How Much Does It Cost to Create an E-commerce Website in India?
The global e-commerce market has been booming for the past decade. Why? Buyers have started finding a convenient and flexible space to shop, save for later, and get their doorstep delivery within their preferred time. The root cause of this is visible if you observe the customer behaviour closely. They not only get on-time deliveries, but also get access to their products and commodities, brand preferences, sizes, offers, and round-the-clock access to their requirements, unlike shopping at a physical store.
This is why we see a boom in e-commerce websites, a profitable, communicative platform for brands and buyers to explore the availability and interests. But have you ever wondered what would have been in building such a platform? This blog explains the costs involved in creating an e-commerce website in India, the major costs associated with the process, and everything you need to know.
Identifying The Need of an E-Commerce Website
With the gradual transition from manual business to online business and e-commerce becoming a habit of our daily lives, an e-commerce website is inevitable to keep the profits unleashed. Here are the reasons why they are considered to be important:
Helps understand the potential buyers
The marketing processes, especially in the e-commerce sector, have been undergoing a huge change. From the sellers hooting and calling out the name of their products, to having the prices written on cardboards, to transitioning to mobile apps and websites, marketing strategies have undergone major changes. Of all the other methods of marketing, an e-commerce website stands out for its 24/7 accessibility, availability of information, check-in/check-out assistance, and adding items to cart for later purchases. All this being monitored by the website owners using marketing algorithms helps in recentering and improving the strategies for better profits.
Improves brand recognition
Selling a product in a marketplace makes yours no different from the others, maybe hairline differences in terms of the brand name. This problem is resolved by marketing your product on an e-commerce site. Adding brand recognition for your product through a website means working on the logo, the tagline, the color combinations, the font size, and the font type. The problem with most e-commerce products is that they’re recognized for the website, not for what they offer. For example, when you order a dress through Flipkart, you choose Flipkart for the purchase and not the other way around. Hence, the purpose of your website should be to explain the purpose why you exist for the brands in different ways- blogs, articles, social media posters, and pop-ups.
Helps understand the user needs
The problem with a physical market is that you never know much about the buyers. They come to you, buy the product, pay you, and go. Hence, even if you think of providing them a little extra in terms of product, you may turn out to be unsuccessful in the initial items, as you haven’t researched much about their interests. An e-commerce website has found an easy solution to this. Through the different SEO parameters, you can identify the target market, audience, their interests, preferences, and accordingly tailor the products and services. As the buyers find you as a good provider, they start sharing positive feedback, reviews, and recommendations that boost your brand reach and profits.
Creates a marketing strategy
Having an e-commerce website is like decorating your storefront based on occasions, seasons, or events. You can add demonstrative videos or images that help your buyers understand the right way to use the products. For updates and new information, adding a blog page with the latest updates of information is the best way. Adding vision and mission statements helps the users understand what you aim to achieve through providing such a platform. Putting up your brand story is another great way to engage your audience and understand the trustworthiness of your brand. In short, an e-commerce website considers its face as a marketing strategy explained through its website.
Runs campaign and explains services better
Just because you have your website, your audience will never come running after you. This requires you to make use of the different SEO strategies like optimizing your website, running ad campaigns, sharing your thoughts on the latest marketing methodologies, and so on. Creating and running a marketing campaign requires you to plan for it, design the images, set a caption, a budget, and regularly monitor the campaign to check on the views and convert them into leads. Making campaigns a habit eventually leads to more audience members turning into customers in a matter of weeks.
Essential Features of an E-Commerce Website
While everyone on the internet knows what an e-commerce website is, few know what its essential features are. Here are the essential features your website should have:
Quick Navigation Assistance
As mentioned above, an e-commerce website is a digital storefront. Just like people walk around and shop for their items in a supermarket, the e-commerce website should also assist them in making purchases, identifying brands, sorting out types of products, prices, discounts, and deals. It should be well-equipped with different payment methods, which makes the checkout process quicker. Additionally, all the features should be available just a click away so that they can always shift between any service page to home page.
Mobile Responsiveness
Nowadays, a handy device is what users prefer over a laptop or a desktop. A mobile device is the perfect solution for this, where they can simultaneously manage their e-commerce shopping experience and their other online activities at the same time, like shopping and chatting, without having to compromise any of them. In addition, the web development team must have an eye for creativity and communication to produce designs and themes that match the brand agendas. In any case, make sure to test and eliminate any errors within the website before launching it.
Sufficient Security Features
Every e-commerce website these days is visited by millions of people who sometimes submit their personal information, such as contact details and email address, which they consider vulnerable as they share it on a public platform. The way to ensure security in your e-commerce website is to protect the personal and financial information at any cost. The most important thing to note and keep in place is the checkout button that eliminates pondering and frustrations.
Checkout Options
A majority of users are always interested in moving fast to complete their shopping. This means that your e-commerce website must necessarily have a check-out page where they can double-check the items or products they’ve shopped for and can proceed to make the payment. Therefore, make sure to place the checkout buttons wherever the website offers good visibility. This is, in fact, one of the lesser-known ways to improve your customer experience for the future.
