Understanding E-commerce Costs: Factors involved in E-commerce platform development

Introduction

Ask any enterprise and they shall tell you that E-Commerce is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity. E-commerce has evolved into a variety of business models including cross-border commerce, borderless business, and international online retail. When we mention e-commerce we generally refer to the buying and selling of goods and services, or the sharing of funds and data over the internet. Such transactions occur between business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer, or consumer-to-business.

Compared to a decade ago, developing an e-commerce website is not expensive and is accessible to everyone. While custom ecommerce website development starts somewhere at $10,000, it can easily increase manifold depending on the features you require, the scope of the projects, and various other factors. E-commerce development is known for its high ROI and can be extremely beneficial for businesses when it comes to increasing the visibility of products. It increases reach and services to a greater target audience, and generates huge margins of revenue in the long run. With that being said, let us have a look at what entails Ecommerce platform development and the costs involved.

Factors to be considered before creating an E-commerce website

Before an enterprise gets started with eCommerce development, it needs to understand a few factors that can greatly impact the costs of the entire project. Additionally, knowing the organization’s needs beforehand can help save them extra costs.
Here are a few of these factors for an enterprise to consider before they step into the mostly unchartered waters of e-commerce development

Type of E-commerce store

First and foremost, it is important to identify the business model the enterprise is aiming for. As mentioned above, there are three models of an ecommerce business. They are:
Business-to-business(B2B): Such a business model involves a transaction of commodities or services between two businesses, either manufacturer and wholesaler or wholesaler and retailer. A few examples of these businesses are WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Salesforce.
Business-to-commerce(B2C): Such a business model has two entities engaging in a business transaction, usually an enterprise selling commodities and services and a customer purchasing these. Examples of these businesses include Amazon, Shopify, and Adobe Commerce amongst others.

Consumer-to-Consumer(C2C): Consumer-to-consumer or C2C model entails the exchange of services or products between customers themselves without any intermediaries. eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, Ali Express, and Amazon Marketplace are popular platforms that function as C2C models of e-commerce.

Apart from these, businesses must identify what they would be selling. Would it be services or commodities, software or tangible products? What are the number of products the business aims to sell and if different products require different login capabilities? These questions help enterprises decide on the type of e-commerce development one must aim for before starting their search for a reliable e-commerce website Development Company to help them build ecommerce website that is versatile and scalable.

Offline and Online Point of Sale Decision

If a business wants to sell both online and offline, E-commerce website costs might go up. This is because when an organization decides to opt for both models, the platform needs to be equipped with features such as picking up from the store (BOPIS), nearest store locator, inventory management, and much more. It is especially beneficial for increasing the reach of SMEs and startups. Most modern-day enterprises start with an online presence and then shift to online and offline, once the sales have been established. This is a robust and future-proof strategy that helps brands bring in revenue before investing in a physical store.

Budget

It is recommended that businesses decide on a development budget and stick to it from the start. Differentiating between necessary features and add-on features is crucial to bring down the website development costs. If an organization’s budget is small, they must include only basic feature requirements for the e-commerce development companies and make sure that the platform developed is scalable.

Calculating E-commerce Development Cost

The cost of developing an e-commerce platform depends on many variables. These variables manipulate the entire project costs and can add to the overall cost of building an online store.
Some basic features of e-commerce development which decide these costs are:

• E-commerce software and features costs ($10,000-$100,000)
• Domain name ($10-$30)
• E-commerce hosting ($30-$300)
• SSL certificate ($100-$300)
• Payment processing costs (per transaction charges)
• Add-ons and extensions
• Design Cost ($10-$20 an hour)

Let us understand these in detail.

E-commerce software

The more unique your software, the more it’s going to cost you. However, with the numerous platform-building options available in the market one can estimate and even bring down the cost of making an app dealing in e-commerce products and services. Some of the popular platform developments that help businesses in developing economic e-commerce platforms are:

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platform development tools amongst the tech masses and businesses. While it is feature-rich, Big Commerce helps businesses get up and launch quickly. The platform has a clean user experience that makes it easy to build aesthetic, user-friendly websites. The tools also come with several pre-built plug-ins and front-end content management systems like Drupal, Bloomreach, etc. Another added advantage is that its SaaS-based platform ensures accessibility, scalability, and flexibility all at a nominal fee of $39 a month.

Magento

Magento is yet another e-commerce platform that offers on-premises and cloud-hosted capabilities for e-commerce development. Equipped with built-in PHP toolsets and environments the platform helps programmers develop eCommerce projects. Nike and Samsung are a few of the companies to actively employ Magento. Enterprises subscribing to Magento need to pay $40 a month to avail its services. However, ecommerce website costs are often accompanied by recruiting fees of developers who are well versed in Magento development, and that further increases the costs of e-commerce development.

Shopify

One of the most popular platforms for building e-commerce websites, Shopify is a go-to platform for e-commerce development. With a simple interface and multiple aesthetically appealing templates, Shopify is one of the most widely used platforms used by cottage industries, SMEs, startups, and homegrown businesses. It is integrated with payment systems and the user just needs to design its website and add products to generate their very own website.

Domain name

Domain costs refer to the cost involved in using the Domain of the website. Usually, simple domain names cost between $10 -$30 annually and are minor yet equally important costs involved in e-commerce development. GoDaddy is a popular site that provides domain names at reasonable prices compared to private domain name sellers who can charge a hefty fee for the same.

E-commerce hosting

Usually, e-commerce solutions development platforms provide web hosting services along with development services. However, there are also other options for third-party hosting services for which it can cost an extra $100-$500 for companies who are willing to self-host.

SSL certificate

SSL certificates are another insignificant yet important expense for your website as it provides additional security to the network on which your website is hosted and customers use them for their purchases. SSL certificates usually cost $30-$100 annually but justify their cost in multiple ways. Apart from added security, SSL rankings also help make the website SEO-friendly and get better reach and rankings in searches.

Payment Gateway Charges

For secure transactions, there are various payment gateways available in the market that levy a minor fee on each transaction. Such costs often add up, in the long run, to make up a significant part of the overall charge of e-commerce development. For example, PayPal charges almost 3% of transactions over 10 dollars. This amounts to an intimidating number for large volumes of transactions over a long period.

Add-ons, plugins, and extensions

Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce are a few e-commerce development platforms that provide multiple add-ons and extensions, some free and others at a price. These extensions are important in making a website unique in the long run while bearing a hole in the pockets of its subscribers.

Design

As an Ecommerce website is aimed to engage customers directly, a good, ergonomic, and aesthetic friendly design goes a long way! Though it contributes a little more to average cost to build a website a little more, a good design ensures customer engagement and convenience while building the perfect customer experience as they navigate through the website. A UI/UX designer can charge anywhere between $10 to $20 dollars per hour for a medium sized ecommerce project.

Conclusion

Modernization of tech markets at breakneck speeds has only brought down e-commerce application development costs. An enterprise looking to develop its very own e-commerce Software Solutions need no longer burn a hole in their pockets to own such a platform. There are many software development companies in the market that offer reliable services for the development of software solutions but not all are experienced in developing intricate features of Ecommerce platforms. OpenXcell, on the other hand, is a credible Web e-commerce Development Company that has successfully developed and deployed numerous e-commerce software solutions and has a rich roster of 700+ clients. Solutions built by the company are robust and reliable and have high ROI.