Finding out how much e-commerce costs is essential for an entrepreneur who wants to open his business to e-commerce. This need is increasingly important because the economic crisis is advancing, and companies must find a way to increase turnover. The promise of e-commerce? Helping entrepreneurs to make their business profitable through web pages that can reach anywhere.
Even on the other side of the world. There is no limit to the possibilities of an online shop. But to get there, you also need to invest the right amount. Otherwise, your digital store doesn’t even come around the corner. So, how much does e-commerce cost? Let’s try to answer by anticipating a point: we don’t give exact numbers because it’s impossible to estimate in advance without a clear reference. We can try to make a list of investment needs and items.
Hosting
The first chapter to open e-commerce: buy a domain with relative hosting. While the former has a low cost (about 10 euros a year), the space dedicated to the website files regarding housing can have an overbearing effect. Because basic web hosting is not enough to publish e-commerce: you need dedicated servers, cloud or VPS, or virtual private servers. These structures support a large website’s load, which wants its web pages’ security and speed. Even if it’s a small e-commerce, you need top-class hosting with SSD disks and other important technical features.
Strategy
Never create an e-commerce site starting simply from the desire to be present online. You need to know how your competitor behaves, what users want, and how the market evolves. Creating an e-commerce strategy is essential. And it has its cost that you cannot decline. Furthermore, keyword research should be done to understand what content to create regarding transactions and information.
This means setting up a structure based on categories, product sheets, tags, filters, and a company blog to intercept questions from potential customers and not for self-promotion. For this, it is necessary to have a budget to invest in advertising.
Realization
This is probably the most important item when considering how much e-commerce costs. Because both the prices of the labor related to the design, conception, study, and packaging of the web pages and those of everything needed to obtain the final result must be considered. For example, the theme and various plugins are priced at around 50 euros. The WordPress CMS is free, and the same goes for Woocommerce, but paid extensions are needed to unlock features. Here, for example, you can get an idea of the average cost of developing a sales site.
Then if you want Magento as a CMS, there is also a cost to use this content management system. Furthermore, in the latter case, the development costs are higher because the difficulties increase. We are certainly talking about creating a bigger e-commerce with a powerful but complex CMS. The cost also depends on how you want to develop everything and through which solution. Hiring a freelancer may be cheaper, but you can’t get the services that an agency gives you.
Contents
How much does ecommerce cost? The most interesting item in the estimate is the contents to be included in the web pages: you cannot create a website to sell online without visuals and copy. You can’t work without excellent text and good photos. But the photographers who take the shots and the web writers who write the content must be paid both in the creation phase and in the revision and insertion of these documents. However, another item to be included in the e-commerce estimate will bear fruit.
Management
One of the decisive chapters is to understand how much e-commerce costs. The agency’s estimate that makes the website can also stop at these items, including work carried out skillfully. But the website to sell does not manage itself. It would help to have an e-commerce manager who handles every detail, from lowering shipping costs to organizing offers and promotions. Without forgetting the optimization of all advertising channels, the website review identifies any errors, the study of performance, and KPIs that indicate how the web portal is performing.
Other Costs?
Blogging, advertising, SEO, new photos. All this is not free. On the contrary: the management of e-commerce occupies a large part of the budget but cannot be ignored. How much does it cost to develop the website? It can be challenging too. But it is nothing compared to what it takes to carry out an online sales project. But today, in certain sectors, there is no alternative: either you sell online or risk giving up many customers. Too broad to ignore.
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