Are you looking to create an eCommerce website? Perhaps you may be looking for a reliable website builder or company to build an online store for you.
Whichever company or developer you choose to design and build your eCommerce site, you’ll want to be sure to get at least three quotes.
That way, if one quote is significantly more expensive than the others, you can choose to go with a different company.
When seeking quotations for your eCommerce website, it’s important to do your research in order to get the most appropriate quotes for your business.
Before you seek a quotation for your eCommerce website, you should ask yourself the following questions:
#1 How much is my budget?
Make sure to have a budget in mind when you’re planning for eCommerce website development because you have to think about how much money you need to spend on the development of the website?
Not only the website development cost, but you also need to consider how much money you’ll need to spend on maintaining the website in the long run.
If you have a limited budget for your website, you need to save money for your website maintenance.
In this situation, you need to make sure that you hire an affordable website developer who can help you not only to build your website but also to maintain it cost-effectively.
You can give your shortlisted developer an idea about your web development budget so that he can provide you with an eCommerce website quotation accordingly.
For example, if you want to create an eCommerce website at an affordable cost, you must use WordPress CMS.
WordPress will help you to get a fully functional online store at a low cost. So, accordingly, you can contact a WordPress developer and ask him to send you an eCommerce website quote.
Similarly, if you have other CMSs in your mind (for eg. OpenCart, Shopify, etc.) you must let your developer know about it before you seek a quotation from him.
#2 Which platform is good for me?
Choosing the right design for your eCommerce website is really important, but it’s also really important to make sure that your eCommerce website is built on the right platform.
The eCommerce development platform is perhaps one of the major elements of your eCommerce website quotation.
Different platforms require different amounts of effort and cost.
For example, if you choose WordPress (WooCommerce plugin) to create your online store, you may have to pay as low as $3000 however if you choose to develop your website from scratch using custom codes, you may end up paying more than $7000.
So, before you contact a web developer to send over a quotation for your eCommerce website, do make sure you have decided upon an appropriate development platform.
If you are unsure about it, you can first talk to your developer about which platform should be suitable for your eCommerce website development.
#3 What are the features that I want?
When you’re building an eCommerce website, you need to think about what you want and need and what your customers want and need.
You need to think about the features that you need for your website and which features you don’t need.
For example, below are some of the basic yet essential features that your eCommerce developer should provide you with:
- Clean website layout
- Intuitive navigation
- Robust search
- Quick checkout
- Guest checkout
- Abandoned orders follow-up system
- Multiple payment methods
- Responsive website design
- Customer support
- Website security
- Discount coupons
- Rewards/loyalty points
- Customer reviews
Recommended post: 14 Essential features of an eCommerce store for small businesses
#4 What are my business objectives?
Before you seek an eCommerce website quotation, you should clearly define your business objectives.
What do you want to achieve with your online presence?
What is it that you want your online store to achieve? Once you have your objectives clearly identified, you can seek an eCommerce website quotation.
For example, if you want more sales on your website, then your website design can have different promotional tools such as coupons, discount codes, and other offers.
However, if you don’t want to focus on quantity and instead your primary objective is to see your products at a premium price, you must make sure that your website design looks elegant and sophisticated.
#5 What my competitors are doing?
Before you seek an eCommerce website quote from your website developer, you must check out the websites of your competitors.
By doing competition research, you will be able to provide your website maker with a couple of websites that he or she should consider while creating your website to make it better than those competitors’ websites.
Perhaps, it would be a great idea to talk to your developer and request him to find out a couple of features or items that are missing in your competitors’ websites and he can add them to your online store. This way, you get a competitive advantage also.
#6 Do I need a responsive site?
It’s no more a fancy thing to have a responsive (mobile-friendly) website, but still, you must request your web designer to include it in their quotation.
Surprisingly, there are yet many website developers who don’t create fully responsive websites.
Therefore, you must ensure to make responsive website design as a part of your eCommerce website quotation.
#7 Do I need a blog?
Why blog?
Not only is it one of the best ways to drive traffic to your store, but blogs can also help you build a community of loyal followers.
If you want a blog on your eCommerce site, it’s important that you talk to your website builder about it during the initial stages of the design process to make sure he includes it in your eCommerce website proposal.
If you don’t include it in your quotation, then there’s a chance that you won’t get the blog that you want.
But before you go ahead to add a blog to your eCommerce site, do make sure that you have enough resources and time to post the blogs regularly.
You see, having a blog on your website is not the goal, but to populate it regularly is the primary objective.
#8 Do I need any advanced features
The more features you need, the more expensive the development will be. On the other hand, there’s always a trade-off between features and costs.
If you want to launch an eCommerce site, but you don’t have a big budget, then you can go for a minimum viable product (MVP) instead.
An MVP is a version of your product that you release early on in development, but it’s at least functional enough for someone to use it.
So, you can ask your website developer to send you an eCommerce website quotation according to the features that you need.
Conclusion:
No matter if you are looking to hire an individual web developer or a web design agency to create your eCommerce store, you must make sure to answer & understand the above-listed questions/points before you contact any developer to build your site.