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Things to Know Before Creating an eCommerce Website in 2023

In 2023, having a website for your eCommerce business can invariably boost your sales and offer unparalleled publicity. That is why eCommerce website development agencies are growing. More than a ‘want’, website creation has become a ‘need’ to enhance user experience and engagement.

If you want to create an eCommerce store and looking for an eCommerce development company, you would have to invest in creating a website backed up with some sturdy tech.

Conventionally you can create an eCommerce website by investing 20% of your annual eCommerce sales. But if you aim at achieving high-six figures and higher sales, then it becomes difficult to adhere to the preceding statistics.

Too confusing to understand? Read this blog to know the cost structure associated with eCommerce web app development and the variables influencing it.

Factors Affecting the Costing of an eCommerce Website

Factors affecting the eCommerce website development cost are important to know before you begin web development. Creating an eCommerce website is similar to buying a car. There are many variants with different features that you can choose from depending on your budget.

The different variants are priced differently and the final price depends on the variant you choose. The cost of creating a website depends on the following factors:

• Website Complexity: If you want to create a simple website with basic functionalities or a fully functional and complex website with multiple web pages, it will affect the cost.
• Business Niche: Which niche your business is trying to target? Whether it is for B2C or B2B customers.
• Website Features: The number of features included by eCommerce development services providers for your app is directly proportional to its cost.
• Website Functionalities: Increasing your website’s functionality and user convenience by adding third-party functionalities can cost you more.
• Online eCommerce Platforms: Costing can differ if you use online eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, or Magento or if you want to develop your custom website from scratch.
• Web Hosting Type: The type of web hosting you choose for your website is one of the important things to know before creating an eCommerce website because it affects the cost.
• Payment Gateways: Inclusion of different payment gateways such as UPI, credit, and debit cards.
• Development Team: When you hire eCommerce developers from a professional IT service company or hire freelancers, the salary of these professionals also affects your website cost.

If you know about the above factors, you can put your best foot forward to get your business off the ground. Moreover, have a look at some statistics to know US eCommerce sales from 2012 to 2022.

By doing so, you can understand whether starting an eCommerce business now, would be a beneficial idea or not. It is only a first-quarter data for 2021.

Source

Basic Features to Consider for Developing an eCommerce Website

Working out the budget to develop a website with decent features is a huge concern for start-ups. Likewise, for offline brick-and-mortar businesses looking to explore the online world.

The app development cost is directly proportional to the number of features one includes. Moreover, the basic features are the backbone of a website, so knowing them is vital.

Important features to consider while developing an eCommerce Website:

• Social Media & Email Authorization:

  With the evident increase in the use of social media, it has become essential to offer registration using different social media handles such as Gmail or Facebook. It makes the registration process quick and easy for web users. Moreover, provide social media links to your business. Our eCommerce web design agency integrates these features meticulously.

• User-friendly Interface:

  If users on your website are able to find what they want by following the least number of steps, it shows the website has a user-friendly interface. User-friendly navigation helps the customers to find the products and services quickly. For this, categorize the products impeccably. Moreover, you can hire eCommerce developers who can include simple yet effective designs.

• Advanced Search with Relevant Filters:

  This is a primary feature from the user’s perspective, so, it improves the functionality of your online store. If your customers don’t get what they want quickly, they can exit your website quickly. Advanced search extensions help to find similar products quickly. Hence, you must offer an efficient search with relevant filters such as price, estimated delivery range, and brands.

• Cart Management:

  As the users select their required products they are bound to add them to their cart. The cart should allow users to add and remove items while offering other options to redeem discounts and use coupons. Shopping cart software is prevalent among eCommerce businesses these days. It simplifies the complex processes like managing inventory and calculating taxes in a user-friendly interface.

• Payment Gateways:

  Using seamless check-out and payment gateways that support multiple payment options is essential to make sure that your consumers complete the buying process without any glitches. Provide secure payment gateways to your customers so that they will not have to think twice while making a payment. Paypal, Square, Payline, Authorize.net, and Stripe are the popular payment modes.

• Communication Panel:

  No matter how foolproof a system you design, there are bound to be errors. So, your website must have a dedicated communication panel to allow your users to contact the platform in case of any doubts or queries. An effective and active communication panel improves the conversion rate and helps to make several new customers and retain the regular ones.

• User Profile & Purchase History:

  The user profile would offer all the user information such as addresses, names, emails, contact numbers, and more. The purchase history is for the user to review or reorder from their previous transactions with the platform. It saves the time of users to search for the same products on the website. So, enabling this feature can enhance the user experience.

• Data Analytics Tools:

  eCommerce platforms receive tons of user data related to the consumer’s purchases and preferences. Data analytics tools such as Big Data can collect this data, observe and inform you about how your platform is functioning in terms of numbers and help you make sound future business decisions. Moreover, it helps you make strategies for your next marketing campaign.

