How much is to open an online store in 2022?

Starting your own business is always a risk. But if you choose the right direction of activity and plan expenses, you can subsequently get a good income. Nowadays, online stores are extremely popular, because you can sell a wide variety of products through them. This can be an online store for auto parts, clothing, baby products, food , or a platform for selling goods that you make yourself.

And in this article we will discuss such an important issue, what is the cost of opening an online store from scratch . Having in front of your eyes an approximate list of expenses, you can more clearly imagine what investments will be required, including money, how much money is needed to open an online store. All waste can be conditionally divided into two categories: initial and monthly. The initial costs, in turn, are divided into solving organizational issues offline and online.

Offline, you will need:

• register your activities legally;
• rent an office or warehouse;

Questions that you can solve online:

• develop a logo;
• create a website design;
• order the services of a programmer;
• buy a domain;
• pay for hosting.

Now let's move on to monthly expenses. They include the following items:

• payment for the services of an accountant
• payment of Internet provider and hosting bills;
• site advertising;
• administration;
• employee salaries;
• taxes;
• office or warehouse maintenance costs.

By writing down the approximate amounts opposite each item, you can find out how much cash resources will be needed at the first stage, and how much you will need to earn per month in order not only to cover regular expenses, but also to make a profit.

You also need to take into account that these costs do not include the amount for the purchase of goods and work by suppliers . You can get detailed information on these itemshere.

Choosing a form of activity and registering a business

It is easier and cheaper to register an individual. In this case, there is no need to make a seal and open a current account. The opening price for self-registration is about $ 15. In order not to stand in lines in government structures and deal with bureaucratic issues, you can pay for the services of intermediaries. The cost of their work ranges from $ 30-50.

Opening a legal entity is more difficult, but such a legal entity also has more opportunities.

• To begin with, it is necessary to form the authorized capital.
• You also need to pay the fee and register a copy of the charter.
• In addition, to conduct business, a legal entity needs a current account and a legal address.

The financial costs of these items change almost every year depending on the current legislation, so the exact cost needs to be found out additionally.

You can also ask for the help of intermediaries and arrange all the documents for a legal entity without unnecessary problems, but this will cost about $ 150.

The cost of opening an online store at the initial stage

Having in hand the documents on the opening of an individual or legal entity, you can look for a room for renting an office or warehouse. Don't rush to rent an expensive office with panoramic views or a large warehouse with 24/7 security. At first, you can get by with more modest rooms, and some activities allow you to solve almost all issues from home. Everything here is individual and depends on what you are selling.

For example, if your product is large-sized equipment, a wide range of auto parts or perishable products, you cannot do without a special warehouse. And if your type of activity involves frequent customer visits, you will have to spend money on a cozy office with a more or less convenient location.

Now let's move on to the costs of building a website. As mentioned above, to start, you need to take care of the following components of the online store:

• creation of corporate identity and company logo (not necessarily at the initial stage);
• website design;
• programming and layout of the site or purchase of a ready-made platform;
• choice of hosting and domain.

Hosting and domain

Hosting and domain are extremely important components in the functioning of an online store. Domain is the address of a site on the world wide web, and hosting is the place where all the files that form the site are stored. Both are available for free, but the domain in this case is long, ugly and unpresentable, and the hosting is not able to accommodate all the data, let alone expand the catalog.

You have to pay to get hold of a beautiful online store name and reliable storage for it. For convenience, you can buy a domain and order hosting from the same company. They often offer lucrative promotions, for example, when paying for hosting for a year, a domain name is given as a gift. By the way, paying immediately for a long period is very profitable, because in this case the companies provide good discounts.

Hosting price depends on its functionality and memory size. So, if you have one site and 10 gigabytes of disk space is enough for you, you can get by with hosting for $ 3 per month. And if you need unlimited memory for several sites, technical support and high speed of work, for $ 9 per month you can get all these conveniences.

• For example, domain registration in the .ru zone starts at $ 2.
• If you want a nice address with a .com ending, you need to shell out at least $ 6 for it.
• The price for registration in the popular .org domain zone is not less than $ 9.
• Domain zones .store, .site, .online are cheaper, their price starts from 70 cents.

You can slightly reduce the budget for launching an online store if you buy a domain during the promotion period. For example, before the New Year and in the summer there are very lucrative offers.

