1. Introduction

Let's go to the main question: "Do I need to be selling over the internet?".

Well, this question has been answered years ago and empirically. Yes, your business needs to be on the internet, and the best example of this is Amazon, which started by making its book catalog available online to sell in its Virtual Store, and through this cannon that is the internet, which reaches billions of people all Over the years, it has become one of the largest companies in the world.

Convinced that the future is to be online, now we need planning and understanding the costs to establish yourself professionally on the Internet and be found by the public looking for your product. In this article we will address these costs, answering a very common question: "How much does it cost to create an Online Store?".

To answer this question, we will share the expertise we acquired during 10 years of work developing virtual stores and institutional websites.

First, let's map out what we need to have so that your online store pays its costs and in the long term becomes a business that generates profitability for you.

Keeping in mind each of the steps in the process of creating an Online Store, we can start to map the costs for this operation.

2. Creation steps

We can say that a basic Virtual Store that generates orders every day will have an annual cost of around R$60.000,00. In other words, R$5.000,00 per month divided between sporadic technical maintenance and investments in digital marketing.

Of course, your costs will be much lower if we assume that you are a self-taught person, with the knowledge to create your own e-commerce in a CMS, manipulate images, configure colors with CSS and run Google Shopping campaigns, however, this scenario is very difficult to exist, and nowadays, everyone has a role within an Online Store and outsourcing these services is the most common occurrence.

Okay, so in the scenario where you are a retailer and know your product catalog, suppliers, logistics and payments, your costs could be around R$5.000,00 to maintain an online environment and appear on Google, among other networks. social.

Therefore, let's delve a little deeper into the issues that will generate costs for your business during the development of an Online Store.

Below is a list of expected costs, mapped by Eco Webdesign in the development of Virtual Stores:

• Hiring professionals to develop an Online Store system for your company;
• Negotiation with logistics companies to send goods at the best rates;
• Study of financial rates to implement payment methods in your Online Store;
• Hiring operators to supply the product catalog that will be made available on the website;
• If you use an ERP, study the monthly fee for use and integration;
• The same operator who will manage the products will be able to manage the orders;
• Check the best ways to promote your business. Whether on Social Networks, Google Ads or Marketplaces, thinking about an investment to promote your Online Store is essential for success.

We cannot give the exact value of each cost on the list, as they are variable, and it is necessary to carry out a market study for each of these stages.

Always take into account that budgets don't cost anything, so taking the time to check the best service providers on the market can minimize many future costs, so focus on always hiring professionals with experience and who understand both the technical side of creating an Online Store as well as the marketing involved in publicizing it.

3. Post-development of the Online Store

We at Eco Webdesign have developed our own digital experience platform and it includes modules for creating an Online Store. Within this platform, our team has the expertise to create a Virtual Store in 7 days and deliver an entire environment configured for the retailer to start their online sales work.

We usually say that the development of the Online Store is only 30% of the entire process, as the secret lies in daily management and creating strategies to sell more.

Now comes another very common question, post-development: "How much will it cost to bring people to my Online Store?"

Organically, we have data on cases in which an Online Store we developed started being indexed on Google and began to generate recurring sales after 6 months online, so don't be alarmed if you launch your new Online Store and don't have orders right away ( This does not exist, and anyone who makes promises of this type should be wary, as it is not simple to gain space on the internet, and there are very well-established strategies to make this possible, so be sure to talk to professionals on the subject).

Okay, with this in mind, 6 months to get organic results is a long time, which is why there are paid promotions.

We will list below the paid ways to promote your Online Store on the Internet:

• Google Ads - Campaigns focused on Google Shopping:
  
  Running paid campaigns on Google can quickly bring visitors to your website. By investing at least R$2.000,00 a month, you can collect data to understand how people search to find your business;
  
  See below, a campaign image from a client in the women's fashion segment who has been achieving great success with his Online Store.
  

• Social Networks - Make product catalog available on Meta:
  
  Study your segment, and understand where your audience may be. Social networks are ideal platforms for B2C (Business to client) work, so if you sell products that are part of people's daily lives, get on social networks and create campaigns there. Work Instagram and Facebook, with daily updates about your products and your business. This investment can vary a lot, but be aware that a good social media campaign will cost you around R$1.000,00 per month.
  

• Marketplaces - Your products advertised in other Virtual Stores:
  
  We recommend this option as soon as you are mature with the experience of selling online. With systems focused on product integration in Marketplaces, you can send your Online Store catalog to large marketplaces such as Amazon, Mercado Livre, Magazine Luiza, Dafiti, Netshoes between others. This can expand the sales of your Online Store, as you will be appearing on different websites that have a large amount of traffic. The cost to carry out the integration will depend on your market study. What we can confirm is that at least the cost will be R$1.500,00 per month, for labor to integrate your catalog into the marketplace of your choice.
  
  

• Organic indexing work in search tools:
  
  When we mention that your Online Store can take 6 months to receive orders organically, the scenario would be without any type of content creation work within your Online Store. Of course, there are SEO strategies that can leverage your Online Store to appear in internet searches. Google, Bling, Yahoo among other search engines. Want to know more? Access the publication here to understand the online store that is indexed on Google.

Well, these are just a few examples of advertising costs to boost sales in your Online Store.

Finally, there are also costs for ready-made and user-friendly platforms for creating Virtual Stores, the famous CMS's.

If you have questions about Virtual Store platforms, see our article, where we classify the 6 best platforms to create an Online Store in 2023.

In the case of Interago (a platform that Eco Webdesign uses to create Virtual Stores), the monthly fee for the basic plan is R$90,00 per month.

This monthly fee includes registering up to 100 products and having 18 thousand visits.

In addition to the monthly fee to keep your Virtual Store online, the primary development and all configurations will cost R$4.950,00.

Well, these values ​​are based on our expertise, and you can find many variations when studying different budgets on the market.

4. Conclusion

With this data, we hope to be able to resolve some doubts regarding prices and values ​​for creating a serious Virtual Store that can bring income to your business.

Don't get carried away by miraculous sales solutions, the Internet is an extremely powerful tool that needs to be used wisely, so study, ask questions and research values, to minimize spending on strategies that don't work.

If you have any further questions, click on the WhatsApp button and get in touch with our team, so we can understand your idea and pass on all the tips and knowledge acquired in more than 10 years of experience generating results for various Internet businesses.