One item that is often overlooked by people looking to create a showcase site or an online store is the cost of creating the texts.
Indeed, agencies and freelance developers can develop the most beautiful site in the world, if it is empty of text, there is little chance that it will have a chance to position itself in the results of Google but also to please. To Internet users.
Thus, if you have planned for your site to be 100 pages long, know that it will be necessary to have 100 different texts, allowing you to position yourself on the different keywords you are going to target.
If you create a site on a theme, there is a good chance that you are an expert on this same theme. Thus, it is possible for you to write your own texts which will save you several tens / hundreds / thousands of euros.
Note that if you decide to write these texts yourself, I advise you to read my article which presents the best practices for writing on the web. Indeed, writing for the web is not as easy as one might imagine and it is necessary to follow a real checklist.
For those who do not have the soul of a writer or who do not have the necessary time to devote to writing articles, know that there are many marketplaces that bring together freelance writers.
All you have to do is list the articles to write and prepare a writing plan (I strongly advise you to take the time to prepare the plan of your article and let the editor fill in the blanks).
Be aware of the companies that specialize in writing content. They are generally based in the Maghreb, Mauritius or even Madagascar, because there is a very developed French-speaking population.
By going through these agencies, you can create content for a very attractive price but be aware that you will have to rework the texts to replace the phrases that are not / no longer used in France.
Selecting and purchasing images
The selection and purchase of illustrative images for your site is also a service that can be performed by you.
Indeed, it is not possible to use images from Google image on your site. These images are not royalty free and therefore it is illegal to use them for your ecommerce website.
Note that there are many royalty-free image banks from which you can go and take certain photos. The visuals on these image banks are generally quite limited and you will surely need to complete your visual library by purchasing from paid image banks such as Shutter stock.
Note that if you have planned to carry out the search for visuals on your own, and therefore you save the cost of service on the part of your agency/freelance, I advise you to contact your agency to validate the size of the desired visuals.
This will help you avoid having to buy them repeatedly because the version you took is not in the correct format.
Customization
Last element, but surely the element that most impacts the price of an ecommerce website development, whether it is for sale online or not, is the degree of personalization that you want to have.
Whether it is a SAAS or open-source solution, if you do not seek to excessively personalize your ecommerce website and therefore the agency can buy a ready-made theme, your ecommerce website will not be very expensive.
If, on the contrary, you want to personalize a maximum of elements of your site, this will force the agency to carry out specific developments that it will charge you at a high price.
It is the personalization of a site that can increase the price of an ecommerce website from 1000 € to several hundred thousand euros.
It is also said that the main e-commerce sites such as Amazon, Discount or Rued commerce are now overpriced, in view of the historicity and thousands of hours of development that have allowed them to reach their level. Customization.
So, if you want to save money or your budget is not very high, put aside your desires for personalization: an ecommerce website is only a tool to allow you to do business, nothing more.
If you spend your entire budget on creating your eCommerce website, you will no longer have the budget to invest in what is most important on the internet: the levers of traffic acquisition.
Remember you can have the most beautiful site in the world, if no one knows it exists, this site is useless to you.
Therefore, if you have a limited budget, stick to a theme installed by an agency or a freelance. Limit the number of customizations and therefore specific developments as much as possible.
As soon as you have made your first sales and your business grows, you will have enough income to develop the site which will stick perfectly to what you imagined.
Why does the price of an eCommerce website vary between 2 quotes?
To end this article, I wanted to come back to a question that my former colleague asked me when I was working in vocational training:
why does the price of an eCommerce website vary so much between two different quotes? What can explain that, for identical specifications, the price announced by an agency or a freelancer can vary from 1 to 10?
In my opinion, there are several criteria that impact the price of an ecommerce website
Man’s day price and development days, the key!
The first criterion that can have a big impact on the price of an ecommerce website for 2 different quotes is the cost of a man day.
To put it simply, when an agency or a freelancer gives you a quote, it calculates two main indicators:
The number of days it will take to develop the site that you have requested by your specifications and the daily cost of each person. Who will work on your project?
Your objective will be to find the competent agency which will allow you to have the best ratio of daily cost x number of days.
Concrete example
The easiest for you to understand is to take a concrete example.
The daily cost of a developer can be estimated at € 600 in agency A and be € 800 in agency B.
Logically, you can tell yourself that agency A is cheaper than agency B.
Except that the estimated number of working days for a developer in agency A is 50 against only 35 for agency B.
600 x 50 = 30,000 and 800 x 35 = 28,000
In the end, it is agency B that will cost you the least in terms of developers.
Yes and now?
Repeat the operation for each function that will have to work on your project and you will be able to quickly identify the functions that are over-invoiced on the various quotes that you may have.
Once this comparison is done, all you have to do is negotiate a lower daily cost with the agency that interests you the most in order to lower the bill and reach the fairest price for your ecommerce website.
Be careful though!
To do this calculation, it is necessary to request a maximum detailed estimate from the various agencies that you will consult.
In addition, when you compare quotes between them, be careful not to base yourself on the lowest number of development days announced by the agencies.
Indeed, as we usually say, IT projects always fall behind schedule. So assume that the agency that tells you the lowest number of days in your quote comparison will not meet its deadlines: average the number of days and compare quotes more objectively.
The accompaniment
The second element that can cause a significant difference in the cost of an ecommerce website is the advice and support that an agency or a freelancer can offer.
Indeed, some agencies include consulting fees in their quotes because they have planned to support you with experts in the choices and decisions that will have to be made throughout the site creation project.
Identify these expense items and / or ask the agency to show you these pricing so that you can compare with other providers if you feel that you will need support during this project.
If, on the contrary, you don’t think you need help (which may not be the best idea in your life), you can remove these costs from your quotes and compare agencies only on their web development services. And project management.
Also Read: Know The Most Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid With Examples
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