Today, e-commerce has helped products and services reach their target audience. Thanks to e-commerce website development that helps integrate features that facilitate smooth selling and buying processes. With a mobile-friendly e-commerce store,businesses can attract more customers and generate more leads. Talking about e-commerce, PWA – progressive are trending in the e-commerce sector. These are web apps that utilize the web to offer an app-like experience. Hence, e-commerce progressive web apps are becoming one of the essential aspects for e-businesses to reach a wider customer base. PWA offers faster loading and easy business expansion through faster checkout, remote use, and higher speed.
Types of e-Commerce Websites
1. B2B sites
Business to Business websites provides trading services for businesses only. Here, one business purchases and sells products from a distinct firm. The products purchased are not used but are further sold to the end consumers.
2. B2C Sites
This type of e-commerce site (business-to-customer) is built to sell services and goods directly to the end customer without any middlemen. Hence, termed B2C websites and they offer products/services at low prices.
3. C2C sites
It stands for the customer-to-customer site wherein one customer engages in selling used products on a particular website. For example, OLX.
4. C2B sites
Also, termed as a customer-to-business, these websites help businesses buy products directly from the customer and these websites are not so common.
5. Legal Bidding & Auction Websites
These e-commerce websites have commodities where the price is not decided. It is about bidding where whoever bids the higher price gets it at that commodity.
6. Price Differentiation Websites
At times, the commodity price is not specified. This is when the price comparison websites come into the picture.
Now, after getting into the basics of the types of e-commerce websites, let us discuss the e-commerce website developmentprocess, cost and factors to be considered before you start building a website
Factors To Be Considered Before You Start With e-commerce Website Development
It is vital to follow the right process from beginning till the end during development. Apart from following the right process you also need to consider some other factors like
1. Budget
It is one of the crucial elements of almost any website design and development process and that is planning a budget. Of course, a budget is correlative to the design and features included and primarily the e-commerce website development cost depends on the following factors
- In-house team or independent developer hired
- Experience, location, and expertise of a developer
- Hosting price, promotional cost, and SSL cost
- The complexity of the design
- 3rd party & APIs
- Niche Research
- The complexity of website structure
2. Market Analysis
It is one of the essential aspects that allow you to know about the existing flaws of the market and the way your business idea can accommodate it. A thorough market analysis can help you discover possible prospects, create business strategies and understand customer preferences in detail.
Try to research to find out your target customers and their choices as it will help you build a website to meet customer demands.
3. Analyze Competitors
Search for the big players in your industry. Use web indexes to know the promotional strategies and features that are trending in the market and integrated by the competitors to grab customers.
Try to analyze the hosting platform and technical framework used to promote the website. These vital aspects will help you integrate the right features into e-commerce website development.
Best Platforms Used For Building an e-commerce Website
It is important to choose the right platform for your e-commerce marketplace website. When it comes to a web-based platform, plenty of them are available, but you need to pick the relevant one. Do not forget to plan e-commerce website development costsaccordingly.
Choose a platform that makes your website future-ready and adapt future changes and upgrades
Some of The Popular e-commerce Web Development Platforms
- Open Cart
- 3DCart
- Sylius
- WooCommerce
- Big Commerce
- Big Cart
- Magento
- Shopware
- Prestashop
- Shopify
Determine The Target Audience
- Come up with a product you wish to sell
- Target audience
- Most used gadgets
- Purchase tendency
- Location
- Culture
Build A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The main idea behind e-commerce is to offer online services for the selling and buying of goods. It means you need to assess whetheryoure-commerce website designsolution is perfect to sell and can it grab customers? Well, you can get the answers to these questions by creating an MVP to test the potential of your e-commerce solution.
Third-Party Alliance
For an e-commerce business to succeed you need help to achieve your business goals while giving an amazing user experience. Hence, third-party alliances play an integral role in the success of your brand. Just implement 3rd party solutions like PR agencies, logistics solutions, marketing partners, etc
Website Security
To offer uninterrupted and flawless service, you need to consider security protocols as well at all levels to prevent hackers from misusing your site. So, make sure you consider testing services for your e-commerce website to take care of SSL PCI standards, real-time bot integration, improve network security, integrate CRM systems, etc
Must-have and Latest Features To Be Incorporated In an E-Commerce Website
The following features listed below can be integrated into your e-commerce marketplace website to offer an exciting shopping experience are.
- Advanced Dashboard
- Chatbots
- Login via Social Media
- Images & Videos of the Product
- Multiple Payment Options
- Order Tracking System
- Integrating CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software
- Creative UI/UX Design
- Warehousing, Transportation & Inventory Management
Business Model For e-commerce Store
The business models depend on the type of audience you wish to target, you can pick from the following business models for your e-commerce website.
- Just-In-Time Purchasing
- Freemium Model
- Dropshipping
- Subscription
- White-label
- Bulk Selling & Storing
- Rent & Loan Model
- Warehousing
- Outsourced Fulfillment
Conclusion
Well, this guide helps you know about the cost, features, and development of an e-commerce website. It gives you a better understanding of the cost and the aspects that influence the costs of e-commerce website development.Thee-commerce websiteor e-commerce app development costentirely depends on the features included in your solution.
To get a better idea of the costs and other integral aspects of e-commerce website development consult an e-commerce web development companylike WebFox to get a consultation to build a mobile-friendly e-commerce storethat helps you earn profits in the long run.