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A website has become a necessity for retail businesses, especially during the pandemic. It plays a crucial role in driving sales and improving brand recognition. Moreover, a website acts as a 24/7 marketing tool for any business. However, the more you will sow, the more you shall reap. This means that the more efforts and resources you put into the process, the more fruits your website will bear for your business.
In this blog, we will share how you can start your eCommerce website within your budget. Web Studios, a leading eCommerce web design agency, gathered a few ways for businesses to plan and develop a web store right under their budget.
How to Start Your eCommerce Website Within Your Budget
When we talk about website development, to be more specific, eCommerce website development, the more money you feed in, the better the outcome will be. If you are wondering how much the development of an eCommerce website will cost you, keep reading the blog.
Budgeting and Rough Estimation of Cost
eCommerce websites need more investment than any other website. Why? Because these websites involve the use of more complex systems and various integrations. Hence, you will have to consider different factors such as the building of the product pages, payment processes, shipping methods, security for transactions, the confidentiality of customers’ data, and much more. Keep all these in mind while roughly estimating the cost of the eCommerce website.
Choosing an eCommerce Platform
The eCommerce platform that you choose for the building of your store will greatly determine the initial investment required. Shopify and WooCommerce are the most commonly used platforms for eCommerce web store creation. While WooCommerce is a cost-free platform that requires integration into WordPress. However, using it yourself can be quite a difficult task. You will also need 2-3 extensions which will cost about $50-%100/year. On the other hand, Shopify requires you to pay for the account creation. The best part about this platform is that it breaks down the monthly cost of the features. This gives you a more accurate idea of the cost.
Template vs. Custom Design
Once you have chosen your desired platform, you need to decide on the designing & developing approach. There are two options. You can either utilize a pre-designed template or build a website from scratch.
Selecting a Merchant Processor
Payment gateway is a merchant service that permits the users to process their debit and credit cards on the website. The choice of payment significantly impacts the ongoing costs. Businesses with eCommerce websites as the sole earner of their business need to set up a checkout process for visitors to pay online through the website. Allowing them to pay directly enhances the chances of them converting into customers. While redirecting them to a third-party application for the payment can dissuade the purchase decision. The commonly used payment gateways are PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. You can add these integrations into your WooCommerce or Shopify web stores. The processing fee of these gateways is 2.9%, with an addition of $0.30 per transaction. Additionally, there can be fees for setup too. But that entirely depends upon the choice of payment gateway.
Planning for long-term costs
Just building a store is not enough. To keep it running, you have to bear the long-term costs too. eCommerce websites need long-term costs for smooth operations. These costs include hosting, Maintenance, security certifications, support, and security monitoring costs. The choice of the eCommerce platform influences the monthly cost.
Jumpstart your eCommerce business
Many businesses fail to garner enough sales to keep their business operations running. Why? Because in the start, they don’t make the right choices. Therefore, before you start your online selling journey, you need to make the correct choices in the beginning. Your budget shapes a lot of your decisions about the platform, mode of designing, integrations, features, etc.
Final Words
Investment is important. The more you will invest, the best the results will be. And your investment will not go in vain, as you will definitely get a higher return on your investment when made right.