In the near future, may not be very soon, but in probability, brick-and-mortar retail store may see a drop in their business, likely to even shut shop. E-Commerce will quietly take its place.  By the way, how much an E-Commerce website would cost to launch.  Incidentally, the concept gains significance in modern business. The arithmetic is not simple to comprehend website pricing and services.  It is complex with too many technical factors, tools, developer rates, business goals; scope of the project, the list goes on to influence the price of an end product.

Recently, various platforms have mushroomed launching their own online store with varied features that range from simple tools viz., shopping carts and payment integration to enterprise options with customization. Some of the market leaders like WooCommerce, Magento, Squarespace, and BigCommerce are names to reckon with.

At any point in time, custom developed online web store is the proper option, if you attempt to enter the market niche with a serious proposition where you will find thousands of customers are available to buy your product.  This article conveys clearly about design, features, initial costs, post-launch costs and some other related factors having a bearing on the cost of setting up an E-Commerce site.

Cost Factors of an E-Commerce Website – Pros & Cons

The major and approximate estimation of E-Commerce website cost starts with 2 key factors: sales/traffic goals and customized features. You will straightaway see the difference – with mediocre sales targets, a hosted store will cost somewhere between $1K and $5K and a professional custom site will cost much more as it involves a lot of technical complexity.

Our next step is to decide on a platform which can be hosted or self-hosted. A hosted platform runs on a server which is not accessible to you, for example, Shopify or Magento, though it offers a preset and compliant site. Pros include simplicity, no coding, stability, and easy hosting. But the main cash is the inability to adapt features or customize the site.

A self-hosted store will be housed on one’s own server or servers with access and ownership of the code. Pros to this approach contain customization, full control, access to the code, while cons include updates and support, dealing with technical issues, higher cost of setup which is unavoidable.

Hosting, SEO Et al

Undoubtedly, you need a reliable web hosting solution that also allows fast interaction. Go to see, it should typically start cheap and grows in price along with rising sales progressively. You have to first check the limits for storage, traffic, products, and orders…not necessarily in that order but these are important factors to be taken into account.

Next important thing, choose between shared hosting and dedicated server. Shared web hosting refers to service when your site is housed on a server along with multiple other sites. It is cheaper ($10/month on average) but comes with a risk of slow transactions, which has to be considered.