The trend to shop online is increasing day by day which inspired many entrepreneurs to create a digital shop. It surely helps to save the physical outlet costs. Apart from that, it also helps to gain more customers which can lead to hike sales revenues. eCommerce business is not limited to big sharks like eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, Wal-Mart, & Craigslist, but even small retailers are taking advantage of eCommerce trends & technologies.

Majorly all businesses impacted negatively due to corona pandemics in 2020. Many physical outlets had to turn down their shutters due to lockdown and countries. But, their eCommerce app & site worked like a vaccine for their business.

Such reasons have cleared one thing that having an eCommerce web & app is not add-on for business, but a need.

In this article we are going to talk about eCommerce pricing in 2021. With technological upgradation, the pricing has changed year-by-year. Unlike other article copies from the Internet, we are focusing on the pricing structure of specifically 2021, not from 2020 or 2019 or vice versa. These pricing are defined after reading multiple articles related to eCommerce 2021 trends.

If you’re not having a web or app then you must be wondering how much will it cost to create one? In this article we’re going to discuss the price you have to pay to create and maintain your eCommerce site/app.

Table of Contents:

(1) Domain Name:

• How much does it cost to book a domain name for an eCommerce business?

(2) Hosting Plan:

• How much will it cost to host an eCommerce store?

(3) SSL Certificate:

• How much does it cost for having an ssl certificate for your eCommerce store?

(4) eCommerce Platform:

• (4.1) How to choose the right eCommerce platform?
• (4.2) Fixed costs of different eCommerce platforms.

(5) Design:

• (5.1) How much does it cost to design an eCommerce website? (UI/UX)
  • (5.1.1) Factors to consider while designing an eCommerce website.
  • (5.1.2) How many hours will it take to design an eCommerce web store?
• (5.2) How much does it cost to design an eCommerce app? (UI/UX)
  • (5.2.1) How many hours will it take to design an eCommerce mobile app?
• (5.3) Add-On: Web Design Trends to Adopt in 2021

6. Development:

• (6.1) How much does it cost to develop an eCommerce website store?
  • (6.1.1) How many hours will it take to develop an eCommerce web store?
• (6.2) How much does it cost to develop an eCommerce mobile app store?
  • (6.2.1) How many hours will it take to develop an eCommerce app store?
• (6.3) Add-On: Web Development Trends to Adopt in 2021

7. Testing:

• (7.1) How much does an eCommerce website testing cost?
  • (7.1.1) How many hours will it take to test an eCommerce website?
• (7.2) How much does an eCommerce mobile app testing cost?
  • (7.2.1) How many hours will it take to test an eCommerce mobile application?

8. Maintenance:

• (8.1) How much does it cost for eCommerce website store maintenance service?
  • (8.1.1) How many hours can it take to maintain an eCommerce site?
• (8.2) How much does it cost for eCommerce mobile app store maintenance service?
  • (8.2.1) How many hours can it take to maintain an eCommerce mobile app?

9. Conclusion

Let’s start discussing eCommerce websites costing step-by-step.

(1) Domain Name: How much does it cost to book a domain name for eCommerce business?

Every business has a physical address. Just like it, domain name is your digital address where you customer will land. There are different types of domain. TLD, ccTLD, GTLD etc.

You need to choose a domain name which can cost you somewhere between 1-40 USD as per the below pricing structure.

(Source: HostGator)

We will suggest you to book a .COM domain name that can cost you between 11-20 USD per year. Make sure you choose the right domain name that fits your business theme and helps you with SEO.

(2) Hosting Plan: How much will it cost to host an eCommerce store?

Let’s say you live in a flat no 12 in L block then L block is your hosting and flat no 12 is your domain name. You need to host your domain name. For that you need to buy a server. It cost

differs from business to business. If you have 10000+ products then you need to choose dedicated hosting. If you have limited products then you can choose a shared server which is least advised. Average monthly pricing to host an eCommerce store lies between 5-100 USD

(Source:websitebuilderexpert)

Make sure you don’t compromise with hosting because it directly impacts your website loading speed which can impact on your sales. There are some SaaS based eCommerce platforms available in the market who provide a cloud-hosting built into the price of monthly or yearly subscriptions. If you choose to have your store in shopify then you don’t need to worry about choosing the right hosting partner.

