Ecommerce Website Development Cost in India and Abroad: 2022 edition

Note: This blog on ecommerce website development cost has been updated for 2022. New content has been added in the blog focussing Indian and global ecommerce website development pricing trends. Happy reading!

While 1.8 billion people did online shopping in 2018, e-retail sales are bound to cross $4.8 trillion by the time 2021 ends. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that these numbers will grow further in the coming years. This is precisely the reason why entrepreneurs want to be part of the e-commerce revolution by launching an online store of their own. However, it's easier said than done.

Millions of business owners & aspiring entrepreneurs want to go online but have no idea how to build an e-commerce website and more importantly how much it will cost them. That's why we decided to lift the veil of mystery from the ecommerce website development cost in India, USA, UK, and other programming markets!

Brace yourself to learn about all the major factors that come together to decide the e-commerce website development cost in developing and developed countries! Being the top ecommerce development firm in India, we will also share some industry wisdom to help you make the right decision. Let's get down to it.

Ecommerce Website Development: Cost Factors

Ecommerce Store Size

The size of your e-commerce website majorly depends on the number of products you want to host and sell. A simple ecommerce website with a product catalog of 20-30 products can cost up to 500-1000 USD in 2020.

When you are hosting a big catalog (think over 100 products), you need advanced features to manage and sell them. So, the online store development cost can easily range between 2,000 to 5000 USD.

Developing a massive ecommerce website (think marketplaces like Amazon) with custom features can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Long story short, when the size of the store will grow, costing will grow as well.

Experience and Expertise

In the service industry, industry experience - which mostly brings professionalism & expertise along with it - means a bigger payout. Hence, partnering with a developer who has only a couple of years to show in ecommerce development will cost you less. If building a simple online store, it makes sense to employ someone with limited experience.

Entrepreneurs who want to build something truly unique and big go for a team of developers with vast experience and expertise in diverse technologies. Experienced developers have deep understanding of methodologies and processes which generate huge value for complex ecommerce stores.

Freelancer or Agency

If you have been pondering on the cost question for some time now, you must have come across the ‘freelancer vs. agency’ conundrum. Fret not, we will untangle this for you! Hiring a freelance web developer to create or set up a no-frills online store in 2022 will cost less than $1000.

Collaborating with a renowned ecommerce development company guarantees a team of developers and analysts that lends support at every step of your website development process. If your goal is to develop a powerful online store or marketplace, then hiring a web development company is highly recommended.

Check out this e-commerce website features list to generate more traffic on your website

Turnkey or Custom

Ecommerce website development cost greatly depends on your choice of technology. Since ecommerce as a market has huge potential, a lot of companies have built turnkey products that help entrepreneurs in launching online stores at small spending. Shopify is one such solution. At a small monthly fee which usually averages around $200, these solutions can deliver an online store suited for a small business with a small catalog.

Custom ecommerce platforms on the other hand are built from scratch using technologies like PHP and while keeping in mind unique business goals. Meaning, you will have the freedom to customize the whole experience, features, and performance just the way you want. Flexibility, scalability, and performance make custom store development a popular choice amongst experienced digital entrepreneurs.

Country-Wise Cost Differences

Cost of living and talent availability are different in most countries of the world. Since developed countries like the USA and UK have a high cost of living, the same reflects in the fee charged by professionals. This is true for ecommerce development too. For instance, the average hourly rate quoted by PHP developers in the United States of America is between 60-80 USD.

Developing countries like India on the other hand have low cost of living and vast availability of IT talent. Hence, the hourly cost for developing an e-commerce website by a team of India based programmers in the year 2021 is between 20 to 35 USD.

Check out how we undertook e-commerce enhancements for this massive platform & delivered results:

Feature Requirements

An ecommerce store without engaging features can accomplish very little even if it attracts tens of thousands of visitors every month. This is precisely the reason why entrepreneurs hire experienced developers and UX experts to continuously enhance store experience.

There are a large number of extensions available for turnkey solutions but they have their share of performance limitations. Building a custom store from scratch gives store owners the freedom to plan unique features by collaborating with developers.

Performance & Scalability

Everyone begins business with the aim of growing it & generating revenue. Online stores are launched with the same idea in mind but when growth numbers start to show up, online stores built on the wrong technology start lagging behind. Ecommerce platforms built on turnkey or hosted solutions majorly face this problem and resolving it leads to a lot of headache.

Ecommerce stores built with performance and scalability in mind are built on modern technology stacks like React JS and Angular JS. Since developers who work with such frameworks are fewer and bring diverse skills on the table, development cost jumps up.

Hire an affordable PHP development company in India for websites & web apps.

There you go! These are the important factors to determine e-commerce website development cost in India. Now let’s discover some quick tips to reduce the e-commerce websites investment cost:

  • Start your online shop on MVP model. Short for Minimum Viable Product, it helps reduce programming cost and bring down overall project estimates as well.
  • Look for an ecommerce store builder if you are building an online shop for your small business. Turnkey solutions like SwiftKart have simplified ecommerce development a lot and brought down the overall cost as well.
  • Ecommerce store development outsourcing can save you almost 40% of the overall project budget. That’s because programming talent is really expensive in western countries like the USA and UK.
  • There is no dearth of e-commerce technologies out there and some are more expensive than others. Pick a technology stack that reduce development time. This will automatically reduce programming fees and bring down project costs.

Above are the factors that come together to determine the cost of launching an e-commerce website. As a takeaway, here is quick cost breakdown as per store size and technology.

Online stores built on a turnkey solution can cost between $200 to $500 per month. These stores cater to entrepreneurs dealing in fewer products; require limited features and are built on a small budget.

Ecommerce stores built on custom technologies can cost between $2000 to $15000 depending on the product catalog and features.

Massive e-commerce marketplaces similar to Amazon can cost tens of thousands to build and maintain.

We hope our ecommerce development cost guide for 2020 helped you make up your mind about what works the best for you.

your mind about what works the best for you.

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