In the new era of doing business, every old & emerging brand needs a website which then leads to the question “How much does an eCommerce website cost.” Truth to be told, the answer was never that simple. Your business factors shape the website; thus, your final ecommerce website making cost will be an extension of that.
The size of the store you desire will decide the extent of spending. I can tell you one thing; it’s not free. Ensure that you make proper investments and don’t go over-budget. Measure and figure out the extent of your business requirements; before deciding on the economics.
Whether, you are starting a store, already own one and hope to fix some glitches or looking to migrate; each has its own sets of charges and complexities.
Thus, find an eCommerce expert, who can guide you through creating a site that wraps itself around your business essentials. They will help to determine the eCommerce website cost. One way or another a business without a website is not going a long way.
So, have a roadmap of how your industry will evolve in the coming years, current challenges and strengths. What the competitors are doing and your vision for the future. Take everything into account before deciding on any feature for your store.
In doing so, you will arrive at “How much an eCommerce website costs?” Whether you need a bespoke site, or will a standard layout be enough, is something you’ll determine through this process. Sit and work out the details, before blindly spending on functionalities you don’t need.
New website costs will vary from pre-established eCommerce stores. Whether you’ll need paid features or free, integrations, heightened security, responsiveness and more; will come to your knowledge when you sit and evaluate your business. Once done, you’ll get a better sense of how it will reflect on your site.
If you shouldn’t want to do that for whatever reason, then, you have come to the right place. We have written this piece to help you get through all the indecisive moments. Read on, to get a better understanding of the expenses acquired in building an eCommerce site.
How much does a typical website cost?
Depending on your needs, a standard website can cost anywhere between $200 to $500/year, if you DIY. A rough estimate. If you wish to bring a feature-rich customized site, then the costs will go upwards. If you hire an agency/expert, the costs will be even more.
You’ll need a domain name, Platform, SSL, payment processor, and web hosting to get started. The combined costs of these will prove to be more expensive.
Domain name is the website address, that the buyer’s type to access your site, which will cost around $10-15/year. Then you’ll need hosting which powers your store’s software & makes your website accessible. Within Hosting, there are different types of services, such as Shared Hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated server, etc. Hosting will set you back $15-20/month & more as the traffic ups.
Essential Requirements For an eCommerce Website
Some platforms (Shopify & BigCommerce) are hosted in which case you don’t need to worry about hosting as the service handles the same. But, on platforms like Magento and WooCommerce, you’ll need to buy Hosting.
An SSL certificate to encrypt the flow of data and make your website secure with a green padlock. SSL certificate will come to around $20-25/year. Invest in Extended Validation Certificate (EV) or Organization Validated Certificate (OV) for more trustworthiness. Which will then add an extra $20-30. In the end, pick features that serve your affordability and needs.
Websites - B2B vs B2C?
B2B and B2C audiences are different, which means they come with their own unique needs. As such, their buying cycles are also drastically different. In which case, you will have to weave unique strategies as per the buying personas.
Social Media, omnichannel, security, and page loading times, is common to both. The relevance of Analytics to track buying behavior and peak visitors is also common to both.
Your average buyer whether B2B or B2C is still human. Unless in case of small repeat purchases where some B2B brands rely on smart devices. Most B2B companies still use humans; thus, you’d need to cater to that human side.
In B2C, have a minimal number of steps to checkout. SKU information must be upfront and clear. The First impression is the key here, so have a catchy & compelling design on the storefront. Have a content strategy in place. Make it short, crisp, and appealing - Value user-experience at every point on the page.
Do not overstuff the site with content (textual and visual). Minimal content and large HD images will do the trick. Give your visitors a user-friendly design to improve retention times & increase conversions. Come up with brilliant ways to appease the user. Even include a chatbot to resolve issues instantly, 24x7.
B2C websites should have top visual design, UX and usability. Customers expect seamless navigation & end up doing emotional buying. In B2B, the buying process takes longer, but the volume of each sale & the Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) tend to be much higher.
B2B Model is different. Users here, are looking for information. Specs play a crucial role, especially in bulk buying. As most buying companies invest a lot, they wouldn’t risk it in the absence of vital info. Emphasize on Spec sheets, product descriptions, and image clarity. Keep the user informed.
The content must come to include certifications, quality standards, pitch decks, whitepapers, tutorials, testimonials, podcasts, blogs, FAQ’s, webinars, and product demos. The website should also include enough CTA’s and Contact forms to bring more personalized interaction.
