Do you sell products or services and want to grow your sales with the help of an e-commerce website? Selling online can help you to increase your sales without spending a fortune.
Here are some of the benefits of selling online:
- Website design services are much cheaper than setting up a brick-and-mortar outlet.
- The reach of an online store is massive.
- The marketing expenses for online stores are comparatively cheaper than traditional marketing methods for a brick-and-mortar business.
- You can easily track the performance of your website and marketing campaigns.
Of course, there are dozens of options for hiring a web developer and choosing a website development platform, but are all of them affordable?
As a startup, you may not be willing or able to spend much money on your e-commerce website development. So, you must find creative ways to save your website development costs and launch your online store cost-effectively.
In this blog post, I have shared Four cost-effective ways for you to build & launch an e-commerce store in 2020-2021.
#1 WordPress website design
Using WordPress is one of the best ways to save on website design costs and build a fully functional e-commerce store in 2020-2021.
WordPress is perhaps one of the most efficient, cost-effective & user-friendly CMS platforms available today.
Below are some of the significant reasons for you to use WordPress to create an e-commerce website:
- WordPress is free to use because it’s an open-source CMS. You don’t need to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee to use WordPress—it’s free.
- There are hundreds of plugins available for you to use with your WordPress website. You can easily integrate a plugin and add a new feature to your website. For instance, you can incorporate “WooCommerce” into your WordPress website and set up an e-commerce store in just a few minutes.
- Most WordPress plugins are either free or available at a nominal cost. This reduces the cost of website design and development.
- Search engines love WordPress. So, you can leverage the efficient framework of WordPress to optimize your website for search engines.
- Most WordPress themes are responsive (mobile-friendly), so your e-commerce website design will be compatible with all smart devices.
- There is no shortage of WordPress developers in the web design industry. This means you will never face any issues when hiring a developer. Because of the stiff competition among developers, you will always get an affordable website development quote.
#2 Shopify web development
Shopify is yet another convenient and cost-effective way to create an e-commerce store. Like WordPress, Shopify is a CMS platform that makes it easier for you and your developer to build a fully functional online store.
Over the last few years, Shopify has become the favorite of many webmasters and web developers.
Here are some of the significant benefits that you get with Shopify:
- The number one reason to use Shopify is that it’s growing, and several prominent players are also using it.
- Shopify offers flexibility & scalability. You can hire a Shopify developer to customize your e-commerce store according to your requirements.
- Shopify’s easy-to-use backend interface is perhaps one reason it has become the favorite of many webmasters. Even novice webmasters find it easy to manage various things from the backend.
- Like WordPress, Shopify offers hundreds of apps to extend the functionality of your online store. You name the feature, and Shopify has an app for it.
- Shopify also helps you reduce your website development cost, as it’s cheaper than building a website using custom coding.
- You don’t have to consider website hosting when subscribing to Shopify’s premium plans.
- Shopify offers you discounts if you subscribe to their annual plans.
If you have been wondering whether you should use Shopify to build your e-commerce website, don’t give it a second thought. It’s a good choice for you to create an online store this year.
#3 Magento web development
Magento is not a new name in the field of e-commerce development platforms.
Over the past decade, countless e-commerce businesses have leveraged its power-packed features to set up and grow online businesses.
Magento is one of the most powerful & flexible e-commerce website development platforms for creating robust online stores.
Here are some of the key features of Magento:
- Magento is also an open-source platform like WordPress and Shopify, which means it offers a high level of customization.
- Multiple third-party software and tools can be integrated with Magento websites to enhance its features and functionalities.
- If you are an e-commerce entrepreneur looking for a development platform that offers scalability, flexibility, and speed, Magento is your platform.
- Magento has a huge community, so you won’t have difficulty finding and hiring a web developer to build, customize, or redesign your Magento website.
#4 OpenCart web development
OpenCart is another scalable, feature-rich, and robust e-commerce platform to launch an online store.
In other words, OpenCart is a powerful e-commerce platform that allows you to achieve your online business goals at an affordable cost.
Here are some benefits of using OpenCart for your e-commerce website development.
- It’s easy to use OpenCart for even a novice webmaster. In other words, you don’t need technical skills to manage an OpenCart store.
- There are thousands of extensions available for your OpenCart website, which you can integrate to extend its functionality.
- There are hundreds of SEO-friendly and responsive themes that you can use to give your OpenCart website a professional look.
- OpenCart also facilitates multi-lingual & multi-currency features.
- Like other open sources, OpenCart developers are also available at an affordable cost.
- If you are looking for multi-store functionality on your e-commerce website, OpenCart is the right choice. You can create multiple stores on your OpenCart setup and manage them from a single admin panel.