is included in the development software. This eliminates the need to worry about managing the hosting of the website.
Read the blog- Which is the Best Platform to build an eCommerce Website?
There are two popular SaaS eCommerce platforms: Shopify and BigCommerce. Both of them are incredibly easy to use and very much scalable eCommerce platforms to sell their products on the internet. Both the platform provide the SSL certificate in the price of hosting but the domain name has to be purchased separately.
Shopify eCommerce website cost plans are as follows:
- Basic Shopify: $29 per month
- Shopify: $79 per month
- Advance Shopify: $299 per month
BigCommerce eCommerce website cost plans are as follows:
- Standard: $29.95 per month
- Plus: $71.95 per month
- Pro: $224.95 per month
All these plans have different features. As the price increases, the number and the quality of the features also increases. The users need to check both the platforms and then decide for themselves. Both of them are fairly popular and the only difference is in some of their features. There are many things that need to be reviewed.
There are some major differences between the two and one of those differences is that BigCommerce standard plan limits the eCommerce website to do a sale of $50,000 per year. After that, the website owner has to upgrade their plan.
Shopify also has a drawback, they force their users to use Shopify payments. If the users want to use another payment method or gateway then they have to pay 2 percent fees of each transaction that is made on their eCommerce website. That is why using the third-party payment gateway can be a choice of loss.
The estimated cost of hosting a website
- Self-Hosted eCommerce Website cost: $2.75 - $241.67 per month
- SaaS eCommerce Hosting Cost: $29 - $299 per month
The people who are thinking of starting an eCommerce website should know that these cost estimates are for small to medium-sized eCommerce websites development services. For Big eCommerce websites, the costs can not be calculated accurately.
2. Cost Of Payment Processing
This is something that most business owners ignore. The cost of Payment processing is one of the most important factors. This can change the total cost. The cost of payment processing has a serious impact on the eCommerce business and it can significantly reduce the total profit.
For example, various eCommerce platforms use various payment methods and gateways. These payment gateways take payment processing charges from them.
Payment processing cost on WooCommerce:
As discussed earlier, this is an open-source software to host eCommerce websites. This platform has many payment providers which get integrated with the eCommerce websites. The users of this platform can use all the payment gateways for free. This platform by default supports PayPal and Stripe payment gateways to accept payment from debit and credit cards. There are dozens of other payment service providers from which the users can choose. Now, the users are free to use any of the payment gateways but they still have to pay the payment processing fees to the payment service. The rates are different for different payment services. It is important to analyze which payment services are popular and also offer less payment processing charges.
The charges that some payment services charge from WooCommerce users are:
- PayPal: 2.9% + $0.30 for transactions over $10
- Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30 on every transaction
- Authorize.net: 2.9% +$0.30 per transaction +$25 per month
Other platforms have different plans. This is one of the most important parts of total cost and it is important even after the eCommerce website is made and is live on the internet.
3. Cost Of Designing
Coming on to the part that is considered most important. Most of the cost is here. The design of the website is the most expensive thing. All other things are completed in fewer amounts and there are options to choose from. This is one thing that needs to be done properly if the eCommerce business wants to succeed. The design of the website should be responsive, it should be user-friendly. The template that is chosen should be attractive as well as simple. A vibrant template can bring customers and there are chances that they will come back.
This is the part that needs the most attention. The world is changing rapidly, there are new eCommerce websites coming up so rapidly and all of them are different and have amazing designs. This is where the work of the website designer comes into play. The design of the website should be cool, simple and easy. The users should feel at home, secondly, the home page opens. It is one of the most expensive phases of website development but it is important to spend on this one. Custom web development services need to add or create designs that have not been created by anyone else in the market.
Read the blog- Latest Trends in Ecommerce and How Would They Impact Your Industry
The design of the eCommerce website should look professional. Sometimes it happens that when people try to make their website look cool, they also make it look unprofessional. The website should look like an eCommerce website and not like a gaming or social media website.
