A few years ago if anyone told us we would be earning and spending digitally, it would have been a little hard to digest. Fast forward to the present, we can hardly imagine a business’s commercialization without e-services. E-Commerce has swept its way all across the globe with customer’s convenience, ease of use, attractive pricing, and extended boundaries at its core. With the advent of technology and innovation, as products and businesses are getting more creative, there has been a visible boom in the number of enterprises introducing e-commerce options for their products/businesses. This even includes various small businesses from numerous remote and rural locations over the world. This indicates the kind of penetration e-commerce has had in today’s world. 

 E-commerce comes with endless possibilities in expanding your customer base and business if you know how to go about it. Back in the days, who wouldn’t have loved to see people who belong to their area crowd over to their establishment? Times changed and now firms have gone from fixating on the local crowd to attracting people from different parts of the world with different tastes as their target audience. In other words, the popularity of E-Commerce among the common people has truly changed the face of businesses as we knew it.

 Taking into account the current market trends and scenarios, the best and happening option to keep your businesses live is via going online. If you are a business owner and if you haven’t already, it is highly recommended that you create an e-commerce website or application for your customers. This enables you to stretch the boundaries of your commerce and increase your margins. In recent times, the business trends and market leaders have proved to us how having invested in e-commerce development or rather, custom e-commerce development has been wise for business growth. 

Once you have decided to go ahead with building an e-commerce application for your business, the next biggest thing is to get it done. Coming to e-commerce development, most of you who are new to the idea will be pondering a lot about how to go about it, how much it will cost, how to attract customers, and so on.

Here, we have put together a few pointers for you in this regard. These are some of the significant metrics you need to understand to go ahead with a custom e-commerce development for your business.

Know Your Business Model

Before the commencement of your business idea, you need to identify which of the four major commerce categories your business belongs to. The categories are as follows :

•  B2C- Business to Consumer
•  B2B- Business to Business
•  C2B- Consumer to Business
•  C2C- Consumer to Consumer

Once the model is identified, you can go ahead with the custom e-commerce development for your biz. This step is crucial to identify the category of your application to design and develop it according to the popular demands and trends in that particular vertical.

Device Requirements

It takes some additional effort in developing an e-commerce application for both Android and iOS but as a merchant, it is ideal to be available on both platforms to cater to the needs of customers using both the platforms.

Features

The aesthetic side of the application should attract more people and the technical side should be to your advantage. The features you include should always focus on enhancing your products/services. Based on your product, features can be specific or general. These include Customer Chat Support, Reviews & Ratings, Multiple Payment Options – online as well as offline, Easy Return/Exchange policies, Category wise listing of products/services, etc. Remember, each new relevant feature that you add for your application in turn adds value to your business. 

Payment Options

The concept of E-Commerce application development is aimed to be an effortless bridge between customers and suppliers. Since almost all the E-commerce establishments do not aim at region-wise targeted customers, you must make a wide range of generic Payment options available. Even though Credit cards, Debit cards, UPI, and Net banking are very mandatory these days, as your business grows, it is best if you could even encapsulate an E-wallet.

Customer Communications

The customers always need to be updated about the changes and innovations that you bring into your business. They need to be aware of all the new additions/features/offers you provide in your platform so that they can properly utilize it and then spread the word. Therefore you should always remember to keep the customer communication channels healthy and active through your App, such as transaction emails, push notifications, Messaging, etc.

Advertising

Getting people to visit and use your e-commerce application calls forth the need for advertisement. As the business goes online, so do most of the strategies for advertising your biz. Digital Marketing is now a very integral part of every online business. Having the right kind of digital marketing experts in your team increases your chances of flourishing your commerce online. From using the right kind of Search Engine Optimization techniques to effective social media marketing techniques and more, these people will go all the way in getting the intended crowd for your business rushing in to use your platform.

Advertisements are hence vital for the survival of the e-commerce application and having an expert in the arena in your e-commerce development team will help boost the user base and user engagement of your application. 

Analytics

Now even if you are running a small business, you need to keep your sales and other transactions in check. Analytics is crucial to check the web traffic, search statistics, and always keep your webpage in check. Also, it is important to understand the purchase trends, customer behavior, and so on. Integrating your application with the right analytic tools is also a must-have these days.

Now most of the people who are new to this arena, will find it difficult to sort out the expenditure needed for the development of an E-commerce application. Some of the common queries you will have will include but are not restricted to: What takes up the most? Will it be worth it? How to reduce costs? How to invest efficiently?

Since the total expenditure depends upon the business vertical, features used, platforms, tools, and much more, and also, since the currency rate differs from time to time, getting the right numbers wouldn’t be accurate enough! However, we will show you here what percentage of your investment has to be put forward for certain requirements during a custom e-commerce development. It is as follows :

1. 10-20% will be taken for designing your E-commerce application. The more minimal you plan on keeping the designs, the less will be the percentage.

2. Up to 40% will be required for the constant customizations and changes you bring on the custom app. These include usability changes, add-ons, system security, programming of your website, etc.

3. 12-15% will be taken for the Marketing of your E-commerce app development. This is one area where your investment will lead you to big success.

4. 7- 15% will be needed for working with the right agency you decide to work with. If you prefer outsourcing overseas or abroad you will just have to deal with less percentage.

5. 5-10% can be accommodated for training(optional). Now unless and until you decide to assign an agency for the functioning and maintenance of your content, you will require a certain amount of training. Product uploads, Static changes, etc. comes under this.

To give some approximate figures, if you wish to develop a basic custom e-commerce application that is stable and high performing, it will cost you close to 2.5-3 Lakh INR in the current market. The cost will vary based on your specific requirements, timelines, features, products, and services, and so on as mentioned in the percentage-wise split up given above. More features and customization will call for a higher price but if you have a team who knows what they are doing, it will be a wise investment. 

The current global market comes with huge competition and opportunities. Creating an E-commerce application will help you stride ahead with your enterprise but it won’t be at its best if its development isn’t done right! Be it the grasp of social media or the constant check on your loyal customers, your effort needs to be at its peak. The digital market is a meticulous one, and therefore time, technology, and knowledge is money. Make sure you’re thorough enough before you begin one for yourself.

Still, confused? Not sure where to start? Having second thoughts? We still got you covered! For more clarity on building e-commerce and to get it done from professionals who know what they are doing, come on board with  www.metrictreelabs.com. Your biz will be in safe hands.