As a web consultant, I am asked a few questions quite often like “How much does an eCommerce website cost“, “What’s the cost to develop an online store” or “How much should I pay for an affordable eCommerce website plan”.
No matter, what form these questions take, I realize that most people are concerned about the price of eCommerce website development for their business.
So, I thought to write a post on this topic. This article will help many people to understand the pricing factors and other important determinants of eCommerce website costing.
Below are some of the crucial elements that decide eCommerce website cost:
1) Do you want a template-based design or a unique website design?
2) Do you also want a logo for your eCommerce store?
3) Do you also need web hosting?
4) Do you also want a domain name?
5) Do you want your eCommerce web developer to help you upload the products or you would upload them on your own?
6) If you want your web development team to upload the products for you, how many products would there be?
7) Do you want regular web maintenance or not?
8) Do you want a customized pricing feature for your products (e.g. price variation according to size, weight, etc.)?
9) Do you want a flat shipping rate system or do you want it to be flexible based on countries, weight, or quantity?
10) Do you want to accept payments through Paypal only or do you want to integrate some other payment gateways too?
11) Do you want a blog for your online store or not?
12) Do you want to integrate special marketing features such as social media, SEO modules, etc.?
13) Do you have the website content ready with you or do you want your web design company to help you with content writing?
14) Do you want to use your own graphics and images or do you want to buy an image stock subscription?
15) Do you need advanced product management such as bulk export/import (if you have a large number of products)?
16) Do you want a responsive web design or an adaptive website design for your eCommerce store?
17) Do you need an online chat or forum on your website?
18) Do you want an advanced zoom-in option for your products?
Once you’ve decided on the above features and requirements for your eCommerce web design, you are ready to seek quotations from your web developer or web design company.
Typically, a very simple eCommerce website cost varies between $3000 to $6000. You can get below features in this package:
1) Domain name (for one year)
2) Web hosting (for one year)
3) Template design (with some customization)
4) eCommerce features setup
5) Logo design
6) Paypal payment gateway integration
7) Flat shipping rate
Advanced Ecommerce Website Cost ( > $10000)
1) Domain name (for one year)
2) Web hosting (for one year)
3) Unique website design
4) eCommerce features setup
5) Your choice of payment gateways like Paypal, Authorise.net, Smoovpay, WorldPay, etc.
6) Logo design
7) Advanced shipping pricing system which could be based on countries, product weight, product size, product quantity, order value, or the number of products.
8) Advanced pricing system like different pricing systems for different customers or may be customized pricing structures based on different product attributes such as weight, color, size, etc.
9) Choice of responsive web design (RWD) or adaptive web design (AWD)
10) Integrated SEO features to help websites achieve higher rankings on search engines such as Google
11) Integrated Social Media features to help website content distribution among various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Choosing between open-source and proprietary software for your e-commerce business is an important decision that affects the overall cost of an eCommerce website.
Choosing Open Source platforms such as WordPress, OpenCart, and Magento can be cost-effective for your eCommerce web development as compared to a custom-coded website.
Website Hosting Cost
If your web design company has not included web hosting in their eCommerce website cost, you are free to choose any of the best and most reliable web hosting companies according to your budget. When looking for a web host to support your eCommerce store, one of the important things you need to look for is scalability.
Another thing that matters for eCommerce websites is uptime. Before choosing any web hosting company, make sure that their servers have an uptime guarantee of 99.9% uptime.
If you are a small business or have a new setup, you can choose affordable yet reliable web hosting companies like iPage. iPage company offers economical web hosting packages that start low at $1.99 per month.
Payment Terms
When you hire a web design company for developing your eCommerce website, you may need to pay 50% upfront to get the work started and balance 50% when the whole job is completed. This is the standard payment term that most eCommerce development companies follow.
Payment terms, sometimes, may depend on the total project cost as well. In some cases where the total project cost is higher, the eCommerce website vendor may agree to start the project with 25% upfront too.
Our Basic Ecommerce Packages for Small Businesses in Singapore
