
It not only gives them a vivid online presence but also shows that the organization is well-aware of upcoming trends and changing technologies that can benefit their customers.
An e-commerce website is the mirror of a brand and is one of the most crucial aspects of any retail business.
Any company that is planning to start a real business is often asked about the cost of the website that they are going to build.
The cost of the website particularly depends upon the design and the icons that are going to be present on the website. Over the past decades, the craze for e-commerce websites has increased tremendously. The development cost has varied over these years too.
Thus, it becomes highly difficult to estimate the exact cost of developing an e-commerce website. The exact cost can be computed by considering various factors such as business goals, project scope, method of development, design complexity, integrations, features, functionalities, hosting, maintenance, and many more.
Factors That Affect The Total Cost Of Development Of eCommerce Projects
An eCommerce website is made up of different components and all of them impact its total development cost. Here in this part of the article, the readers will get to understand the factors that make up the total cost.
The Size Of A Business
The size of a business will decide the scope of the website. Small-scale eCommerce businesses don't need too many features or pages on their website.
They can also go to stacks that offer them less functionality but that can be enough according to their requirement. This can't be the same when it comes to bigger companies. They need a mega framework and their wireframe needs to be strong and deep.
They need to make a website that can compete and match the standards of the bigger players in the market.
The reason for this is that even though your delivery system or offers are brilliant, customers will always judge you on the basis of the website.
Why? Because it is the first thing that they come across. If they cannot add products to the cart with ease and check out in the same way, their chances of leaving the website are high.
Even if they buy something from the website, the chances that they will come back to it are very low. This is something that no business would want. That is why it is important to first identify the scale of a business and then base the scope of the website accordingly.
Take a look at the different business sizes and how they can move forward:
- Small Businesses
For small businesses, it is not important to go out of the box for developing an eCommerce website. They also have the option of listing their products over the other aggregator websites like Amazon and eBay.
That option can give them a bigger customer base with no development cost. But, that is something that will never give them an opportunity to directly interact with their customers. For that, they can choose to have a website that can sell their products in as few components as possible.
Though they should make sure they include a support or complaint page on the website. Almost every eCommerce development company in the market provides website development services on a tight budget.
These might not look amazing, but they fulfill requirements perfectly.
- Medium-Sized Business
Companies that have crossed their phase of being a small company and have started growing at a constant rate need a better website.
They need to increase their sales at a rate that can fuel their growth. This cannot be done with a basic website and hence, they need to put in more cost. They need to search for solutions that can provide them with most of the features that are present on the other websites in the competition.
To be better than others, they might also need to put something into personalization and the UI of the website. This solution should also be scalable as things always go up from this point. Having a website that cannot be scaled further is an investment that will fade away as the requirements increase.
They will need a bigger website and getting one developed from scratch will cost both time and money. This can't be the perfect way to grow a business and hence it should be thought about beforehand.
Medium-sized companies need to go with an eCommerce app development or website development company that understands what they want at present and how they will shape up in the future.
This is what helps companies to decide which stack to use to develop the website so they can scale it up when needed. Having said that, eCommerce websites for these types of companies need a higher cost than that of small ones.
- Enterprise Business
If they are looking to stay in the market for long, they should not care about the budget and should only focus on quality.
These companies are at a stage where they have a good customer base and just want to grow it. How can they do it? By providing customers with more features and functions on their websites. There are many eCommerce websites that have integrated the most advanced technologies like Augmented Reality on their websites.
This has not just attracted people but has increased sales for them. But, is it compulsory?
No. It is recommended though and that too only after proper research. Not all companies need advanced technological features.
The most important factors are the UI and the UX of the website. If they are not as per the preferences of users, no matter what other features are used, users will not navigate their way into the website.
This is not what enterprises want. Hence, it is important to have a website that provides all the relevant features along with great design and experience.
Platforms For eCommerce Website Development
It is not as hard to get an eCommerce website developed at this time. There are platforms that allow business owners or their development wing to get their own website with some personalization in the templates.
These platforms do take some fee but they provide the ease of web development services. Even a person with basic development knowledge can create a fully working website with the help of these platforms.
They reduce the cost of developing an eCommerce website or an app and also the time that is taken to develop them. The reason for this is that all the components are already developed, and only the templates have to be modified and personalized accordingly.
This can be a great solution for small and medium companies that have short-term goals. They can use these platforms to have an eCommerce website for a short period of time and start their business until they can have one of their own.
This is convenient and productive. Though, these are not recommended for big enterprises as the users already understand the difference. They know when they are using a website that is created using a template and the one that has been developed from scratch.
It is not easy to fool the users on the internet nowadays. Where the internet has provided businesses with a platform to sell their products, it has also made customers smarter.
That is indeed for the best of both. No business would want dumb customers unless they are not selling something very invaluable.
The gist of all of this is that these platforms can be used when a business wants a website in a short time and a small budget.
They provide quality and maintenance as well. There are some drawbacks and many benefits.
- Website Design Cost
The design of a website is very important. As mentioned earlier, the first thing that users come across is the design of the website.
This is the reason why any business can't overlook it. If the design of the website is not good, no matter what is inside the website, you will not get sales. Businesses need to make sure that they spend a significant amount on the design and not make it look common.