Advanced Payment Methods
A website that provides multiple payment methods is always more appreciated than websites that lack them. One of the reasons why this is an important feature of e-commerce websites is that the site could be accessed by users from different geographical locations, where payments could be made through different currencies. Here, it is necessary to have a website developed that accepts all currencies and modes of payment so that the transactions are made quickly and easily. This not only boosts the website interactions but also doubles the sales.
Factors Affecting the E-Commerce Website Costs
Before revealing the e-commerce website costs, the development company considers a few factors, which are:
Website Type
Not all developers would tell you this, but different niches of websites follow different web development processes. For example, the web development process for a product website would be quite different from a personal website. While a personal website would require only a WordPress account to be complete, a product website would require Magento or Custom web development experts to intervene in the process to make it seem perfect and complete online. However, if you’re planning to launch a website with some unique ideas and an interactive nature, it is best to coordinate with a custom e-commerce development company that can guide you through the process.
Web Design
The role of a web designer and their designs is crucial in e-commerce. Here, the primary duty of a web designer is to research and come up with unique and brand-oriented designs that are futuristic as well. Also, unlike in a physical store, you may not be able to provide the users with physical guidance, but spending enough time in research and analysis can help you come up with unique thoughts and ideas about navigation, which can make the shift from one page to another invisible, yet impactful. The pages must also provide the same impact when viewed on both mobile and desktop.
Images and Contents
What mostly attracts a user to an e-commerce site are the images and content, both of which need to be crafted creatively. The number of pages in an e-commerce website is indecisive and completely depends on the number of products it provides. For some other brands, new images and content keep showing up now and then based on the changes in the industry, the demand and supply cycle. If asked how many images and how much content is to be displayed, there is no definite answer. You may need to provide as much information as the audience demands. But make sure that your website contents are seo-optimized with the right keywords.
Keywords aren’t the only part of SEO. Make sure that the website has a high and consistent visibility amongst other browsers too. Also, make the images, meta tags, metadescriptions, and details needed uniform on every page. This is done to make the website look complete, fill the gap, and make the site look communicative to the users.
Website Integrations
Let’s assume you have a web and app version of your website. If they aren’t integrated, the updates on one platform may not be available on the other. To unify both these platforms, the developer combines them using a common admin panel. This, however, isn’t a mandatory service and needs to be implemented only if the brand yearns for both a brand and a website.
Shopping Carts
Shopping carts are the most basic and necessary aspect of an e-commerce website. They must also be integratable with payment gateways and systems like PayPal and Google Pay, as every digital user today prefers having a digital shopping experience. But one of the limitations of these platforms is that since you have bulk transactions every day, you may have to pay a small percentage to these platforms as commission. Before integrating the payment gateways, make sure you have as many profits every month.
Registration Process
To improve credibility and confidence, it is best if you have a separate ID created for every user, easing it out to track their transactions and frequency of usage. This requires you to have a strong admin panel, an SSL certificate, and a skilled developer to make sure that the process happens smoothly.
How to Save on E-Commerce Website Development Costs
Let’s just keep the facts blunt. Yes, e-commerce website development can be expensive. But here are some effective ways to save on the development costs:
Seek Professional Support
Your website is your lifetime asset and an axel for your business. Hence, first identify the needs and requirements of your website and think how beneficial it would be to the users. Then, fix a budget you think is affordable, and then look for a platform-oriented website developer or a Shopify website builder who can assure you the best output that is worth the development charges. The second choice is to hire a freelancer who can offer you timely guidance and support for the development needs as and when called for.
Include Quality Images
If you’re looking for a lively and communicative website, the next thing you need to add is real and high-quality images. For this, you may have to hire an experienced photographer and share your thoughts and requirements to get the desired output. The images are one of the best ways to communicate with your audience, as images speak for themselves more than words.
Make It Responsive
Websites are designed on different platforms so that they get more reach and attention. It is best to have a website optimized for both mobile and desktop so that the users can get the same impact on both screens and are liked by a bigger audience. Before making the website live, test it thoroughly on the big and small screens and check for any glitches or delays.
Add Social Proofs
Your website may just be new to the field. In such circumstances, having reviews and comments on the website is not a good idea. If this is the case, it is good to have social proof instead. Social proof could be a recognition, an award, or a category recognition your brand has earned recently. This is a less spoken way to grab user attention and credibility.
Go for a Proper Web Development Platform
Website development isn’t as easy as you may think of it. There’s a lot more than adding images, content, banners, and ads. It requires immense technical skills and a professional team who are able to handle the requirements and changes. Before fixing the e-commerce website development company in India,you would like to approach, evaluate, and confirm their skills to make sure they are the right fit for you.
Conclusion
The cost an e-commerce website is indecisive and based on different factors that the users beedThe number of e-commerce users and websites has been increasing in parallel. There’s going to be a further increase, and there’s no going back. This means that you’ve got to invest in the right e-commerce website development company in India that understands your requirements precisely and has the right skillset, knowledge, and creativity to make them come true. Ultimately, what matters is getting the right support, the right time, and the right people at work to make your business successful.
