Learn How to Calculate the Cost of E-Commerce Website Development

In the past decade, E-commerce platforms have witnessed tremendous growth at full tilt. And there is no doubt that the e-commerce industry has taken over almost the entire scene of online business. As a result of that, today, it is no more a challenge for a business to have its e-commerce website or app. What all needed is the expertise of an e-commerce web development firm that will help you to transform your vision into reality. 

Talking about the cost of an e-commerce website development - the exact cost cannot be determined as it is flexible and uncertain. However, an estimation can be ascertained based on various factors such as the method of development, project scope, setup, business goal, hosting, maintenance, features, and more. This post analyzes all the costs involved in developing and maintaining an e-commerce website to give you an overview of the budget required for the development of an e-commerce website.

• E-commerce Platform

With the advent of e-commerce platforms, building an online store has become a lot easier than it used to be a few years back. You must have heard about the popular e-commerce solutions like Magento, Shopify, Salesforce, WooCommerce, and Hybris. With their ready-made layouts, search and filtering, content management system, and shipping integration, these platforms offer a super-easy way to build your e-commerce website. However, despite that, you will still need a professional hand to launch and maintain the website. For that, you can hire a website developer who can charge anything between $10 and $250 for an hour. 

Please note: Along with the qualification and experience, the cost of a developer also majorly depends on his/her region. 

• Hosting

Hosting is what makes your website accessible via the World Wide Web. Hence, it is important to choose a web hosting service provider thoughtfully as hosting has a huge impact on page loading time of the website. You can expect to pay anything from $20 to $250 per month for the services of any of the Saas platforms. For custom online e-commerce stores, the price could range between $250 and $350, monthly. It could even go up to $2000 if in case you want scalability, high security, and high speed. A number of low-cost ways of hosting can also be found in Amazon Web Services. For an optimal package hosting, Amazon charges between $300 and $1000. 

• Custom Functionality and Features

In order to make it unique and appealing, a website is often embedded with custom functions and features. This is one of the factors that affect the cost of e-commerce website development. To make the navigation of the website easy, many e-commerce companies choose to provide the latest, interactive, and efficient functionalities to their site. This increases the cost of development of an e-commerce website. 

• Data Imports

The functionality of an e-commerce website is subjected to storing data. And if you want to import product data or the past order data or customer data to your website, the cost of developing the website will automatically increase. Make sure that your web database includes all the data important to run a website.

• Marketing and SEO

For any business, it is important to have the best marketing strategy that not just helps you convert your business into the brand but also ensures that the website reaches the masses. For that, a dedicated team is appointed which ensures a fully integrated marketing plan to boost the business. This increases the production cost of an e-commerce website. 

• Integration

It’s pretty simple - if you choose to avail of the services of ERP or any other third-party system for your website, then you have to spend thousands on them. 

• Going For Outsourced Web Development Companies

Developing the website by yourself (with a dedicated team of developers at your office space) is the best and the cheapest way to develop a website. Outsourced web development companies cost a lot extra but are worth every expense. Onboard, they have expert professionals with years of experience and vast knowledge of how to cater to the end-users. 

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How To Choose An Apt E-Commerce Web Development Company For Your Online Business?

You can estimate the development cost and time of your e-commerce website on the basis of the above factors. Prices of the above factors may vary depending on the size of your business. You can expect to pay anything between $10,000 and $50,000 for your website development. However, it’s just an estimation, the cost could increase as well. Once the site is completed and published, it is a tussle for the company to maintain and manage the e-commerce website (in the initial stage). This takes the cost of development further ahead. Only a few companies have mastered the art of managing and maintaining their website without spending any huge extra amount on it. Make sure you fall into the category of those few companies.