How much does an eCommerce website cost?

The e-commerce market has been developing rapidly over the past 20 years. This is due to the growth in the number of Internet users, the development of online payment technologies, the influence of social networks on users, and the simplification of goods delivery services.
Moreover, since 2019, one can observe a constant increase in the sales of goods through online stores. Even with the pandemic hitting retailers hard.
Below is a graph of global retail sales on the Internet with a forecast up to 2025 (according to the portal Emarketer)

If you are in the business of selling any goods, then an online store is a must.
The advantages of having an eCommerce website:

• the ability to sell goods throughout the country and abroad;
• there is no need to rent retail space;
• no need to involve a large number of personnel;
• the ability to display and sell any number of products;
• an eCommerce website can sell around the clock;
• increase in the number of regular customers.

We got acquainted with the advantages. But what about the cost of creating an eCommerce website?
We will tell you more about this later in the article.

How Much Does It Cost to Build an eCommerce Website?

In the table we will show what types of work are included in the creation of an online store, their cost. We did not take into account the cost of Internet marketing, everything here is individual and depends on the competition and budget.

In the table, we briefly showed the types of work that will be carried out in the process of creating an online store. As well as their cost and timing.

Next, we will take a closer look at the factors that affect the price of developing an eCommerce.

Factors affecting the cost of creating an eCommerce website

In this section, we will consider the main factors that affect the cost of developing an online store.

Marketing research and competitor audit

Zero stage of creating an online store. Why zero? Because not all studios and online store development agencies include it in the project creation process. But in vain! The lack of this information will lead to negative consequences for the future store. After all, you can get much fewer visitors to your site than you would like. Or worse, not getting them at all!
This stage does not include a full-scale marketing research. It assumes that your products and benefits, from a marketing point of view, have already been explored by you.
Marketing research and audit includes studying the websites of competitors and the target audience to which we plan to sell products.

1. Audit of competitors’ websites.
   It is needed in order to get information about the approximate budgets for the further promotion of the online store and additional functionality that competitors use to warm up and push their visitors to buy even before the prototyping stage.
   Includes study and assessment:
   • pages of competitors’ websites;
   • traffic to competitors’ sites, the most popular pages;
   • the link profile of competitors;
   • competitors use channels to attract customers;
   • marketing solutions used by competitors to increase sales and retain visitors;
   • quantity and quality of text and photo content.
2. Analysis of the target audience.
   It is needed in order to have an idea of ​​the needs, fears and objections of future customers. To develop a unique selling proposition (USP). And also to understand the general visual style of the online store.
   The study of the target audience for B2C includes the following data: gender, age category, financial status, social status, needs, fears, objections.
   For the B2B segment: status (company executives, owners of medium or small businesses, managers, etc.), their needs, fears and objections.

Prototyping and UI / UX Design

The first stage of creating an online store includes prototyping and UI / UX design. It is developed on the basis of the brand book (name, logo, primary colors, font) and the target audience for which the site is being created.

1. Prototyping eCommerce website pages
   It is necessary to understand how the elements will be located on the site pages. Where on the page the title will be located, where the call to action button will be located, what blocks the page will contain (reviews, services, descriptive block, feedback form, etc.).
2. UI / UX design
   UI / UX design is a combination of 2 design directions of digital products, UI design and UX design.
   UI (user interface) is the design of the visual appeal of pages and site elements.
   UX (user experience) is how convenient it will be to use your site, how easily the visitor will achieve the goal for which he came to your resource.
   UX design is extremely important for creating an online store.
   Not all designers develop these two skills equally.
   Therefore, to develop a design for an online store, choose a designer who has extensive experience in UX design.

Basic and advanced functionality of an eCommerce website: what is included and how much it costs

In this section, we will look at the basic (required) functionality of an online store. And advanced functionality, thanks to which you can make the site more convenient both for the user and for yourself.

Basic (required) functionality of the eCommerce website

1. Responsive layout. The site should be designed in such a way that it looks attractive and correct both on computers and on mobile devices.
2. Product list page. It is like a showcase of a “live” store. All your products are presented here, which you can view and select the one you want.
3. Product card. T’s like the product itself in a live store. Contains product images from different angles, price, characteristics, description, customer reviews, video review, “Buy” and “Buy in one click” button.
4. Search for goods. It is necessary to quickly find the desired product by name.
5. Sorting of goods. The ability to sort products by price, rating, popularity, novelty.
6. Filtration of goods. Filtering can contain a lot of parameters (brands, sizes, colors, seasonality, specifications, etc.). Filtering, as well as sorting, is necessary for a convenient search for the required product in an online store.
7. Rating and product reviews. Most people are socially oriented, and therefore read reviews about the product that they are going to purchase. Therefore, ratings and reviews of visitors about products must be mandatory.
8. SEO functionality. Needed for search engine optimization of an online store. It is extremely difficult to promote a website in search engines like Google or Yandex without optimization.
9. Online chat. In case of any difficulties, the site visitor can quickly ask a question in the online chat. This will help you not to lose a potential client.
10. Analytics connection. Without analytics, you will not be able to understand how many visitors come to the site, the channels of transitions to the site, whether there is an increase in site traffic, etc. Analytics is extremely important for an online store!
11. Administrative panel of the online store. Be sure to need a convenient admin panel for the site. The more convenient the administrative panel of the site, the less time it will take to work with the content. And as you know, time is money!