Hire web developers in India who have good design and development skills if you are not big enough to hire another agency. Companies with deep pockets can still choose to outsource and have professional teams working for them.
Read the blog- Features Of Ruby On Rails That Make It One Of The Best Choices For Web Development
The cost of website design can be anywhere between $250 to $20,000. The final cost depends on how complex or detailed the design of a website is.
Though users have now started to prefer simplicity, that does not mean that businesses can go for plain designs. That is not going to work. There should be a balance between simple and attractive.
- Website Functionality Cost
This is the part that makes up for the maximum percentage of the total cost. The reason for this is that it defines how a website will work and what features it will have.
The behavior of the website depends upon how many functions are present on it. This is all based on the requirements of the company that wants an eCommerce website. There can't be a certain figure as this is totally variable.
The features and the balance between the modules are all that make up for the functionality of a website. This is the development part and that is why there should be no loose ends here. Although, businesses can save here if they can strike the fine balance between advanced and basic features.
What most businesses do is that they ask for too many features and then end up realizing that most of them are not useful for them.
This happens when the research that goes in before deciding the scope of the website is not deep. It is important to know what are the features that customers use the most, what they want more, and especially, what is relevant to the website.
For example, Augmented Reality features can be important for a clothing website and an automobile website, but the same is not true for the FMCG sector. Their products are not sold on the way they look, they are sold on their quality and their functions. This is why, if a cosmetic brand uses the same feature, they might just be wasting their money.
Businesses can hire web developers in India for their in-house team to have control over all the processes if they have proper knowledge of the development market.
- Marketing Cost
Marketing costs are basically the costs that are incurred on SEO, SMO, and other digital marketing activities. The reason behind doing these activities is clear.
There is no importance to having an eCommerce website if the customers don't know about it. The cost can be anything between $10,000-$30,000 per month. This cost is important. Businesses know that they need to get their website to the top ranks in the Google search results and on social media platforms.
A website that doesn't generate enough traffic is creating losses for the business. The cost that is used for digital marketing is always for the benefit of the company.
There are ways in which a business can also hire web development services providers, and that includes digital marketing.
It is crucial at this time when everything is getting digital and the competition is more intense than ever.
- Web Hosting Cost
Once the eCommerce website is ready and the business wants to take it to its customers and hire Ruby on Rails developer, it will need a hosting service.
This is so that the website can get a place over the internet. This is like when you want a home, you need a ground where it can be built and there are services where the home is built at a different place and then just placed over the land.
Here, the website is also placed over the World Wide Web using hosting services.
There is a change that has to be paid by the website owners so they can keep their website on the internet for the world to access it.
This is something that needs a bit of research and some thinking, which will be the best option. Also, the website owners can host the website on their own as well. They need to take a domain name for themselves and get started.
The cost of hosting the website can be anywhere between $20 to $250 if you go for the cheap options. Otherwise, this cost can also go as high as $2500.
- Maintenance Cost
Once the website is developed and released for the customers it requires maintenance. This should be regular and can either be done with the help of an in-house developers team or with the help of an eCommerce development company.
Its maintenance cost can be between $1,000 to $6,000 per month depending on the scale of the business and the website. This is something that cannot be automated or left unattended. There are many issues that keep coming up and if they are not solved the website and the business both will crash and there will be no way to revamp it.
That is why, to stay up in the market and keep the customers happy, businesses need to find a way to maintain their websites. This is something that can also help them to save themselves from online attacks. An eCommerce website that is not maintained will attract hackers and great monetary and goodwill loss in the market.
- Developer Hiring Cost
The rates to hire Ruby on Rails developer depend on the location, experience, as well as expertise of web developers.
Other platforms for development are also considered. The normal charges of e-commerce developers are $5 to $125 per hour. The cost varies according to the geographical location of the developer.
Generally, the developers of North America charge the highest, followed by European and South American developers. The least charges are taken by Asian developers. There are agencies that outsource their services and deliver websites on the mentioned deadline, thus meeting the organization's requirements and needs.
These types of organizations charge between $50 to $250 per hour. Working with agencies is safer as they have a stable and reliable business that one can rely upon. If a company is thinking of hiring or outsourcing individual developers or freelancers, then they must go through his/her working records thoroughly to understand their projects and pattern of working before finalizing the deal with them.
Cost Based On The Size Of The Company
- Small-Sized E-Commerce Website: A small-sized e-commerce website has the smallest catalog of all, some particular themes, and custom programming. Small websites only have up to a maximum of 25 pages and cost around $2,000 to $15,000.
- Medium-Sized Commerce Website: These websites have medium traffic and customized themes to attract a specific audience. The cost of these websites ranges from $15,000-$30,000. These websites usually have less than 100 pages and limited options.
- Custom E-Commerce Website: A custom e-commerce website is one that is built from scratch and usually contains a large product catalog with custom layouts and high traffic. These websites have a cost estimation starting from $30,000.
Read the blog- What are the benefits of outsourcing CakePHP website development?
Conclusion
Thus, in the above guide to understand the average cost estimation for the development of an ecommerce project is based on many factors.
For a easy and better successful ecommerce project, you can also hire a dedicated eCommerce app development company.