How much does it cost to build an E-commerce website in Dubai?

E-commerce is the process of electronically buying or selling products over the internet. An e-commerce website allows you to scale your business, giving you the opportunity to add more products and payment options as your business grows. All of this is done without having to concern yourself with expanding your brick and mortar store, and saves you much needed time and money. 

E-commerce sites are becoming more popular by the day as they offer a range of opportunities for businesses to generate more sales. With a well optimised e-commerce website, you are able to reach your target audience effectively - 24 hours a day. A professional and well developed online store offers your consumers a convenient service, which will ultimately boost your bottom line. 

But how much does it cost to build an e-commerce website in Dubai? 

E-commerce websites are not a one size fits all solution. The bigger the website and the more features required on the website, the more it will cost. 

When it comes to e-commerce sites in Dubai, the cost will depend on the complexity and the amount of products you offer. The more complex, and the more products, the more expensive the build will be. As websites vary, your cost could be anywhere between AED 30,000 to AED 200,000. However, if you are interested in building a massive e-commerce website along the lines of Amazon, you will have to realistically set aside millions of Dirhams.  It is also important to speak to an e-commerce marketing expert so that they can explain exactly what it is you need to make your e-commerce site work. 

To put this costing into perspective, it is important to understand the amount of work that goes into building these sites. 

What to consider when building an e-commerce site in Dubai

• Choosing your E-commerce Platform
  You will have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to your e-commerce platform.
  At Nexa, we work with both open-sourced solutions such as Wix, Shopify and Wordpress, as well as the more robust - Magento or can custom code the e-commerce platform for you, depending on the size and scale of your business.  Magento has been purposely designed and built for e-commerce and a key advantage is that is has one of the most robust reporting system in the market, along with a multitude of key e-commerce features and a flexible content management system (CMS), however, it does requires skill and knowledge to build an e-commerce site within the platform. Magento is  one of the most powerful e-commerce platforms in the market today and gives you vast multitude of options when it comes to customising and building functionality within your e-commerce store, such as multi vendors, combining your offline stores and online store into one inventory - the list is endless.  If your business requires a complex e-commerce solution, our team is able to customise a website for your ecommerce business needs. Customised stores allow for a great deal of scale and are built to suit your requirements. As these sites are fully customisable, they come with no technical limitations.
  
  
• Brand Design and Corporate Identity
  When building your e-commerce site, you need to make sure that the entire site represents what your brand stands for and what image you want to display to the user. To build your brand effectively you need to have strong imagery and quality content throughout your site.  The design of your e-commerce site, whether simple or complex, needs to encompass your entire brand identity. A professional website design agency will provide this service, ensuring your site reflects your business and your brand effectively. 
  
  
• Shopping Cart and Search Bar
  These aspects of your design and development are the most important features on any e-commerce site and they are always displayed at the top of the website. The shopping cart icon on e-commerce sites is a necessity, and provides a way for visitors to check out their products.
  If you have a multitude of products available on your site, the search box and ease of navigation are vital to the success of your website. This is what will direct the user to the product they are searching for, and this should be the most streamlined and easy-to-use part of your e-commerce website to ensure a great user experience. This experience is what will keep your customers coming back for more.  
  
  
• Strong and Dynamic Call-To-Actions
  This marketing detail has a great impact on your e-commerce site and is often the difference between a sale and a drop off. It is important to craft a powerful call-to-action that will prompt customers to act.
  Without a strong and clear call-to-action (CTA), your users will not be sure of what to do on your site and what steps to take.  The obvious e-commerce CTAs are buttons such as "Buy Now" or 'Add to Cart" however, other CTAs such as those driving mailing list subscriptions are equally important and allow you to communicate with visitors even if they didn't make a purchase.

• Special Offers and Discounts
  If you want to offer promotions or discount codes on your site, you will need to have this functionality built into the e-commerce website.  This encourages people to purchase your products and act as soon as they see the promotion.  It is these small elements that you need to think of when designing your e-commerce site, and these are the elements that may add to your cost.  You may also want to premier new products every few days and you can display these on your homepage - this would be another function to add to your website, and one that will increase your sales. 

These are just a few elements that need to be considered when designing your e-commerce platform.

Other vital elements for e-commerce design include:

• Payment Gateways
• Shipping Gateways
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Data Analysis and Conversion Optimization
• Imagery / Video and content
• Marketing Automation

and much more. 

All of these elements will add increase the cost however, but if implemented properly for your business, the return on investment is high.

In Conclusion

The key to understanding what you require and how much it will cost to reach your goals comes down to communication. Make sure your website design agency is able to answer all your questions and explain to you what is needed to create your ultimate website.  Once you understand the work that goes in to creating an efficient e-commerce site, the cost will seem minuscule in comparison to the rewards you will reap.  

At Nexa, we provide consultancy to new e-commerce retailers ensuring success-related components such as social media marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, PPC and Email marketing are used to help you gain even greater online success. 

Interested in finding out how much your e-commerce website will cost? Click her for our website calculator or contact us today!