(3) SSL Certificate: How much does it cost for having an ssl certificate for your eCommerce store?

SSL certificates are used to secure credit card transactions, digital data transfer & login-registration credentials. It is necessary for an eCommerce store to have the SSL because eCommerce sites are all about digital transactions. Major hosting plans don’t have SSL option, thus you need to opt for it separately. Below image will help you to understand how much an SSL can cost for a single site, multiple sites, or multiple subdomains etc?

(Source: Quora)

An SSL certificate binds the domain name, server name or hostname. Google also considers SSL as a positive factor to gear up your search engine ranking positions. Thus, it’s advisable to not skip the installation of SSL for your site.

Before proceeding further with design & development we would like to discuss choosing the right eCommerce platform as it plays a major role in eCommerce web & app development cost. There are numerous eCommerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, OroCommerce, etc.

(Source: Pagely)

Let’s move to the next point and discuss
(4.1)  eCommerce Platform: How to choose the right eCommerce platform?
Let’s discuss the top 3 e-Commerce platform: (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento)

• If you are an entrepreneur or let’s say a startup with a limited economical budget who wants to sell limited products with less customisation then Shopify should be your choice. We suggest you visit http://www.shopysquad.com/ who works ONLY on Shopify technological development.
• In case, if you’re a startup who has a budget to spend then WooCommerce offered by WordPress can be a good deal. WooCommerce is a good CMS platform which will help you to publish Search Engine friendly contents. Choose WordPressWolves. http://www.wordpresswolves.com/ is a core WooCommerce agency who can help you to give a digital curve to your eCommerce idea. They are a tech leader in giving WordPress & WooCommerce solutions with a wide range of portfolios from different domains.
• If you’re an existing merchant who wants to leverage all eCommerce benefits or if you want to play eCommerce games on an enterprise level then Magento is the perfect choice for you to go ahead. It’s an open source software which can offer you a wide range of customisation is almost no limitation. In a nutshell, Magento is an all-inclusive eCommerce platform. If you trust by our recommendation, hire MageMonkeys.com to fulfil your Magento solutions needs. MageMonkey is a brand who has a pool of certified Magento experts who have experience in launching eCommerce projects in Magento from scratch.

(4.2) eCommerce Platform: Let’s understand the fixed cost behind above eCommerce platforms:

(Source: codeable.io)

(5.1) Design: How much does it cost to design an eCommerce website? (UI/UX)

Till now, we were communicating about pre-requirements, but the major process to construct an eCommerce will start with design. A web design is not as simple as it sounds.

(5.1.1) You need to consider many factors in mind such as

• Theme – You alway have two options with designing. Either you can buy a predesigned theme from any site or you can design it from scratch. Buying a theme may come with limitations, thus it’s advisable to hire a CREATIVE UI/UX designer to get the designing job done. Creating a design from scratch will allow you to do unlimited customisation for the lifetime.
• Responsiveness – It’s no longer secret that Mobile users are having higher share compared to web users. The share of mobile users will increase more by 2021 which makes responsiveness an important factor to consider. Your design should look perfect from every different browser and every different device. It should not mess for different screen sizes. Your eCommerce store’s design should be responsive.
• Integrating Designing with Development – Designing is a front face. But, what’s behind is your development code. Your designing should be easy to integrate with external eCommerce development platforms.
• Lightweight – Your eCommerce store’s web design should be leight weighted. If it takes time to load then web user’s will bounce back. The images and other media should be reduced in size in such a way that they don’t compromise with visual quality.

Apart from above, the web designer needs to focus on other web design factors such as visual appearance, ease of use, navigability, accessibility, interactivity etc.

It’s suggestible to hire an experienced web designer. The designing cost depends on the number of hours taken by the designer to design ecommerce product pages, logo, homepage, mobile pages etc.

(5.1.2) Design: How many hours will it take to design an eCommerce web store?

