eCommerce has increasingly become popular in today’s globalized world and is considered a catalyst for economic growth. The history of eCommerce is correlated to the history of the internet. Why? Because simply put, the advent of the internet made the whole idea of eCommerce achievable.

Back in 1994, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, introduced people to the exciting new world of online shopping that paved the way for modern-day eCommerce. If I remember correctly, Amazon started as an online marketplace for books but now it sells everything starting from electronics to video games, you name it.

Surprisingly, Amazon made over 252 million USD in the first year of its arrival alone, hundreds of similar businesses have followed ever since such as eBay – the then vintage collector – another pioneer of eCommerce development. eBay has over 180 million (and counting) active buyers today.

The entire idea behind this anecdote is to make you aware of the economic significance of eCommerce in the current day and age, and I hope I didn’t disappoint. Convenience, accessibility, security, and seamless customer experience are some of the most important pillars of novel web-based eCommerce solutions.

Furthermore, intuitive eCommerce website designing can not only aid your online businesses to deliver a better customer experience but can potentially generate more convertible leads. Before jumping into the whole ‘how to choose a web developer or an agency to fulfil your development requirements’ let’s just look at the basics.

What is eCommerce Website Development?

In layman’s terms, eCommerce or electronic commerce refers to the buying and selling of products over the internet, and the development of professional eCommerce websites is eCommerce development. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?

Before the inception of eCommerce, brick-and-mortar stores (traditional retail) ruled the market. But as a matter of fact, we have seen many retailers reinventing the brick and mortar to align themselves with the digital age. For example; along with establishing an online presence, they are moving core business operations online, too. Best of both worlds. Amirite?

Rise of eCommerce Amid Pandemic

Having said that, custom eCommerce development is revolutionizing commercial activities profoundly, around the globe. Moreso, customer buying behaviors are rapidly changing due to the Pandemic. The number of physical shoppers dwindled as we approached this period of social distancing and isolation. Walmart’s eCommerce sales grew 97.0% in the second quarter of 2021, and the ongoing pandemic continued to drive consumers to buy online.

The growth of eCommerce during this time is significant as it was the only other way for consumers to make their usual purchases in complete safety. Therefore businesses are preferring custom software over off-the-shelf solutions, as it allows them to match their exact business requirements without having to worry about non-functional requirements such as customer security and reliability.

Tools for Building an eCommerce Website

Why do I need an eCommerce website builder? The undemanding answer would be: to save time and money. You need a user-friendly and manageable eCommerce website to sell online. But the eCommerce website development process requires skills and effort. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect it to happen overnight especially if you lack the in-house expertise for coding.

Therefore, eCommerce outsourcing is the right choice to meet your custom development needs. They offer some of the best eCommerce developers to design your website from scratch and all the right tools to simplify and streamline the entire development process so you can start selling quickly. If you are doing development in-house you simply don’t want to choose the wrong eCommerce website builder, only to realize it later that you can not handle it.

Let’s have a look at some of the ‘tried and tested’ eCommerce website builders to avoid regrets later on.

Shopify – A Fully Integrated Store

Many businesses prefer Shopify development over other tools. It has always been considered the best eCommerce website development platform; hands down. Shopify was founded some 10 years ago by Tobi of Snowdevil – a snowboard selling company. Just like the founders of Wix, he realized the challenges of selling stuff online. Shopify app development offers business owners a flexible website builder for conversions and ultimately sales. You can easily find Shopify web designers everywhere since the platform is used by over 1,000,000 businesses in 175 countries, offering great tools for beginners with no coding experience.

• Offering market competitive pricing.
• Mobile-optimized themes.
• Seamless social media integration.
• Over 100 add-ons and extensions for every industry.
• 24/7 (exceptional) customer support.
• Free SSL Certificate included in all plans.
• A drag-and-drop page builder.
• The massive community forum and robust knowledge base.

WooCommerce – Easily Manage your Products

There are an estimated 2.3 million eCommerce stores around the world and WooCommerce website development is favored by the majority due to its free open-source nature and of course, majority rules. WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress which is another popular website development platform.

According to studies, 30% of eCommerce websites are developed through WooCommerce. Because apart from just being an open-source platform WooCommerce has flexible and powerful features. It was launched not so long ago, in 2011. After which it quickly gained popularity mainly because of it’s simple installation and customization. It allows WooCommerce expert developers to easily build and optimize eCommerce stores for potential clients at affordable rates. Besides, finding a WooCommerce development company is easier.