As you can see, the final price for a domain and hosting depends only on your requests. At the start of your own business, you can keep within $ 5, but in the future, for the development of an online store, it is advisable to invest in more powerful hosting and acquire a more presentable website address.

Choosing a CMS for an online store

Along with the importance of the previous point is the importance of choosing a CMS. This is a ready-made solution for an online store, which contains an admin panel and a standard template. Through the CMS, you will work with content, edit and create new pages, and process customer orders. Thanks to such a system, the owner of a web resource can independently manage his site without resorting to the help of a technical specialist. Let's take a look at our online store script.

To make further work with the online store comfortable, you need to choose an easy-to-use CMS, with a set of all the necessary options, as well as the ability to contact technical support if there are difficulties at first.

The following CMS are very popular:

• OkayCMS - this platform meets all the requirements and is perfect for both beginners and advanced users. It is already optimized for promotion, created specifically for e-commerce, multilingual and multicurrency, open source, responsive templates and rich functionality to increase conversion. This engine is modern and improved, it has functions for import / export of goods, you can easily create the necessary filters, there is a built-in blog with news and articles, the flaws of other platforms have been taken into account, and many new plugins have been added that are important for an online store. You can preview the demo of the online store

• WordPress . It is a shareware platform, it is very easy to manage, has many design options and good informational support in the form of a forum. But sites on this platform are often hacked, and if many plugins are installed, the site loads slowly. This platform is designed specifically for blogs and is not intended for online stores.

• OpenCart . There are almost all conditions for online stores: an unlimited number of products and categories, the ability to pay in different currencies and e-wallets, an intuitive admin panel. Among the disadvantages of this site, it is worth noting the limited basic functionality and some architectural errors in the form of creating duplicate pages.

Free CMSs are now widely available, and such offers are very tempting, especially for entrepreneurs on a budget. But if you are determined to achieve success and develop your online store, it is advisable to choose a paid package. Online store opening price  on a CMS depends on the set of features you need, as well as the price point of the platform itself.

Design creation and revision

Any online store needs design and functional improvements. The appearance of the resource is as important as the product itself. Therefore , design costs must be included in the total cost of launching an online store .

• If you bought a ready-made engine, then you can choose a template to your liking from those offered by the platform. This option will cost from $ 60 and allows you to slightly reduce the item of expenses.
• Or you can order the development of a unique design. In this case, you will have a unique design for your online store, and the designer will take into account all your wishes down to the smallest detail. But such a pleasure costs from $ 500 and more .

Filling the online store

When all the technical issues are resolved, you can proceed to filling the site with content. This includes texts and pictures. Each product in an online store should have a unique description and several clear photographs. To achieve this, there are at least two ways: automatic and manual filling.

Let's start with the lighter and faster one, that is, automatic filling. The best way to quickly fill up a site is through upload files from suppliers, which can be easily downloaded through the product import module. Therefore, it is advisable to provide this option in the initial functionality of the online store.

If you want to have unique site content, choose the manual option of filling the cards. And here, too, there are several ways.

1. You can write texts yourself and take pictures of your products, it will be free and will significantly reduce your overall expenses, but at the same time, it will significantly increase the time for filling the store. Of course, in the case of a limited budget, this method will be optimal. But if you are not an expert in these areas, it is better to entrust such an important area of work to professionals.
2. To create high-quality content, it is advisable to hire a copywriter who will write selling texts for website pages and for products. On average, the services of such a performer cost $ 2-3 per 1000 characters. You will receive quality text content and relieve yourself of the creative anguish.
3. Now let's move on to the photos. If you are not selling your product, but ordering it from a supplier, ask him for photos of the goods as well. But if you are a manufacturer yourself or your supplier did not have good pictures, you can use the services of a professional photographer. For one position, such a specialist will take about $ 2, but for this money he will display your product in a favorable light, in the literal sense of the word, and will also retouch the pictures.

And now, when you already have both texts and photos, there is one more thing left - placing them on the pages of the site. At first glance, there is nothing complicated here. But multiplying this "nothing" by the number of goods, it becomes obvious that you will have to spend a lot of time. Fortunately, there are content managers who are ready to fill out the product cards, and it will cost you about 50 cents per product.