B2B buying goes through several reconsiderations in the purchase department. The Buying process is made up of at least 5-6 people. Instant purchases are not a thing here. B2C turnaround is a lot quicker - since the person weighing in is also the person that ends up buying. B2C can be called impulse buying.
A corporate will take its own sweet time and examine every little detail. A sale never happens on the first visit. Even try to integrate a “pricing calculator,” that will factor shipping, no. of products, volume, location, payment methods, and give instant quotes. B2B Sales Funnel will need more nurturing.
B2B brands have a set number of buyers & do not sometimes see more than 100 customers at a time. Whereas, B2C brands may be juggling more than 1000 from all over the world. But they sell at a far lesser value, with regards to annual gross revenue. Average order value is the primary reason.
Usually, B2B eCommerce purchases are higher in price. B2C eCommerce brands need to sell to thousands of people to crack their 1st million in sales. Thus, B2C brands need that level of Automation/ Integration to streamline order management, customer relationships, sales, marketing, and a whole lot more.
Parameters - eCommerce Website Cost Breakdown
When it comes to building an eCommerce store, there are a myriad of parameters that will influence the final cost. In this breakdown we’ll investigate each of them and the corresponding value they bring to your eCommerce store.
What makes up the overall cost of your eCommerce store & “How much will an eCommerce website cost” will be arrived at through these factors:
- Analytics – SEO services and packages can be the differentiator between you and your competitors. Tracking buyer personas, buying behavior and then targeting them accordingly with offers/coupons. The more you read into you visitors, the better your promotion campaign gets.
Vital for B2C in cross-selling & upselling. Your next mail will be customized to their preferences. Use Google Analytics, HotJar, Kissmetrics and more to address buyers needs in a manner that improves viewership, CTR, retention times & conversions. Add a personal touch to your next sales campaign.
Leverage inbound marketing and SEO tactics by creating content that provides answers to potential customers’ questions and problems. The outdated cold-calling and trade show approach is not effective anymore. Nurture leads in a sales funnel to make them engage on a personal level.
- SKU’s – Your SKU’s, be it digital or physical must be extended to include all the details. Being on the web gives you the advantage of displaying the spec sheets and parameters in rich detail. Bring up subscription plans and the list of products that form part of this package.
From pricing to any variable attributes that will influence the same, gift cards on select products, top selling, advanced pricing, coupons and even the ones that form part of Bulk selling. Every item in your inventory must have an extensive info PDF. In B2B such data is crucial to the decision-making process.
The more products you display, the more it’s going to cost. An extensive inventory and its bordering details will mean the cost will escalate and add up more expenses.
- Automation – Believe it or not, your manual-legacy systems are the ones responsible for reduced output. The back-end processes are dealt with using medieval practices, that cause a limited yield. Slow and tedious ways of handling tasks is making things more complex and hurting your business.
In the IOT age, its high time that the companies start incorporating modern standards. Engage your workforce in strategic endeavors on the front line with customers & partners. Automate all the mundane chores. A staff that has more advanced resources will no doubt be more competent.
You’ll boost job satisfaction, enhance productivity, and streamline decision making with a fully equipped and empowered workforce. Use ERP to manage volumes of data, CRM (Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho CRM etc.) to optimize marketing strategies & enhance customer relations, order management, tracking, Cloud, inventory and various such tools that simplify laborious tasks.
Both B2B and B2C chains will benefit heavily, as they the technology enables better allocation of the workforce, cost and error reduction, better collaboration, reduce turnaround times and a deeper insight into business processes. Automate finances (QuickBooks), billing, sales, support and more.
Use smart devices to deliver predictive services and to speed up production. By automating these chores, manufacturers can reduce waste, maintenance costs, and downtime. A definite way to deliver an immersive experience, that separates you from your competitors & cultivates lifetime customers.
Due to the usefulness of the above, many B2B and B2C businesses opt for the same. Integration of 3rd Party Solutions are vital for a brands success. But the more you leave to intelligent software, the more you’ll have to spend, thus raising the cost.
- Use of AI - Embedding AI into your products means you can supply personalized and intelligent help in the form of chatbots. Predictive analysis, and remote monitoring after your products leave the factory allow you to change how you design, build, sell, and service your products.
AI helps you to mine data to generate quality leads, grow your customer base, offer intelligent advice and support. Helps with faster business decisions and real-time help. Even increase productivity and operational efficiency. AI is crucial for business longevity, but at the same time adds to the overall cost of bringing up an eCommerce store.