Extended functionality of the eCommerce website

1. Multilingual. If necessary, your online store can be in several languages.
2. User’s personal account. Expand the capabilities of your visitor to work with the site. Increases visitor loyalty to the site. Through the personal account, the user will be able to view the history of their purchases, save the delivery address, receive individual offers, etc.
3. Comparison of goods. Comparison of products on the site is optional, but a convenient addition for the user. It allows you to compare the technical characteristics of products and find the right one.
4. Newsletter and promotional offers. Increases customer loyalty. Plus, you can increase sales using email newsletters.
5. Widget “Order a call from the site”. It invites the visitor to call back within a certain time and automatically connects him with your manager. Helps to keep visitors on the site and convert them into customers.
6. Integration with third-party accounting systems. If a third-party inventory system is used, it can be integrated with the online store.
7. Product overview 360 °. Quite laborious, but useful addition to the product card. With its help, the visitor will examine the product from all angles.
8. PWA version of the site (progressive web application). This technology allows you to download a website to your phone and use it like a regular mobile application. The client will be able to immediately go to your site through the icon in the mobile phone. It will be possible to send notifications to the client. It is not necessary to upload to the Google Play Market and AppStore, it works faster than the website, it works without the Internet. A cheap alternative to the mobile app!

eCommerce website testing

Testing an eCommerce is actions aimed at identifying errors in the operation of a site and at identifying inconsistencies between the layout and design.
Testing is divided into 3 stages:

1. Testing layout
2. Functional testing
3. Testing on the client’s server

The cost of testing an online store is from 100 to 5500 USD. Depends on the scope of the project.

How much does text and photo content for an online grocery cost?

Photo content is one of the most important elements of an online store. After all, your visitors should see the highest quality product images in order to get a visual stimulus to purchase.
Text content will help tell about the benefits of the product, describe it from a more advantageous side. Also, the site should have the correct titles and understandable texts that will be of interest to visitors and help to promote your store in the search results.
It is very important that the photo and text content are unique.

How much does photo content cost for an eCommerce?

It all depends on the level and pricing policy of the photographer, as well as the number of photos that will need to be placed on the site. For 5 photos of one product for an online store, photographers can ask from 2 to 30 USD.
You can take photo content from the websites of product manufacturers or competitors, but you need to be careful because the photos can be copyrighted. And of course, these will not be unique images, which is bad for website promotion.

How much does text content cost for an eCommerce?

Depending on the level of the copywriter, the price for writing the text will be from 1 to 10 USD per 1000 characters. And this is only Ukrainian or Russian. The cost of writing texts in English is 2-3 times higher.
For product cards, you can take texts from manufacturers’ websites. But the descriptive texts on the rest of the pages of the site must be unique in order to easily promote them in the search engines.

On-page SEO of an eCommerce: what is included and how much it costs

On-page website optimization will help search engines to correctly understand the topic of the site and index it. It is also extremely difficult to promote a website in search results without internal optimization.
In this section, we will briefly talk about what is included in the internal SEO optimization of an online store and how much it will cost.

1. Keyword research. The semantic core is a set of words and phrases (key phrases) that reflect the topic of the site. The most important stage of internal website optimization.
2. Clustering of the collected semantic core and its distribution among the pages of the site. Clustering is a grouping of keywords by similarity. Further, the grouped keys are distributed across the pages of the site.
3. Optimization of meta tags Title, Description, H1-H3, alt tags of images. These meta tags are necessary for the search engines to correctly understand the topics and content of the pages of the online store. They are registered on the basis of the collected semantic core.
4. Optimization of URL addresses of online store pages. It is necessary for a better understanding by search engines of the topic of the site page.
5. Optimizing your robots.txt file. This file serves as an instruction for search bots which pages of the site to index and which not.
6. Optimizing the sitemap.xml file. This file serves for the bot to see which new pages have appeared on the site and how often the site pages are updated.

The cost of internal SEO optimization for an online store varies from 300 to 8000 USD.

How much do a domain, hosting and technical support of an eCommerce website cost?

1. Domain
   This is the website address. The cost of a new domain is from 5 to 100 dollars. When buying it, do not forget to choose the right domain zone. It is highly desirable to name the domain as your brand is called.
2. Hosting
   This is a service for renting server resources or renting the entire server as a whole, for hosting and storing the site.
   If an online store is conditionally compared with a regular store, then the domain is its address, and hosting is the piece of land on which it will be hosted.
   The correct choice of hosting will determine both the stability of the constant operation of the online store and its speed. The cost of good hosting for an online store will cost from $ 200 to $ 2,000 per year.
3. Technical support
   This is a set of measures aimed at maintaining the stable and correct operation of the online store. This includes both working with the server where the site is located and working with the online store itself (updating the kernel, etc.). The cost of technical support for an online store is from $ 100 to $ 3000 per month.

How much does content management of an online grocery cost?

This includes filling the online store with content (images and text information) provided by the owner.
The cost of a content manager is from 10 to 15 USD per hour.

Good luck and great sales!