At the start of the century, e-commerce stores were practically nonexistent. Brick-and-mortar malls and shops dominated the shopping scene. Fast forward to 2021, and practically everyone is turning to online shopping and e-commerce stores. Nowadays, more than 263 million Americans shop online, and about 75% of them shop at least once a month. That is a huge customer pool to tap.
Many customers believe that online shopping and delivery are more convenient. Add that to the recent Covid-induced distrust of crowded places, and we can all see why online shopping is on the rise. Getting in on this vast customer base is a veritable gold mine, but one can make a few mistakes along the way. That’s why Sellvia has thought up a way to circumvent all that.
How does a fully functional website with brand creating tools, integrated payment gateways, and dropshipping support, all for $399/year after a 14-day free trial period, sound to you? Unbelievable, right? Well, Sellvia offers that and more. But if you want to do it all yourself, we’ll tell you what you need to do to create your own eCommerce business and how much you should have in your budget before embarking on that journey. Let’s delve right in.
What Do You Need To Build Your Own Ecommerce Business?
Going into an e-commerce business can be costly, it can also be a steal. How much does it cost to start an ecommerce business in 2022 depends on what path you choose. Some methods might require a lot more money than others. We’ll go through them individually.
- ($50/year-$3500)
That is one of the essential components of an online business. You can’t have an e-commerce store without a website from which to sell. There are a few ways to go about getting a website. The first way is to build your own, and frankly, that’s the best way. A well-designed website is the first step to converting casual visitors to your site to actual buyers. You also have the freedom to tailor your website to your unique needs.
The only drawback with this is that web designers don’t come cheap. Depending on the designer, you can spend anywhere from $1000-$3500 or more. If this option isn’t for you, you can purchase a premium website theme from website creation platform. Those can cost $50-$300+ per year. Though not as malleable as a personally designed website, they might still be effective for your business if you purchase the right additional plug-ins, but those cost extra.
- Domain Name ($1-$15+)
Your domain name is your online address. It’s how your customers will find you. That said, you can get domain names from Namecheap, Godaddy, or Cheapdomains at less than the price of a cup of coffee. Here’s a little tip: Go for a ‘.com’ domain name, and try to get one that matches the name of your store. All the others needlessly confuse the buyer. In domain names, less is more.
- Hosting ($0-$200+)
Your website has a domain name, but it still needs to be hosted to be connected to the internet. That is the server for your business; the site won’t work without it. You can purchase shared hosting or a dedicated server. A shared hosting plan ($5-$50/month) should do for a startup like yours.
But if you have plans to expand in the future, the increased traffic might slow the server down. In that case, you could go for a private hosting plan ($200+). Fortunately, this cost only comes in if you build your website on your own. Shopify and BigCommerce websites usually come with hosting as part of the package.
- Payment Processing (3% + $0.30 per transaction).
You will have to receive online payments from customers, and you can’t do that without a payment processor like PayPal or Shopify.
- Inventory ($0-$1000+)
Unless you’re dropshipping, you need to have some money to buy the goods you’re selling. You would also need to purchase warehouse space to store your goods. Depending on the goods you wish to sell, it could take anywhere from $500-$1000+ to get a sizeable stock.
If you’re dropshipping, though, all that cost is gone. But it is replaced by the stress of communicating with your seller or sellers, organizing shipments, and the myriad other jobs you have to do.
From our calculations, the cheapest you would spend to create an e-commerce dropshipping business is about $51. That’s not so bad. But we haven’t spoken about ad campaigns, SEO tools, analytic plug-ins, content management costs, logo designing, sourcing for suppliers, setting up a delivery network, and others. With all these things missing, your website will run, but it won’t really work.
Getting all these would cost about $750+ yearly, not to mention the stress involved in handling everything on your own. But like I said earlier, there’s a solution.
The Solution.
You can build your e-commerce website with Sellvia. With Sellvia, you get a top-tier ecommerce site with no stress and no experience whatsoever. You don’t need to bother with brand creation because you get a unique logo, a personalized domain, and all the tools for the growth of your business, including free courses.
And for dropshipping support, they have everything covered. You can import products from the Sellvia catalog to your website with their personalized ad materials at the lowest cost and sell them at your prices. Then, let Sellvia handle the shipping and delivery from their fulfillment center in Irvine, California, in 1-3 business days. After a two-week free trial period, you get all these offers and more at just $399/year.
The dropshipping package alone is also available for existing e-commerce businesses at $39/month, after a 14-day free trial period. Sellvia has a plan to build your e-commerce website and boost your sales on autopilot. Try them out today. You’ll be glad you did.