We have studied United Arab Emirates Market for custom e-commerce website development and the potential related to this. You can keep reading all the blogs posted by us. Every week we are scheduled to update some information about the current market and technologies opted by clients. Keep Reading!

In our article, we will explain to you the proper way to build a successful high net worth e-commerce business in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. If you carefully read this article, you’ll be able to provide your customers with the most positive online user experience and a lot of loyal customers who will stick to your business with many orders.

Things you should consider before starting an e-commerce website

First of all, you should develop your e-commerce business plan or a flow chart, it’s the first thing you have in your mind. Start writing every single detail.  As you know without a plan, you can feel difficulties to trace out where to start, what to do, how to implement the plan, whom to talk to… Therefore, we strongly recommend you spend the time making a flow chart that comes to your mind which gives you the strategy/plan of future earnings via your online store.

What are the important e-commerce website development phases stepwise?

#1. Purpose of eCommerce web development with bring goals explanation

Before you decide on how and with whom to build an eCommerce website, first you know briefly know your goals. A brief precise of the goals will make the process of eCommerce web development a lot faster and cheaper.

As a business owner, we are mean to say that you must precisely have the know-how and full understanding of what exactly you want to achieve, what you expect, how it should be implemented to make it clear to users.

Few questions generally development company asks:

·       What kind of online store websites are you expecting to make?

·       Will it be a single vendor or multi-vendor?

·       What kind of products/services you are planning to sell online? Or, perhaps, you already have a physical store and you are exploring the new way of online earnings through digital sales?

·       What are your shipping/delivery options? Will you be putting any third-party API?

·       How large your project is going to be? Will you need the maintenance also?

·       What is your tentative e-commerce web development budget? Are you willing to make it a full website with contactless delivery or it just a model which will work on cash?

·       Are you a registered company in the United Arab Emirates?

·       Do you have a license by Government to carry an E-Commerce business?

·       Who will be your payment gateway partner?

·       Who will be your SMS/Email API partner?

·       What kind of hosting you have in your mind?

·       Are you looking for a full package for us?

Of course, after all these questions you will more things running in your mind in regards to eCommerce web development. But these are enough to start.

If your goals are clearly drafted on the notepad at a very high level and you exactly know what you want, you will get the best output by the developer. Else, developers won’t understand what you expect from them as you didn’t give a clear written guideline of your expectancy and you’ll find yourself extremely disappointed.

So, first of all, write down your goals, and then you create the online store. This is the only success Mantra for an e-commerce website development.

#2. Your domain name and website hosting

A domain name and website hosting are very important things which often overlooked. But this has a huge impact on the business you are planning to create online. This mistake shouldn’t happen, and we must consider the factors below.

A Domain name should be short, easy to understand, easy to remember, consistent with the name of your company. It’s highly important as we are talking about the branding of your company, which should represent one of the successful eCommerce stores. At first glance, it looks easy to find and purchase a domain name from any prover but believes us it’s more complicated than it might seem. We recommend buying www.yourdomain.com domain as its global domain and knows to all users from any country.  If you are planning to have business only in UAE, you can have www.yourdomain.ae domain also from the providers.

Click here to get the details here for more details on domain purchase and selection.

This is the first real task you will be doing so it better that you do the dealing with the issue in advance.

hosting is the biggest factor of any eCommerce website to ensure proper performance, backups, security. There are different options, such as:

Shared-hosting, the cheapest one. Your service provider will allocate the necessary resources to the cPanel like RAM, bandwidth, etc. In return, you pay a certain amount of money yearly or monthly based on the contract agreement between both parties. Admin can update files through FTP clients like FileZilla etc. and will get a backend to update the product, category, other relevant information.

VPS/VDS – Virtual Private/Dedicated Server is a hosting technology with several isolated virtual machines on a single physical server. Admin gets the right to control all the processes at the root-user level. This is a recommended option for e-commerce website development for SMEs.

dedicated server- The client gets the physical machine, which has certain characteristics and locates in a specially equipped data-center. Generally, large portals with a lot of visitors choose the dedicated server to optimize the performance of the website overall.

 #3. SSL certificate

A user will come and see whether your e-commerce website is reliable and trustworthy since you have payment involved by their credit card or debit card. You should take the paid SSL in advance to make your website secure for the user.