• Scalable platform for eCommerce website development.
• Access powerful blogging tools.
• Develop enticing storefronts with a handful of exciting themes.
• Availability of great SEO tools to rise on top of search results.
• Rest API to manage everything.
• Over 400 official extensions to enhance store functionality.
• Customization to stand out from the crowd.
• Maintain and control your own store data with WooCommerce development.
• Large international WooCommerce expert developer community for support.
• Strong choice of WooCommerce developers because of fast development.

Magento – Create Engaging & Shoppable Experiences

Some of the biggest companies in the world such as Canon, CocaCola, Ford, Lenovo, Nike, etc. are relying on Magento for eCommerce website development. Among other development platforms, Magento has established a strong foothold in the market since 2007 and is considered one of the top 3 eCommerce development platforms.

Many businesses prefer Magento development over WooCommerce for its business intelligence. Unlike WooCommerce development, Magento is self-hosted and offers advanced security features. It was acquired by Adobe in 2018, and now offers two versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.

Magento eCommerce development is powerful but requires a longer development time and comparatively more budget.

• Magento is best suited for enterprise solutions.
• User-friendly with endless front-end customizations.
• Offers decent themes for Magento developers.
• A wide range of extensions.
• Supports an unlimited number of products.
• Offers marketing, promotions, and conversion tools.
• Catalog, order, and inventory management software.
• Easily create a storefront optimized for mobile devices through pre-integrated mobile HTML5.
• Accommodates a wide variety of industries.

BigCommerce – eCommerce for a New Era

BigCommerce has been accelerating businesses towards success since 2009. It is a customer-centric platform offering an easy-to-use interface and intuitive dashboard for eCommerce management. Almost every eCommerce website development platform offers SEO optimization tools, similarly, BigCommerce follows advanced SEO practices such as auto-optimized titles and URLs. Additionally, its modern themes are mobile-friendly and accessible; free and paid both.

• Channel integrations with Amazon, eBay, Google, and Facebook to drive more traffic.
• An expansive collection of customizable themes.
• Dedicated expert BigCommerce Developer support.
• Built-in marketing tools and analytics.
• Save abandoned cart by setting up a series of emails
• Pre-integrated payment options.

Wix – Create your Website

Wix was founded by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan in 2006. The idea was born on a beach. Yes literally. The trio of developers were building a website for a start-up when they realized the struggle of developing a website from scratch. Hence, they decided to develop a platform that would make life easier for everyone. Wix came to the market as a simple website builder. Later, more features were added to upscale the tool. Now, it allows users to build professional websites for every industry including eCommerce.

• Free-forever plan for a test drive.
• A User-friendly website building platform.
• Customization and Drag & Drop allow for beautiful website designs.
• Practical back-end user interface with maximum usability.
• High-security with no compromise on website speed.
• In-built features for convenience.
• Find hundreds of upgraded templates.
• A free domain name for the first year and unlimited product listings.
• Separate appearances for mobile and desktop.

The Different Types of eCommerce Business Models 

Thinking of starting your own eCommerce business? Then you should totally familiarize yourself with different eCommerce models so that you can know about the potential market opportunities, threats, and challenges. So let’s dig in:

Business to Business (B2B)

As the name suggests, this model includes business-to-business transactions or exchanges, meaning both sellers and buyers or end-users are business entities such as producers, wholesalers, retailers, etc. Interestingly, U.S. business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce transactions are anticipated to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023; accounting for an estimated 17% of all B2B sales in the country.

• Longer sales cycles.
• Higher-order volume and value.
• Long-term partnerships for recurring purchases.

General Electric is one of the most popular examples of B2B eCommerce. In 2017, it was featured on the Fortune 500 list as the 13th largest company in the United States.

Business to Consumer (B2C)

I am sure everyone is familiar with B2C eCommerce Model. It’s all about businesses directly selling their products or merchandise to consumers or buyers. Remember when the other day you were scrolling through Amazon searching The Witcher 3 for a game night with your buddies; Amazon being the business and you the consumer – a perfect example of B2C.

