How Much Does It Cost To Build An E-commerce Site In Zimbabwe?

If you’re starting out and your budget is low then the important thing is to just start. You might as well drop the fear of making mistakes because that’s inevitable-YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES!?

Frankly, the cheapest I’ve come across for eCommerce here in Zimbabwe is the USD150-$250 range, but I wouldn’t do anything below the $300-$500 range if someone else is doing it for me. That’s because a developer of decent experience won’t charge less than that, and honestly, in the long-term that price range will come back to bite you.

That’s for a start-up, mind you. Corporations shouldn’t even be looking at such numbers. Rightfully priced, you’re looking at nothing less than USD 2,000 for a group of developers who know what they’re doing.

So, how much? There really is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question, but there are a few factors you can consider so you don’t make mistakes that can cost you your business.?

1. Hosting: Local hosting will cost you +/- $80 for an entire year (often with free domain name) for shared hosting. Shared hosting works for eCommerce if you are just starting out and you really don’t have money. VPS hosting is more ideal for eCommerce. 1 Gig memory VPS (more than enough for small business in Zimbabwe) will cost you $10/ month locally or +/- $11 for international options like?namecheap.com
2. The number of pages: This is immaterial for the most part because most start-ups don’t have much in terms of product pages, even for FMCG business models. It’s a matter of organizing product categories, and if a developer charges extra for the number of pages there should be a good reason to. For example, if you keep making changes to product pages, the developer should charge for extra hours and the changes made.
3. Payment processing: Depends on which platform and payment gateway you wish to use. But any developer doing good work will charge to integrate this into your site. That, of course, can eat into your budget because those integrations can take some work depending on what you choose.
4. Content creation: You’ll need website copy (words that sell). It’s wise to get a professional copywriter to script down the words on your landing page, product descriptions etc. You will need photography for your products. Photographers vary anywhere from $15 per hour to $100 an hour for the most part.
5. Design costs: WordPress has WooCommerce, which comes with many themes you can choose from, or the web designer can create a customized design for you. Charges vary anywhere from $150- $800 for the most part.

That being said, in Zimbabwe I already gave you the numbers at the beginning. A low price point often means recurring monthly hosting payments with poor customer service, shared hosting, little or zero meaningful SEO and the website may not sell as well as you need it to.?

Then again, for a small business, you can get away with WordPress integrations that could work relatively well for a while. You just have to embrace glitches along the way.