Click here to get the details here for more details on SSL purchase secure data transmission through authentication and encryption technologies.

The SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol is the guarantee of the absence of the slightest danger and threats of hacker attacks during the interaction of your server with the visitor’s browser. SSL is the same thing as security. The SSL protocol helps to transmit the coded data through HTTPS. To return information to the decoded format, one should take advantage of a secret digital key.

Your developer needs to do the installation of the SSL certificate (a unique virtual document) which characterizes the level of security of online store websites.

Types of SSL certificates:

Domain validation: quite a simple option, which requires only domain verification and, therefore, it is in high demand these days.

Business validation: This option is for those businesses who are concerned about their reputation.

Extended validation: Only these EV certificates provide a green address bar in the browser on the website.

To obtain a certificate, you can directly purchase the from the organizations issues it. However, we understand that it might be a little tricky and complicated for you to decide and purchase with the required validation of your domain. We will take care of it. We will give the best user experience to your customers with personal data security.

#4. A payment gateway

The eCommerce website development cost is not the only significant factor. It involves many other factors like payment gateway. To Make your delivery contactless you must integrate the payment gateway. There are two options in United Arab Emirates to get the payment gateway if you are a legal business.

Bank Merchant account- In United Arab Emirates the rules and regulations are strict to get the payment gateway. You can contact your bank you do the banking with to get the payment gateways from Master and Visa Card. Bank Compliance will check the website and the content and full flow of the website to ensure the authenticity of your business. Bank wants to be sure that this is a genuine business, not created for money laundering or terrorism funding, etc. Generally, the entire process of requesting the bank and getting the approval takes 15-30 days. It can solely on bank discretion of to whom to give API or to whom to not and how many days they want.

Payment Gateway third part provider companies- Many companies offer you to take the payment gateway services with them. They charge commission percentage or fixed charge, or both based on the agreement. We have vastly used below mentioned companies for payment gateway  https://www.ccavenue.com  and https://telr.com  It’s more important that your resource be profitable. So, you need to think of the payment system, namely –  a payment gateway and credit card processor. Generally, the entire process of requesting the bank and getting the approval takes 15-30 days or maybe more.

Organizing a secure payment system is the difficult part as you have to spend a lot of time getting approval from the banks in United Arab Emirates, but there is no way to avoid such a process. To build a successful eCommerce website, we must need a contactless payment option for users. After all, users will buy things online.

#5. Marketing and promotion strategy

Creating alone the website and not promoting to on the right channels will not take you anywhere. You have to be enough competitive in your presence ahead of your competitors. Of course, you need to take care of the promotion of your resource.

Currently, the most popular ways to attract new customers are social media marketing, which is paid campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc., SEO for Google Ranking, affiliate programs, banner and context advertising, Google PPC and much more. It’s important to create a specialized page of your company in all key social networks, which would represent your brand, demonstrate the product catalog, and advertise the eCommerce website.

Besides, we advise you to pay attention to such local influencers also as they have guaranteed the best media coverage, and they can help brands and companies by their live stories about the business. Their followers might follow the footstep of their ideal personalities.

Get the list of UAE’s best influencer lists with us.

In other words, in the e-commerce website development process you must out the budget of marketing.

How to make an e-commerce website as a successful online business?

The main question of this blog is about the cost involved in the e-commerce website but there no point thinking about the budget if the resource is likely to be a failure. You must attend to below details to make your business successful.

#1. Guest checkout or user registration.

It is important to let your customer decide whether they want to register with you or not. You might lose half of your client if you ask them to register with you. Let the customer have the ease to buy with his/her terms of signup with you or checkout as a guest user with a simple phone number email address, address, etc. The process of creating an account takes time and effort, and impatient consumers do not always want to waste their energy. They’ll leave your resource in favor of a competitive one, which doesn’t cause so much trouble.

To registered users, you can keep their personal history, giving them a bonus or discounts in honor of a birthday, and so on.

#2. Responsive design

If you want to build a user-friendly eCommerce website, you must take a look responsive design part. It means your resource will be correctly displayed on any device including smartphones, desktop computers, and tablets.

