Acquiring 1.2 billion customers is no easy feat. Well, that is the combined number of customers that leading online stores across the globe serviced in 2015. Ecommerce has been one of the fastest growing industries and nothing seems to be slowing down the momentum. As of February 2017, just Amazon had acquired 300 million users. However, a lot of impetus behind this success lies in the design that the products have been made and deployed. While ecommerce websites are completely virtual platform, they serve no less number of features than a full-fledged brick and mortar store – sometimes even more. Well, if you have been thinking of launching your ecommerce platform or were just wondering what it took to make these websites such huge successes, here’s the answer.
The rise of online commerce has also given rise to a huge number of ecommerce platforms in the industry. It’s become too crowded for any naïve user. While there would be dozens of ecommerce platforms, about four or five are more popularly used. These include Magento, Big Cartel, 3DCart, Volution, and Shopify. The total money you would be sending to design something like Flipkart or Amazon will depend on your choices among these platforms. The SaaS based solutions can ask anything between $20 and $30 every month. The price could vary expansively based on the level of customization.
Among these however, Magento has been the most used and offers:
The major part of the investment into an ecommerce platform is about the web store. Here, the design and communication of the site will define the experience your customers are going to have. Depending on the level of customization and the expected amount of traffic, the designer will have to ideate several revenue streams. It’s the face of the business and thus requires the maximum focus – and the investment.
Hosting services are comparatively cheap and you will not have to ask for much when you make a start. However, as your business grows and more interaction takes place through the website, you will have to shell out more to ensure that the servers don’t get limited. Hosting will affect the speed of service and thus also the user friendliness of the website.
The payment gateway will be all about how you would be allowing your customers to pay you! This makes it one of the most important aspects of the website. The more the number of options your customers get, the higher is the chance of revenue generation. It is also necessary to ensure that the payment gateway you choose supports the currencies you would be dealing with. Depending on the markets you are trying to target, the choices are many. Sometimes, you might also like the payment gateway to handle currency conversions. That again costs extra.
In the generation of smartphones, you just cannot do without having a mobile app for your ecommerce shop. Especially with online shopping, it is necessary that you put the store right in the palms of the audience. However, at the same time you need to ensure that the experience is consistent across all devices and that the customer is able to intuitively find products they would be looking for. Mobile makes it convenient for shoppers but is a crucial investment on part of the entrepreneur.
A website is finally about the content you put into it. With ecommerce sites, it would be the product images, the product descriptions and everything that is aimed to inform the audience about the business and its offerings. Apart from regularly updated fresh content, you will also need to invest in SEO, online ads and similar things to boost the brand’s presence on the internet. It’s a continuous investment that businesses need to make.
Lastly, it’s about how well you maintain the websites and how secure you can make it. Regular updates, SSL certifications, encrypted servers and the like will ensure that the customer feels confident sharing personal information and/or making a transaction. Security is crucial to the success of any website and with ecommerce, the stakes just get higher.
Overall, to be able to create a website like Amazon or Flipkart, it would cost about $60,000-$80,000 in the average range. The more the number of features and the more powerful services and support you seek to for the website, the more investment will it ask for.
*The rates mentioned above are calculated on the basis of an average rate of $30 and considering an end-to-end solution that comprises of both mobile and web ecommerce application and everything that goes into building and maintaining such a product. To get more insights on it you can reach us at [email protected].
Vipin Jain is the Co-Founder and CEO at Konstant Infosolutions and is in charge of marketing, project management, administration and R&D at the company. With his marketing background, Vipin Jain has developed and honed the company’s vision, corporate structure & initiatives and its goals, and brought the company into the current era of success.
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