Why a great E-commerce website can’t be cheap?
We often see online adverts like “Get a good Website for $300” or “Build a free Website using Web builders”. Even though these types of adverts look quite attractive, they are also questionable. If building great websites was so cheap, why have professional website development companies not yet disappeared from the digital market?
The truth is, quality and well-functioning business websites cannot be cheap.
If you build your business website or online store for just $300 then you are setting yourself up for future issues.
When investing money in your website, it is important that you keep the future of your business in mind. The quality web development requires a bit more effort because it guarantees stable, secure and successful website for your business. It means that you need to hire professional web designer, experienced web developers, QA engineer, SEO specialist and a project manager, who will handle website development process.
With that being said, there is always a margin that you need to know to avoid being duped. Web development prices should be reasonable. That is why we tried to list down the range in which reasonable prices should normally be.
WHAT IS THE PRICE FOR DEVELOPING AN E-COMMERCE WEBSITES?
Prices can be classified into 3 categories: Cheap, Average and Expensive.
- Cheap:
Cheap websites are obviously the $700-800 websites adverts that spread all over the internet. They are usually created from Web builders using ready-made templates and are mostly handled by not experienced or entry-level developers - The average:
An average cost for websites ranges a few thousand dollars. These are websites that are often built from scratch in Web Studios or by experienced freelancers. The price of web development often depends on a location of the web development company. As you know it is more expensive living in New York than in Cherkasy, Ukraine (F5 Studio web agency‘s home area). It seems weird but it is true. The web developers and programmers hourly rate depends on where they live.
That is why many Western web agencies hire web companies from Eastern Europe, India and other regions. - Expensive:
Expensive E-commerce sites are projects that lots of specialists work on in large web studios. The price of these projects normally ranges from $60,000 to $200,000 dollars and can go up depending on the complexity of the project.
Only well-known web companies can work on such projects. It requires highly qualified web specialists which sertified to a platform or technology.
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES?
Let’s try to analyse some advantages and disadvantages of cheap websites, built using web builders and see what works best for you.
ADVANTAGES OF WEB BUILDERS:
Websites created with web builders can literally be designed by anybody. No need to be an expert programmer. All you need to do is combine the best in-built templates and an up and running website. They are cheap and often provide free hosting services.
Popular builders such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Jimdo, Weebly, Wix work on the Saas (Software as a Service ) model. They provide what it takes to help users who don’t know how to code create their own websites.
DISADVANTAGES OF WEB BUILDERS:
Web builders are cheap but have many limitations. First, they provide very limited storage capacity which must be paid once they are exceeded. There are also restrictions in adding products to catalogues, and it is impossible to fully customize your site to your taste as you are bound to using the builders’ themes.
Using builders also strip your website of its uniqueness because the same templates are used by thousands of other users. Also, a site build using web builders has a very little chance of getting on top of search engines results pages. Considering all these shortcomings, it is worth not recommending web builders to entrepreneurs and big online stores.
WHY YOU NEED A QUALITY WEBSITE
As your business grows, so will the need to refine your e-commerce project. If you want to build a full-fledged business, then you most likely need to develop three main blocks:
Assortment management and warehouse integration
Often the functionality of low-budget sites does not allow storing big data or does not include the modules or plug-ins that the customer needs. For example, integration modules with different payment and delivery systems.
Big and complex online stores keep records of the transactions made on a daily basis. And as the number of transactions increases, the need to improve the management system become crucial. Efficient integration module with payment and delivery systems should be considered.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and analytics
Preserving customer data is important for increasing sales, optimizing marketing, and improving customer service. Without an understanding of its customers, the business can stagnate. A CRM can also help you and your Project managers to keep track of the number of transactions made, the state of sales, the marketing activity. CRM apps are complex and can obviously not be built for $ 300.
Marketing
It is important to know that having an online store does not automatically mean making better sales. In order to reach more people and achieve good results, your website must be promoted and optimise for Search Engines. This includes integration with e-mail marketing services, contextual advertising, and much more.
WHY TRYING TO SAVING ON THE DEVELOPMENT CAN COST YOU A LOT?
Try to save by using cheap builders when creating your website can be costly. As your business grows, there will be a need to extended your site’s functionality. And you will certainly end up paying more than you planned as Web builder are difficult to customise as of this writing. Low-quality online stores cannot cope with complex tasks and represent a risk to your business.
If you try to save on the creation of an online store, the company creates problems for itself, because if the client has problems with the order, payment or delivery, he is unlikely to return to your site.
CONCLUSION
In the end, the decision is all yours. If you are running a small local business that requires a simple website then you can consider building it using one of the free web builders. On the other hand, it is recommended referring to IT professionals or established web agencies as they can build great websites that can be easily extended and customized with time.