Mostly users as per studies show (approx. 85%) are buying through mobile so responsive view must be at utmost priority.

#3. Clear interface

The client should be able to find and checkout of whatever he/she was looking for. Any turbulence in a clear interface could lead to a higher bounce rate which is ultimately business loss. All these factors are interrelated. None can be skipped for ease or budget issues.

Your website must be as ergonomic as possible. Also, it won’t be superfluous to provide the system of filters and sorting to make the product selection process more user-friendly.

 #4. global site search

A clear interface is only half the battle. You also need to create the search service for your eCommerce website. The search bar should be located on every page of the online store websites and be recognizable; provide the ability to find a product for a given category (say, only among handicrafts); don’t forget about the system of searching filters: the user will be glad to be able to specify the range of prices, the color of the product, and other parameters.

Develop an online shopping website with an advanced search engine, and you’ll know what the eCommerce website boom is. Surely, such a boom will positively affect your finances.

#5. Live Chat

Effective e-commerce website solutions ensuring positive purchasing experience imply the live chat feature if any issue. It can be through live chatbots or WhatsApp. Generally, people prefer WhatsApp these days in UAE and GCC markets.

How much does it cost to create an eCommerce website?

As you know, eCommerce web development requires a certain budget and depends on many factors. ? We will explain to you how much does it cost to make an online store?

First of all, remember that we’re talking about starting an eCommerce website from scratch. In other words, we create the online store adjusted to your specific requirements. Such a solution is the most flexible and scalable. Moreover, it best suits your individual needs.

Technologies custom e-commerce business from scratch development:

Front-end: JS, HTML, CSS

Backend: Open Cart, CodeIgniter, Laravel, dot net, Node JS , ore php, Ruby on Rails, Spree Commerce, AWS (it’s the Amazon’s server)

We have solutions that are prebuilt on CMS platform which can make your life easy to create your online store within 15 days with a fully functional website. All third-party services like SMS, Payment gateway, Google API, Delivery API, Domain, Hosting are excluded. Click here to see the packages.

Features of successful eCommerce stores

To determine the costs to build a successful eCommerce business project, you need to figure out what it consists of. We evaluate the number of hours required to implement all the functionality as asked and based on the data obtained. Accordingly, we’ll make the final eCommerce website cost estimate.

Authentication (sign-in page/single page checkout )

It is important to make a user registration or single page checkout so that a person can create an account and fill it with personal information or just checkout within a page with account creation. We should not make the authorization a prerequisite however we need the OTP mandate at checkout page to avoid junk queries.

Timeline:  24 hours

Cross-sell of upselling in the checkout page could give users more relevant products to see. Users can register, log in, or place the order on a single page instead of routing to three different pages.

Catalog page

It’s quite an obvious and simple step at first. However, you have to pay attention to make it obvious for users so that catalog looks easy to use as possible.

break the catalog by product category to simplify the search for the desired position;

create a system of filters and sorting like mentioned in the picture above.

don’t forget about the catalog search, Filters, the search bar, and all other elements of the catalog to make it very user-friendly. It’ll increase your chances to have high conversions in the future.

Timeline: 52 hours

Product details page

 Discussing what is included in the e-commerce website making cost, we should recall such a feature as a product details page which includes all details of the product… It must contain all the necessary information like the photo, description, characteristics, dimensions, etc. The client should be able to put the feedback or review on a particular product. However, admin as all rights at the back end to show the review or not on the website.  Users would be happy to read reviews of those people who have already bought the product they’re interested in.

Timeline: 50 hours

 

 

Relevant products for upselling or cross-sale on the product page:

People should see another relevant product on a page that is closely related to the product user is thinking of buying.

It can upsell/cross sale. Users might buy more stuff when they see it upfront.

Timeline: 36 hours

Product Comparison:

Product comparison is a new feature that gives the client to select the option between the choices he/she made. He must show the complete comparison in tables to evaluate what suits him/her best.

Timeline: 36 hours

 Shopping cart page

E-commerce web development necessarily includes the stage of creating a shopping cart. As soon as the user clicks on the “Add to Cart” button, the product automatically appears on this page. The cart should be viewable only with cart items or discounts.