(5.2) Design: How much does it cost to design an eCommerce app? (UI/UX)

We already discussed the eCommerce store’s web design. But, app design is different compared with web design. Here the job is more creative. You need to design the app in such a way that it fits in all different devices which have different sizes. The designer you hire for web designing can perform the app designing task.

App designing pricing depends on the type of app & hours taken to design the app. Refer below image to understand the approx pricing for your app.

eCommerce app falls in the Complex app category.

(5.2.1) Design: How many hours will it take to design an eCommerce mobile app?

(5.2.1) Design: Add-ons: As we are talking about the costing of eCommerce in 2021, we would like to list nine trends from the designing industry that you should focus while designing the eCommerce website.

• Parallax animation

• Neomorphism

• Abstract art compositions

• Comfortable colors

• Scrolling transformations

• Digital interpretations of physical products

• Captivating questionnaires

• Three-dimensional colors

• Material UI

(6.1) Development: How much does it cost to develop an eCommerce website store?

Development is a tricky game which shares the major part in creating an eCommerce website. Apart from executing programmatically work, it includes integrating designing, payment gateways, add-ons, and third party api & tools.

(6.1.1) Development:  How many hours will it take to developer specific pages and how much they will be costing you.

(6.2) Development: How much does it cost to develop an eCommerce mobile app store?

Talking about eCommerce app business the mobile app should have functionalities such as sign-in (registration), social features, integrated payment gateways, equipped product catalogs, product pages, checkout system etc.

(6.2.1) How many hours it will take to develop an eCommerce mobile app feature wise?

(6.3) Add-ons: Like designing world, the development industry has also changed time-by-time. You can adopt below eCommerce development technological trends in your future eCommerce store.

• AI Chatbots

• Single Page Application

• Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

• Blockchain Technology

• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

• VR and AR

• Voice Search

(7.1) Testing: How much does an eCommerce website testing cost?

Before proceeding further, let me ask you a question. What will happen to the world if the corona vaccine will go publicly without going on trial?

It will be scary. Won’t be? Whether it’s a physical or digital product, a product should be launched after performing a proper testing. Websites and mobile apps should be tested in the same manner. Designers and developers make the site, but they are not users. They don’t think like users. Thus, to deliver a flawless user experience, it’s necessary to launch a site only after performing a usability testing.

A Web & mobile app testing includes:

• Functionality Testing

• Usability Testing

• Accessibility Testing

• Performance Testing

There are two ways to perform testing. Let’s understand the cost matrix along with timeline to test an eCommerce webstore

(7.2) Let’s move forward and understand the cost & timeline of performing testing on a mobile application.

(8.1) Maintenance: How much does it cost for eCommerce website store maintenance service?

Let’s say you build a house and start living there. Will it be okay if you won’t clean your house on a regular interval or won’t do pest control on a regular interval? What will happen to them?

The answer is your house will look messy & smelly. Visitors will avoid coming to your place. Exactly the same can happen with your eCommerce web and app. If you don’t maintain your eCommerce website properly then web visitors will bounce back or avoid to visit it. In the case of eCommerce apps, THEY WILL UNINSTALL YOUR APP. That will be the high price you pay not for maintaining your eStore.

Believe it or not, your eCommerce store needs maintenance service. You might be wondering what’s included in maintenance of eCommerce stores. Well, listing all tasks in below “eCommerce Web Monthly maintenance table”.

Now, let’s understand how many hours can an eCom website store maintenance service take?

(8.2) Maintenance: How much does it cost for eCommerce app maintenance service?

Web maintenance and app maintenance holds different tasks. App maintenance tasks are different and tricky. Rare breed of app developer can perform it within a timeframe.

Let’s understand what tasks are included in eCommerce app maintenance service.

eCommerce Mobile App Monthly Maintenance Table

(8.2.1) Now, let’s understand how many hours can an eCommerce app maintenance service take?

(9) Conclusion:

As we’ve already discussed the pricing of all aspects that impacts on eCommerce store development, it’s time to merge all the data and see the final pricing.

Above figures vary as per the nature of your business and requirement. But mostly eCommerce websites & mobile apps can be developed under a given figure.