Consumer to Consumer (C2C)

They are also known as online marketplaces. Craigslist and eBay are the pioneers of the C2C eCommerce model back in the days. But what does it look like? Consumers trading, buying, and selling (used) items to other consumers in exchange for a small fee to the site such as OLX. This eCommerce model does not involve any intermediary party.

Consumer to Business (C2B)

Consumers selling products or providing services to businesses; pretty simple. Provision of services through Upwork is one of the most common examples. For better understanding; let’s just say I am a game developer, I developed the ugliest and the shittiest version of The Witcher 3, now I am looking to sell my witty game to Capcom, by listing it on a business eCommerce platform and surprisingly they buy it in exchange for some dollars. That’s how C2B works!

Provelopers among other things is an eCommerce development company, that has vast experience with eCommerce website development and offers comprehensive and cost-effective eCommerce solutions based on different models. We will:

• Take care of all the coding and technicalities of the projects.
• Monitor your eCommerce platform for maintenance and support.
• Quality assurance without any compromise.
• Ensure the feasibility of the eCommerce  web solution before development.
• Help you integrate into the system of your choice.
• The list doesn’t end here, keep reading…

Choosing the Right Custom eCommerce Web Development Company

I’d be honest outsourcing eCommerce website development can be tricky but when it comes to gaining a competitive edge, it is in your best interest to seek the best eCommerce development services there are. Because seasoned eCommerce website designers and developers know all the challenges and they can provide the best possible solution to surpass the competition.

Now the struggle is to find the right development company for achieving your goals. Below are some important things to keep in mind while outsourcing eCommerce website development.

Factors Influencing your Outsourcing Decisions

Cost V/S Quality

Cost or quality; what is your priority? Some prioritize quality over the cost before outsourcing their needs and vice versa. But the right solution is to get high-quality products at market competitive rates. You don’t want to pay higher rates for the poor quality but on the other hand, higher rates for high quality seem fair.

But before finalizing your eCommerce website designing company find out about the ‘Value for money’ and for doing that you need to contact different software companies and request quotes; choose the one that offers exactly what you are looking for. Speaking of which, cost-cutting is one of the factors why companies outsource, but in the whirlwind of outsourcing for lower costs, you should not compromise on quality. Even though pricing is a factor but it is not the ONLY factor.

Technical Expertise 

Does the development agency specialize in eCommerce? Well, it should. Your eCommerce website design company should have expertise in eCommerce development platforms. WooCommerce and Magento development are recommended for a seamless customer experience. Having Shopify developers is a plus. Therefore, it would be a good idea to go through the company’s (in question) portfolio and relevant case studies.

Know about their technology stack and total experience. Know about the tools they will use for your project, their cross-platform development capabilities, and most importantly how qualified their resources are to handle your outsourcing needs. Web development companies that do not specialize in what you are looking for, will cause hiccups and roadblocks. The reason why you should hire web developers or a team after careful consideration.

Cost of Hiring a Web Developer for eCommerce Website Development

It all comes down to this very important question: how much does it cost to build an eCommerce website? Well, obviously the price varies but an estimation could range from $5000 to $100,000 or even more. It all depends on the company’s size and requirements. It’s not just website development but different factors that contribute to the overall costs. Basic custom eCommerce website development with advanced features will cost around $10,000 to $16,000. Following variables are included:

• Licensing
• Domain name
• Hosting
• UI/ UX design
• Custom Development
• No. of web pages
• Functionality
• Themes
• Add-ons
• Plug-ins
• Extensions
• Integrations
• Responsiveness
• Interactivity
• Payment processing
• Setup/ Configuration
• Quality Assurance
• Project Management
• Training
• Maintenance
• Vendor fee: Outsourced, freelance, or in-house
  * The total cost may include other items such as marketing, SEO, and content creation/ management.

Investing in eCommerce infrastructure is extremely important to beat your competition. Below are some ways Provelopers can develop your next eCommerce project for you:

• Get comprehensive consultation to devise a practical strategy with our eCommerce development experts.
• Get market competitive quotations for your eCommerce storefront development.
• Woo Commerce, Joomla, Magento, or Shopify development: take your pick.
• Aesthetically and visually pleasing designs to enhance your brand image.
• Minimize cart-abandonment rates with custom eCommerce website development to keep your customers engaged and ultimately drive more sales.
• Content Management System integration to your website.
• Third-party integrations and plug-ins.

So feel free to contact us with your eCommerce website development needs, today.