On several occasions I’ve been asked by friends — small business owners and craftspeople — for advice about setting up an online store. They want a way to sell their goods online, but are reluctant to take the first step. Their reluctance is usually due to one of two concerns: they aren’t technical people and think that it’s difficult, or they think that the expense isn’t worth the potential return. In the modern eCommerce world, neither of those assumptions is true. I’d like to give others in my friends’ position a basic understanding of what it costs to create an
independent online store.
Of course, there are hosted marketplaces like Etsy that make it incredibly easy to see goods, but I’m going to concentrate on the costs of creating an independent small online store.
The Store
There are several alternatives for retailers who want to build their own store, but Magento is probably the leading eCommerce retail application. The good news is that the community edition of Magento, which is ultimately owned by Ebay, is free. Anyone can use Magento Community Edition without paying. It’s a powerful and flexible solution. The best way to think about it might be to compare it to WordPress — it’s a free application with a huge variety of extensions and themes.
Hosting
There used to be a hosted SaaS version of Magento called Magento Go, but that recently closed down, so retailers will have to find their own hosting. Hosting comes in many different shapes and sizes, but for non-technical eCommerce retailers, I’d suggest managed hosting that is tailored specifically for Magento stores. It’s likely to be slightly more expensive than the cheapest hosting, but it’s easier to use — the hosting company will install Magento into a hosting environment best suited for it, and will be able to offer specific support that more general hosting companies won’t.
Hosting prices run from a few dollars to many thousands of dollars for very large stores, but most small businesses shouldn’t end up paying more than $30 a month for shared managed Magento hosting.
Design
If you’re just getting started in the eCommerce world, I’d suggest using website builder or a premium Magento theme, but not a bespoke one. Premium themes are more robust and feature-rich, but they don’t come with the large price tag associated with hiring a designer to create a theme from scratch. There are free themes available, but they tend to be more basic than premium themes. If you’re really strapped for cash, a free theme is an entirely reasonable option, though.
You can expect to pay anything from $80 to $200 for a decent premium theme. ThemeForest and Magento Connect are both excellent places to buy your premium theme.
Development
If you just want basic eCommerce functionality, there should be no need to hire a developer. You might want to hire a Magento professional to handle the basic setup for you if you aren’t confident, but otherwise you’ll probably find everything you need either built into Magento or in the Magento Connect extension repository, which features a mixture of free and premium extensions.
This cost varies depending on your specific requirements.
Content
Any good eCommerce store requires original copy and images. Many small eCommerce store owners are happy to write their own product descriptions and copy, and take their own photographs. If you aren’t, you can easily hire professionals who will do both. Good writers and photographers aren’t cheap, and so this may end up being your most substantial cost aside from inventory.
Marketing
There’s not much point having a store if no one knows it’s there, so some investment in marketing is essential. Again, the costs here can be highly variable. Some retailers pay nothing at all and rely on organic traffic from search engines and social media sites, or word of mouth. Some make heavy investment in professional search engine optimization and social media marketing. I generally advise new store owners to start out small and try to build their reach over time.
As you can see, the days when setting up an eCommerce store was expensive and complex are long gone. Most businesses and small traders can easily branch out into online selling without going deep into debt.
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