Timeline: 36 hours

Checkout page

Discussing the SSL protocol, we explained how to make an e-commerce website secure. And now we’re talking about the safety issue again. Because it is for safety reasons that special attention should be given to the checkout page. Payment is always a delicate moment, and the user must trust you.

·       To make the checkout page credible, you must take care of it. These days one-page checkout is in demand as we discussed in the first point here.

·       Click minimizations will increase sales as the customer doesn’t feel irritated while buying. More than 3 clicks may bounce the client as the patience of any online user if it takes too much of time while doing formalities. The checkout page should be easy and transparent and user friendly.

·       The possibility to continue shopping. Allow the buyer to continue shopping from any page, including the one we’re discussing.

·       Links to your Private Policy and terms and conditions should be mandated before checkout to avoid any legal battle in the future.

·       Full information about the purchased product. The total cost of the order is insufficient information. The checkout page should include a more detailed description – the user would like to know exactly what he is paying for. Specifying shipping options would come in handy either.

Timeline: 40 hours

About us

Don’t be silent, tell users about your company details. Prove the information of your vision mission board of directors, any other details which are relevant that you can be trusted! In other words, create your business brand to leave an impression on the user’s mind to see you as a successful company.

Traditional resources usually keep all information about the company. You can make it a short and narrow detail about your page. Nobody cares why you decided to start eCommerce web development, your customers are more willing to learn about other things like the number of years on the market, who is a board behind the formation, how strong your vision is,  your achievements, awards, and certificates. What can your company be proud of, nature of the goods offered, your suppliers or you produce goods and services yourself, quality checking.

Tell us what measures you take to make sure of the high quality of the products.

You can edit this information page any time in the future as the company grows the details should be amended too.

Timeline: 12 hours

Customer Care (FAQ)

Starting an e-commerce website, you don’t always realize that the project close-out won’t lead to the completion of all works as its endless process.

You may have many questions about your eCommerce website, and these questions are usually quite typical. Be smart enough to answer them in advance and post in the FAQ section. You can place FAQ at the header or footer.

Questions can relate to delivery, payment, the return of rejected goods, quality certificates, and other important issues.

Timeline: 12 hours

Contact Us page

It is unreasonable to create an online store without the Contact Us page. The user must know all the options to contact you if necessary. It should open up a form to send you an email or your phone number with your locations to approach. You have to specify the maximum number of your contact information like the address location wise if any, a phone number, WhatsApp, email, a location map, etc and it would be smart to offer the opportunity to communicate with you through the special contact form.

Timeline: 8 hours

Integration with third-party solutions

Marketing campaigns in the eCommerce web development process you’ll need to integrate the chosen marketing tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster, Google Tag Manager, Mailchimp, and so on.

Timeline: 12 hours

CMS

CMS is the administrative panel which is the full backend control center. In this place you can manage all the information which needs to update on the website, your category for catalog, product creation, you can see the total number of orders received and their respective status. You can modify any details here. All the user, seller info will be there.

In totality, it’s the area where the owner can manage his site. Undoubtedly, the CMS is a key stage of e-commerce web development.

Timeline: 56 hours

Final eCommerce website cost estimate

Well, it’s time to take stock and finally answer the burning question of how much does it cost to create an eCommerce website? But before answering it, we’d like to remind you again of all the important things. Remember that in addition to designers and developers, you’ll need the following specialists

·       Project manager to coordinate work processes and update your information

·       QA engineers to test the eCommerce platform;

Timeline PM: 16 hours

Timeline QA: 30 hours

Depending on the complexity of the design and the number of web pages, the total cost can range from 10,000 AED  to 75,000 AED.

At conclusion

Starting an eCommerce website from scratch is, of course, more expensive than using ready-made solutions of popular platforms. However, the option we’re discussing guarantees your eCommerce business brand several distinct advantages-

·       Unique site design

·       Unlimited project scaling

·       Free Support for 2 months

·       Server optimization packages

·       Full maintenance packages

Market details of who is cheaper and better for third party resources.

Our team employs very talented and skilled experts willing to assist in the e-commerce site development. Click here to place your inquiry now!

Our specialists are highly qualified and know how to build the best eCommerce website; moreover, they’re able to successfully apply their knowledge in practice.

If you want to succeed, let’s cooperate!