- Security – The extent to which you wish to secure your site, will decide the amount to be invested. SSL certificate and HTTPS is mandatory to encrypt the transfer of data and secure the site. The sensitive details of your customers need to be protected at all costs. Plus, you need to prevent any unauthorized threats.
Whether you seek domain validation, business validation or extended validation; each will bring its own unique price point. A paid service like this will increase the cost of your site. SSL certificates are issued by certification authorities and range from $10 a month to as high as $800 a month. - Extent of Content + Rich Media – A custom design layouts, imagery, and a Content Management System (CMS) will bring some upfront costs. A CMS is needed to display text, pictures, videos, articles, etc., on your website. WordPress, Joomla and Drupal being open source are free but other customized CMS’s cost more. An ecommerce site with WordPress, works like a charm for content centric brands.
Plus, if you end up relying on outside agencies for content and image creation. Then, that will have to be accounted into the overall cost. If you plan on doing any Content Marketing, then some content heavy pages will need additional plug-ins and templates which will raise the cost. - Responsive – You want audience interaction on every touchpoint. If they browse on mobile, then the ability to finish on any other device should be available. For this, your site should respond well on other devices. A slow, clumsy and bloated site will degrade your reputation and send visitors to your rivals.
Display your resource correctly on every device. This way your site can cater to the mobile consumers with ease. Ensure the interface is appealing and does not tire your audience or create obstructions.
- Checkout – A streamlined Checkout page will be responsible for either, conversion or abandonment. Minimal jumps between sections and getting everything done on the same page, transparency of the process, links to privacy, adequate safety info + logo to convey security, then detailed info about the cart item. All this and then the shipping method. Such an elaborate Checkout page will pile up the costs. Also, something you can’t do without, if you wish to give an uninterrupted checkout.
- Challenges + Vision – The current set of problems faced by your business, will dictate the road ahead via eCommerce. eCommerce will pave the path with whatever it is that you want to do. Whether it is to offer a better online buying experience, grow your buyer base, generate online revenue, reduce costs of business processes or enhance the mobile experience.
- Marketing – The extent to which you get involved with marketing will also affect the cost. Marketing via PPC ads, affiliate marketing, Email marketing, internal or agency marketing costs, A/B Testing, Conversion Rate Optimization will add up to your B2B/B2C website costs. As you integrate more marketing plugins (MailChimp, Sumo and more) to make a better impact with your brand, the costs will escalate.
Aside from all this pushing your content on Social Media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram) will cost you more. Software’s like Hootsuite and Buffer will bring additional charges to the tune of $40-60/month. Even the ability to let your B2B/B2C customers leave feedback/testimonials or enable any interaction will cost extra.
ADA Compliance will bring its own extra cost. When you know that a failure to do so might lead to a lawsuit, you might just go ahead and make your site ADA compliant. In which case the price will increase. Various extensions, maps, Augmented Reality (AU), Voice Search, extent of traffic & even an advanced search functionality will elevate the costs.
Notable Platforms
The best platform to build eCommerce website will differ from business to business. Depending on the size, orders, customers, inventory, functionalities and more, your platform cost will vary. The more integrations you bring in to automate the processes, the more complex and expensive it gets.
A fluctuating price that is a measure of your needs. There are various platforms that will cater to your requirements, but how will they stack up against each other and what value do they bring to your business, is what we’ll read into a little bit more.
WooCommerce works with WordPress and turns any website to an eCommerce store. Install it, add SKU’s, tweak your settings and you are good to go. But WooCommerce means you’ll need hosting and extra costs for themes + plugins. A breeze for anyone familiar with WordPress. 
Proves good for SEO, highly customizable with many 3rd Party integrations and many marketing options available. Hosting is costly, no support available and you end up needing extensions for simple stuff.
Volusion has an easy drag and drop editing feature and is a great option for those selling physical products. Some extra costs in buying premium themes and SSL certificates. Even lacks blogging capabilities. Volusion however, takes care of hosting. But the integrations and app options are limited.
Volusion has a tech support that is available 24/7. Live chat, phone or email. Something missing from WooCommerce, so you’d end up by yourself. All this besides a neatly structured dashboard that brings convenience, best features, plethora of marketing options and tutorials to get you started straight away.
Some Volusion stores look a little dated, lacks up-selling and cross selling features, come up with a poor URL structure. But they bring a proper inventory and marketing system.