• Wishlist:

  A wishlist is a list of products that your user wants to buy but isn’t able to due to their limitations. But as consumers are unpredictable you can’t predict when that list would convert into sales. The customers don’t have to remember each product while ordering because they already added them to their wish list. Hence offering a wishlist feature is extremely important.

Well, these are only some important eCommerce features, you can find many others as well. Developing an eCommerce website in 2022 is like enriching the web with all the good features. So, knowing them all is a must to create a feature-rich website.

Almost all the top eCommerce companies use these features on their websites. Have a look at the image below to know the top retail eCommerce companies in the USA in 2021.

Source

eCommerce Website Development Process

Although you are not a techy person, knowing the basics of website development would be very important to creating your website. Any custom web app development company generally plans its development process in the following two ways.

• Discovery Stage:

  A fairly experienced company would dedicate around 3-6 weeks to this process. The list of things they would be working on is as follows:

  1. 1. Market & Competition Analysis.
     2. Feature Shortlisting.
     3. Deciding on the UI/UX Design.
     4. App Development Roadmap & Budget Allocation.
     5. Planning for the Development Stage.

• Development Stage:

  Here starts the actual development process. The foundation for the development stage is laid by the discovery stage. The development stage can last up to 2-4 months depending on the complexity of the project and the web development methodology observed by the company.

  1. Backend & Frontend Development.
  2. Testing and Quality Assurance.
  3. Project Management.
  4. Launching of Website & Post-project Consultation.

eCommerce Platforms: Shopify | Magento | WooCommerce

You can either opt for creating a Custom eCommerce website or use an eCommerce platform such as Magento, Shopify, or WooCommerce that is cost-effective. The downside to using such platforms is that a lower price would offer lesser control and customization options for your website.

Shopify:

Shopify is regarded as the WordPress for the eCommerce platform. It’s the fastest-growing eCommerce platform and is renowned as it makes online selling easy for newcomers. The platform is budget-friendly and easy to learn but offers limited customization in terms of features and functionality. You can manage well by choosing some of the high-end premium packages. In addition to this, you also have to factor in the cost of hiring a Shopify developer while you’re focusing on running your business.

Magento:

Magento offers to create highly customizable and feature-rich websites. Some of the popular brands such as Sigma Beauty, Ford, Nike, and Liverpool are created using Magento. The cost of developing a Magento eCommerce website can be anywhere between 12,000 USD – 36,000 USD. If you’re confused about which platform you should choose for your app development then you should read this article to learn about the same.

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is an extension for WordPress. It provides a user-friendly interface to your website. Many popular websites like Sodashi, the Good Batch, and Porter & York are built with the WooCommerce platform. It is compatible with the WordPress website. You can enrich your website with the help of themes and plugins of WooCommerce. Likewise, the cost of the WooCommerce website is also affordable, it is somewhere between $500-$5000.

Mandatory Costs While Developing an eCommerce Website

There are many features in a website that you can’t ignore and are crucial for any eCommerce website. We have highlighted mandatory features that affect the cost of web development. Have a look at them below.

SSL Certificate:

SSL is the acronym for Secure Socket Layers. Having SSL encryption certifies
your eCommerce website as a reliable platform to share your payment details
with. An SSL certificate has different plans that you can choose from. It
can cost you anywhere between 10 USD – 100 USD/ month.

Domain Name:

A domain name would represent you over the internet, so you must choose it
wisely and in congruence with your brand image and offerings. Buying a very
specific and competitive domain name can prove to be a costly affair. This
would be a recurring expense for your business, as you need to make yearly
payments. The cost is reasonable as domain names sell for 10 USD – 20 USD/
year.

Maintenance Cost:

This area would hold the highest number in the list for your recurring
costs. As your website would be at the forefront of your business you would
have to pay constant attention to its healthy maintenance. The website needs
to be updated with security updates, the latest bug fixes, and additional
features to improve user interaction and convenience. The maintenance cost
of your eCommerce websites depends on the IT service provider you choose and
the region they’re functioning from.

Web Hosting:

The process of hosting your website on the internet by making use of a hosting provider is known as Web Hosting. Choosing a reliable hosting provider would ensure that your site performs decently even when subjected to high traffic and doesn’t face server glitches. You can expect to pay anywhere between 10 USD – 100 USD/ month depending on the hosting plan you choose.

Wrapping Up:

Creating an eCommerce website for your business can seem to be a far-fetched dream, but is it really so? Imagine the possibility of your business receiving an online avenue that offers a uniform sustainable sales surge.

We’ve tried our best to offer you an estimate on eCommerce website development while being a custom web application development company. Yet, an ultimate quotation can only be offered after considering all the variables.

If you want to earn high ROIs on your investment then you should be ready to invest at least 20% of your annual sales revenue for eCommerce website development and maintenance. Technource has 10+ years of experience in creating custom web and mobile applications for our clients around the world.

Thank you for reading! If you liked our blog and want to gain more insights on eCommerce app development and our web development process, you can sign-up for a free consultation form on our website. You can request a quote and get a free consultation from world-class experts before you begin web development.