For people who don’t know how to design or cannot afford to hire a professional website designer, there are platforms that offer tools to develop their own designs at some cost.
Designing cost for WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is one of the most flexible options for people who want to design their website. The websites in WooCommerce are built on top of WordPress, this gives the users to choose from a wide range of themes. There are WooCommerce specific themes that will provide better options for an eCommerce website. There are thousands of WooCommerce themes from which the users can choose from.
Most of the themes are free, there are some themes that are not available for free. Those designs start at $30. $30 is not too much of a cost when you are looking at the design of an eCommerce website. The themes can also be customized as per the users. This is one of the best options for people who are totally beginners in the field of design. On demand solutions are available on this platform for the purpose of designing.
Estimate Design Cost for an eCommerce website on various platforms:
- WooCommerce: Free, $99 for premium themes, and $5000 for customized
- Shopify: Free, $160 for premium themes, and $5000 for customized
- BigCommerce: Free, $160 for premium themes, and $5000 for customized
Note: Both Shopify and BigCommerce have a very limited number of themes, both free and paid. The best option if variety is in consideration is WooCommerce.
4. Cost of Add-Ons and Extensions
It is not possible for an eCommerce or any kind of website to have all the features. If someone will try to do so, the results might be very messy. Adding up all the features into one software will just increase the difficulty of the website. To solve this problem there are add-ons and extensions that can be integrated with the eCommerce websites. Add-ons are the features that are taken from third party software and can be used on the website or software.
ECommerce websites are built with the modular approach, it helps in adding extensions and add-ons. New features can be added very easily because of this approach. To add these features as add-ons or extensions to the eCommerce websites some amount has to be paid. It is for the profit of the business and is a profitable investment. This increases the functionality of the website. Website development services always push their clients to use more plugins and add-ons than in-site features because it keeps the page light.
Extensions and Add-ons on WooCommerce:
Just like designing, WooCommerce is the best option when it comes to Extensions and Add-ons. Other websites are not even close to them. They have thousands of free and paid extensions and add-ons for their users. It is already known that this platform runs on top of WordPress, saying that the users already have access to almost 55,000+ plugins that too for free. There are so many plugins that it will be hard to choose. It is important to know what kind of plugins are needed before hands to stay away from confusion.
The starting of plugins and add-ons on WooCommerce is from $19 and it can go as high as $299. For the eCommerce website which requires customized plugins, WooCommerce provides them with a developer who will develop a customized plugin for them. The charges for it can be between $500 to $10,000.
Estimate cost of Add-Ons and Extensions on WooCommerce:
Free, $299, $500 - $10,000 for customized plugins. Custom web development services are provided by WooCommerce and that is one of the most important reasons why they are the best. On-demand solutions like these help the eCommerce businesses a lot.
5. The Total Cost of Developing an eCommerce Website
To go into the analysis of the cost of building an eCommerce website applications have been discussed. It would cost too much if all the things that are discussed above are not done with the help of an eCommerce platform. There will be difficulties too, choosing any one of the platforms that have been named in the article above will make it very easy. Below is the total cost to develop an eCommerce website through all the platforms mentioned above:
- WooCommerce Starter Pack: $500 - $3000
- WooCommerce Custom Pack: $5000 - $10,000
- WooCommerce Enterprise Pack: $10,000+
- Shopify: $1000 - $10,000
- BigCommerce: $1000 - $10,000
These costs can increase if the users choose customized services in some of the packs.
Conclusion
The above article describes the different costs that are involved in the development of different eCommerce websites. Various companies have hired many highly experienced professionals from best web development company who can help them develop the eCommerce website as per the client’s needs and thus creating a boom in the IT industry. The search engine trends show a huge number of search for the best website development services. This promptness to associate with the best deal in the market often increases the demand higher, therefore the cost higher. Think intelligently and assess your needs always before hiring an agency.