Magento’s free Open-Source Edition can be a bit daunting for small startups, especially with the heavy coding & over-reliance on the community. But if you have a developer on hand and want something truly customizable then this is your go-to platform. The community is accessible 24/7 to resolve any queries.
If you are a large business, then the paid Commerce Edition will be useful. Brings with it a host of premium plugins, 24/7 tech support, built in customer loyalty system, account manager, quick design builds, business intelligence dashboards, advanced B2B capabilities, top marketing tools, WYSIWYG Page Builder, full page caching, recurring payments, easy deployment, fast loading with CDN and so much more.
Can become a bit costly, due to the annual licensing fees. More suitable for large corporates who have many SKU’s, owing to its ability to scale & the added functionalities. Is resource heavy & slows down too often. Has a heavily complex coding styles, requires a strong server and the initial costs are also high.
Shopify Plus is another platform that works without any technical expertise. All the hosting and software comes from Shopify. The security aspect with SSL is also very high, packed with Powerful Marketing Tools, 24/7 customer support and is mobile ready (responsive). Easy to setup, means you ease into it.
Has inbuilt SEO, thus page rankings can be improved. But there are transaction fees for not using Shopify Payment, thus limiting you when it comes to using payment gateways. Some of the premium apps can become a little hefty. The unstructured URL’s can become a bit irksome. Lastly, not very apt for blogging.
Virtina’s Exclusive – Website Cost Calculator
You are facing a hard time in determining the expenses for your B2B/B2C/B2B2C site. Wondering “How much does a website cost” and contemplating other such questions? Then, you must be looking to bring up a store. Frankly, it is hard to give the exact amount without considering your Business attributes.
For that reason, Virtina came up with a unique eCommerce calculator that evaluates the various parameters of your business, before proposing a “ballpark figure.” Which approximates the actual setup/migration costs for an eCommerce site.
A free tool takes no more than 2-3 steps, asks you around 5-6 questions and then “guesstimates” the cost for your eCommerce requirements. We make this accessible to you free of charge so that you can get a broad, reliable idea about your eCommerce store. Receive an Instant Estimate!!!
Insert various details like SKU’s, orders, average visitors, order value and more to arrive at the extent of investment that will be needed for your eCommerce website. It can be hard to predict the precise cost; thus, we consider all these variables; to get an eCommerce website cost estimate.
We don’t display vague numbers or lowball the cost to attract your attention. Virtina gives the best price that will be an extension of your business size. Rates will differ, but they still fall within a realistic range.
Get a rough idea using this top nifty calculator, before you start a discussion with us. Beyond this, if you need a detailed assessment, get in touch with us, and we’ll take it from there. Do a comprehensive audit and answer your penultimate concern, “How much does a website cost?”
Summary
In the end, “How much does an e-commerce website cost?” is derived from an abundance of complex factors that make the website. An average cost of setting up an ecommerce website is just a guide value. Custom eCommerce websites will cost more than template ones but will perform better. A small, a medium and an Enterprise business site will have different costs.
If you decide to do it yourself, take the project to a freelancer or approach an eCommerce expert like Virtina; then too the costs will vary. Of course, the cheapest is DIY, but that will present many problems and is not recommended if you are incapable & unfamiliar with the eCommerce sector.
Even though, both B2B and B2C are governed by humans & involve sales; they are unique and complex in their own ways. The attributes of each may be the same, yet they differ; thus, even the eCommerce site that supports them must adjust accordingly.
Where B2C websites are heavily UX/UI influenced, their B2B counterparts rely on information to educate their buyers. So, the eCommerce websites must be synced with that buying cycle. The content must speak to both the end user & the decision makers. Know you audience and know your business type before you start building your own ecommerce site.
Once established, realize how you wish to scale your store, what features are indispensable, what plugins will be needed. Can a free equivalent do the job, or do you need a premium one? Is your website content-heavy, what platform will support your store, the hosting, security, and many such factors?
Carefully evaluate your requirements or approach an eCommerce brand in Virtina. We have years of expertise in various platforms. Having served clients in industries all over the world. Our talented experts are waiting to pass this crucial info, so you too can realize your dream-digital store.
From a small bug fix, a complex migration, to building an eCommerce site from scratch. We have handled everything and are quite capable of assisting you. Get in touch with our skilled consultants, and we’ll guide you from there. No task is too small for our skilled specialists, and we firmly believe in this.
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