What You Need to Know About Building an E-commerce Website in 2024: Costs and Features

With the advent of smart gadgets and online shopping, e-commerce has expanded at a breakneck pace in recent years. As a result, it has had a substantial impact on traditional retailing. Furthermore, last year’s pandemic increased online spending by $183 billion. Though retail stores or the traditional way of selling goods and services have yet to be extinct, the online platform now accounts for most of the market.

Looking at the price of an e-commerce website helps you understand you’re most considerable expense if you’re considering taking your conventional business online, venturing into the realm of e-commerce for the first time, or simply making sure you’re not overpaying right now.

Before pressing ahead, you should first understand what an e-commerce business entails. It refers to an online marketplace. We already know various business models such as b2b, b2c, c2c, and c2b. E-commerce makes it easier for the various modes to connect and conduct their business, increasing overall sales and the nation’s GDP.

According to eMarketer and Statista research, online retail sales will reach $6.51 trillion by 2024, with e-commerce websites accounting for 22.3% of total retail sales.

So let’s consider how much it will cost to construct and maintain an e-commerce website in 2024.

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What to take into account while determining an e-commerce website’s price?

A website is made of several components, each of which affects the final price. You may choose the platform ideal for you and the add-ons you can afford by knowing how much you want to spend in advance. It is easy to overspend if there isn’t a specified budget.

The entire cost of hosting an e-commerce website in 2024 can range from $40 to $4000 per month, with start-up costs of $1,500 to $30,000 for the website itself.

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Why is the range so wide?

It’s easier to provide an accurate price if you know your catalogue’s size, the modification needed, your yearly sales, and your overall requirements.

Small e-commerce companies can get by with simple plugins and free Shopify templates. However, customization and additional hosting capabilities like security and redundancy will be required for larger e-commerce shops.

Another factor is the way you choose to create your e-commerce website:

  1. Make it from scratch by yourself, or
  2. Hire a third party to do it for you

Again, the third party can be an agency or freelancer, whichever fits your budget better.

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Average Cost to Design an E-commerce Website

A bespoke e-commerce website design might cost anywhere from $26,400 to $99,700 and even higher. That holds for websites created from the ground up rather than pre-made templates.

Large e-commerce sites require a well-designed architecture to manage high loads and rank well in search engines. As a result, e-commerce websites now cost more than earlier they used to.

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What Factors Influence the Typical Price to Build an E-Commerce Website?

Said, there are a few significant cost drivers for the breakdown of the cost of developing an e-commerce website:

Domain and Hosting Charges

The domain is the name of your website, and hosting is the location where all of your website’s data and information is stored. You must pay to prevent your domain name from being copied and to host the website. The overall cost may be lower if you choose more extended plans. The price range varies depending on the different service providers, as some may provide additional features for your website while others provide space. The domain cost is around $8 and up annually, and the cost of hosting ranges from several hundred dollars to thousands of dollars per year.

Qualities: Quantity and Complexity

It’s pretty simple: as your website grows, so do your technological requirements.

All of these elements—screens, buttons, fields, and logic—matter much in pricing. Additionally, developers frequently have to write the code from scratch or utilize third-party APIs (such as those to connect payment systems or social login), which impacts the price of building an e-commerce website.

Design a unique website

The same is valid for e-commerce website development costs: The more complex the design, the longer it takes. Design isn’t only about aesthetics; it’s also about making the select-buy process quick, easy, and straightforward for the consumer. Therefore, it is preferable to let an expert handle designing rather than amateurs.

Additionally, be prepared to pay more for your e-commerce website if you want to incorporate animations or have an option between 2-3 graphic concepts (designers require time to prepare them).

Your website should display well on mobile devices. There’s a good reason: In 2021, 72.9% of all purchases were estimated to be made using smartphones.

Number of Integrations with 3rd Parties

If you want to incorporate third-party technologies into your e-commerce website design to:

  1. manage payments,
  2. add a live chat feature, or
  3. Modify delivery choices, you need to pay more.

Stripe and PayPal are two must-have payment connectors, so let’s start there.

When a card charge is successful, Stripe charges 2.9% plus 30. Similarly, to this, however, PayPal adds a 5% +.05 fee to payments under $10.

Where Developers Are Located

You should consider the locations of your contracted developers when estimating the price of building an e-commerce website. For instance, Central European software development services are less expensive than those offered in the United States, Canada, or Western Europe.

Website Content Writing 

For any website, content and copywriting are crucial. An e-commerce website, fortunately, you will only needs a few text-only pages, unlike other types of websites.

Since it is an e-commerce website, accurate and well-written product descriptions can significantly affect the user’s purchasing decision. You can rank higher on search engines by using high-quality product images and well-written product descriptions.

Maintenance Costs

Once you’ve created an e-commerce website, you must keep it running smoothly. Maintenance includes:

  1. Fixing bugs that may appear.
  2. Adding fresh elements to a particular website section.
  3. To keep your website running.

It might increase the day-to-day operational costs a little, but you want to ensure that the website is always working and in good condition.

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What features are the must-haves in an e-commerce website?

Having an easy-to-use navigation: Users are likelier to stay on your website for a long and purchase if they can quickly find what they’re looking for. So, the navigation on your website needs to be simple and easy. Additionally, a simple menu enables users to browse through various product categories.

Mobile-friendly website:  More than 70% of the purchases are made using mobile phones daily. So, if the website is a desktop-only site, the chances of more traffic decrease significantly.

Easy carting and checkout options: When a user clicks on their cart, it should display all relevant information, such as the product’s name, price, and quantity. In addition, they should have the option of directly changing or removing products from their carts or saving them for later purchases.

Product videos: Including videos on your product pages can boost conversions. According to Think with Google, more than half of shoppers said online videos helped them decide which brand or product to buy.

FAQ For Products: It reduces the time your customer service staff must spend responding to product inquiries, both before and after the sale.

Return policy: Including a return policy on your website increases your sales by increasing the consumer’s confidence in purchasing a product. To increase the likelihood that it will increase the number of purchases, put it close to your add-to-cart button.

Order tracking: When a customer places an order, the first thing that comes to mind is when their order will arrive.

Reliable Security: Since the user will be entering their bank details to make purchases online, the website needs the necessary security measures to thwart any intruders or hackers from the outside. Thus, reliable security protects the consumers’ private information and increases their likelihood of returning to the website.

Modern payment methods: Online transactions are a crucial component of an e-commerce website. Having a variety of payment options increases conversion rates and boosts sales. Consider accepting payments via UPI, PayPal, Apple Pay, and other services in addition to the main credit and debit cards. In addition, it would be best if you displayed icons on your website to let customers know what payment methods are accepted.

Conclusion

To sum up, we have learned from this article now that you need a proper action plan before you invest in developing your own e-commerce website. The cost can range widely since many factors need to be considered, like design, hosting, payment processing, add-ons, and the cost you are ready to incur to grow your e-commerce business. The top e-commerce platforms include Shopify, woo commerce, and Bigcommerce, and you can use these to make an online store. It would help if you also had a future scalable plan so that once your website attracts more traffic and becomes profitable, you can expand your options and make the necessary changes.

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Website Developer

Having more than eight years of experience, Deepak Chaudhary is well versed in planning and prototyping new applications. Deepak Chaudhary is on the Website Developer team. As part of his many operational duties at JDM Web Technologies, Deepak Chaudhary oversees web development and builds the company culture. With a background in design and development, Deepak Chaudhary has the unique perspective of creating a website. Deepak Chaudhary started programming in 2010 and became an experienced web designer. He is well known for testing the site and applying different browsers. He has been are often involved with the designing and appearance of a website.

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