As you can see, there are several ways to populate your online store. The choice depends on your financial capabilities and the amount of free time, as well as on what you want to get as a result - a site similar to hundreds of others or a unique, high-quality product.

The cost of improvements and extensions for an online store

At the initial stage of the online store functioning, there may be a need for its completion. This is, for example:

• code improvements
• adding blocks
• plugins connection
• writing forms

Customers write with a request to make some options more convenient, or your employees want some of the functions to be performed automatically. And the capabilities of the CMS do not always allow satisfying the requests of both. Usually, in such cases, you cannot do without the help of a specialist.

Some problems can be corrected through revisions if they are provided for by the contract with your contractor. For example, if the technical task has not been fully completed or the test period has not yet expired. But a good online store owner is constantly working on his website, adding different functions, so from time to time, complex improvements are needed that were not initially envisaged, and these are additional costs. The cost of the work of a programmer and layout designer in such cases starts from $ 15 per hour and more. But the costs are definitely worth it, because your profit directly depends on the convenience of users.

The budget for the maintenance of the online store and payment of staff

At the very beginning of your activity, until the business brings the desired profit, it is more profitable to carry out most of the tasks on your own, this will reduce the cost of creating an online store. So you will not only save money, but you will also know that everything has been done conscientiously. But there are tasks that require specialists in their field.

In addition, with the expansion of the business, you will have to delegate and hire a lot. This does not mean that everyone is sitting in the office from morning till night; for many types of activities, you can hire freelancers and negotiate with them about piecework, that is, pay only for the specific work performed, and not for the entire duration of your stay.

In the total cost of launching an online store , it is imperative to include an item of expenses for staff salaries. Here is an approximate list of people who can work for you, as well as the approximate level of their salaries.

• Sales Manager. It is this specialist who will be the voice of your online store. Your income largely depends on his competence. So don't be stingy to hire a smart employee with experience and talent in sales. His salary starts at $ 380 and can go up to $ 1200 per month. By the way, many managers work for a percentage of sales, which is beneficial for both you and the employee. This condition serves as an excellent motivation to increase sales.
• Accountant. When running your own business, it is very important to correctly calculate expenses and income in order to understand how well things are going. Money loves an account, so you need a good accountant to handle your finances. The level of his salary ranges from $ 450-900 per month. Alternatively, you can cooperate with an accountant remotely, it will be cheaper than hiring a full-time specialist.
• Content manager. This employee will fill your site with texts and photos. If you are planning to expand your online store, new product positions will be added regularly. And a full-time content manager is a must for you. Or at least you need to find a remote, but reliable specialist who will always come to your aid. The cost of his services ranges from $ 230 per month.
• If you have a large warehouse and bulky goods, you will need a storekeeper and a loader. The salary of the first is about $ 370, the second is about $ 230 per month.
• In order to organize a delivery service, you will need a logistician and a courier. If you have small delivery volumes, you can combine these two positions into one. Such an employee will cost about $ 300

Factors that affect the final cost of opening an online store

1. Who will develop the online store (independently, agency, feb-studio, freelancer). Each option will have its own price for the same amount of work.
2. The choice of CMS is paid or free, perhaps it will be a website builder
3. Domain and hosting
4. Ready-made template or development of an individual design
5. Installing modules and plugins
6. Integrations ready-made or custom solutions
7. Minor edits on the site
8. Filling the site with content on your own or with the help of a specialist

Everything is very individual for each customer, many factors affect the cost of opening an online store. But this is as a basis for evaluating the project, then everything depends on the customer and his wishes for functionality, custom solutions and other points.

The grand total for the cost of starting an online store from scratch

In addition to the above costs, there are other items of expenditure. It:

• Advertising and online store - from $ 60 per month
• Purchase of an online checkout - from $ 100
• Purchase of additional equipment, furniture or transport

Summing up all the approximate costs, we can assume that you will need at least $ 1000 to open an online store at the very start. And the minimum monthly expenses, excluding wages and purchases of goods, will be about $ 450.

Of course, the total amount depends on many factors, and after a careful calculation they will be different for each entrepreneur. The main thing in this business is to understand how the algorithm of miscalculations works, and to prepare for the fact that the expected profit will not be from the first day. But if you are focused on success and agree to work hard, you will definitely succeed. We hope we have answered the question - how much does it cost to create an online store website.