What is The Cost of Developing an eCommerce Website in 2021? – A Comprehensive Guide

How To Scale Your eCommerce Website With Suitable Method

The buzzing internet is an abode to all kinds of eCommerce websites. From online stores hovering around with a singular product to finding a holistic platform that sells every single thing under the sun. However,every website has a different goal perspective that varies with scope and objectives. And so they employ different methods of building their website.

So first things first, identify your position in the eCommerce market. Who are you? A startup with a huge capital or a successful retailer with an established business. Because the key to tracking an ideal website in your mind is strongly based upon your financial independence.

Secondly, it also comes down to a particular method in which you want to build your website. Like do you want to keep it open-sourced or a SaaS eCommerce platform or a customized one? Every method has its pros and cons. To understand each of them thoroughly and keep reading below to know more.

Cost Allocation of Your eCommerce website

This table will help you understand how the cost varies from one case to another. It’s the functionality section where you could cut cost the most by going with SaaS eCommerce platforms such as Spotify. These platforms will save you a lot of time and money, but they aren’t the ideal option if you want your eCommerce store to stand out. However, you can counter this demerit through customization, and also scale as per requirements.

On the other hand, there are no boundaries in terms of features, cost, and time. Even though you can customize various aspects of your SaaS-based store, custom development will always be more flexible and effective.

Website Cosmetic Creation Expenditure

Users come with the shortest possible attention span. Looking into the abundant options available for every single thing, you must find out a way to grab the attention of these individuals and stay there for a longer time to make purchases. Get impressive user interfaces. The design plays a crucial factor to make your website stand out from the rest of the competitor market.

Taking the advantage of the eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, one can build magnificent web design without spending a single penny. These platforms come with free themes that come in handy for those walking on a budgetary tightrope. Some of these free themes look amazing too; however, the cookie-cutter options eventually prove insufficient achieving only the bare minimum.

Another option is to get one of the paid themes. A Shopify theme would cost you somewhere between $140 to $180. Such themes are more professional and rare compared to the free ones. Moreover, you can take them a couple of notches higher by customizing them. You can expect to shell out $1,000 for minor changes and branding the theme. And if you are looking to introduce a wider variety of changes, then the customization will cost north of $5,000.

If you want a customized development model, then there is no limit to the design cost. It all depends on how engaging UX you want to keep. If you’re a retailer planning to take your brick-and-mortar store online, then brand perception matters even more. Custom designing costs begin from $10,000 and go up to thousands of dollars. The price for design also varies with features. Numbers such as $30,000 and $75,000 aren’t exactly ludicrous for an eCommerce-website design.

Cost Based on Functionality

You need some very basic features no matter how simple or advanced a store you wish to create. So get the basic functionality with the right features to ensure you meet up with the needs like product management, shopping cart, a payment module, etc.

If you’re going for a simple eCommerce website, then you’ll discover that most features are already there. Irrespective of the eCommerce platform you use, there will always be plenty of gaps in terms of functionality.

The plug-ins and add-ons come quite handy. You can easily find out the free and paid add-ons to improvise the functionalities of the site. The things get trickier here. The free ones are not so good. Usually, the third parties develop paid ones and so they do not always go well with the website.

So, go for the customization. That will always be great.

Basic features: SaaS platforms

Just the way it was with themes, you can also hire developers to customize the add-on for your site. They could even create one from scratch. The two options depend on what you need. The customization for basic eCommerce features on platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce can cost between $5,000 and $15,000.

Advanced features: SaaS platforms

Customizing advanced features requires a bigger budget. If you have a decent eCommerce website budget, you should go with customization. The more functional the website, the easier it becomes to attract customers. For this bump, you’d need to pay an extra $5,000 to $12,000.

Having said that, there aren’t very many changes when you move from eCommerce platforms to custom eCommerce development, and the importance of basic and advanced features remains the same.

Basic features: custom development

The average cost of primary-eCommerce features for custom development ranges between $20,000 and $30,000. They include features like product management, product categorization, payment portal, and the like.

Advanced features: custom development

However, if you wish to augment your basic custom eCommerce website with advanced features, this upgrade will cost around $10,000 to $16,000. Discount management, personalized suggestions, wishlist management, and multiple languages are some of these advanced features.

Cost of Typing in Physical or Digital Ends of the Store

Website building is just a part of the entire game of running a successful eCommerce business. It is just half the battle won. So keep up with your promises by delivering the services on time, maintaining product quality, and serving the customers with a difference.

Here, the fulfillment service shall remain the backbone of your eCommerce business. It doesn’t have much to do with the website, but you need to ensure that your fulfillment software is in sync with it.

It should automatically update inventory status, send out notifications, seamlessly interact with delivery partners, and generate accurate invoices. And this list has just the bare minimum actions.

You can either get an eCommerce-fulfillment software or get one custom developed. Most fulfillments come with a monthly subscription plan. It works well for most eCommerce startups as they can always scale later, thus saving a handsome amount during the initial stages.

Options are available in quite the range. You can get one for as low as $30 per month and as high as $400 per month. There are also a few which charge a one-time license fee. These alternatives could charge you around $5,000. And if you decide to get it custom developed, this cost will also be in the vicinity of $5,000.