Should I build my own e-commerce website or buy a subscription?

Introduction

Do you own a brick and mortar store and want to get an online presence? In that case you do need an ecommerce website that will assist you to generate more leads and get more customers. Ecommerce websites would allow you to reach different locations, in your own country or different countries. If you want to build an ecommerce website, you can hire a team of developers or buy a subscription from some websites, which set up your online store. Different websites like shopify allows you to set up an ecommerce store online.

Should you build an ecommerce website from scratch?

If you are looking to build an online store from scratch, you need to hire some great developers that will assist you to build your ecommerce website. Building an ecommerce website from scratch could be quite costlier and you would require a team of developers who are expertise in ecommerce development. 

Advantages of setting up an ecommerce store

Different advantages of setting up an ecommerce store from scratch are following

• It allows users to design ecommerce websites on their own. Different users can have different payment gateways integrated in the website.
• Users can have their own admin panel which can be designed according to business needs.
• Users can change infrastructure based on different business models. It allows users to define information in multiple ways.
• Several businesses can have their own hosting and domain name. It is a user friendly solution which does not need any technology. Different businesses can self host websites to create more unique stores which follows a flexible approach.

What is an ecommerce store based on a subscription model?

A subscription based model works well when you want to sell products to users, who are already buying from you. Here with a subscription based model you need to ask your buyers to buy products from you. Different advantages of subscription based models. A subscription based ecommerce model has different advantages and disadvantages. 

• It is easy to set up and use-Different subscription based models do offer business to launch an online store without any hassle.it gives you a clean admin interface which is user friendly and quite intuitive since all the features are logically structured.
• No need to have good information technology-Unlike setting an ecommerce website from scratch, here you don’t need any technical expertise, but you still need someone to design the layout for the store. For such services, different ecommerce companies do guide and assist you to design an attractive ecommerce store. 
• It is secure and reliable-Different ecommerce stores deal with sensitive information clients such as credit card information and much more. It allows your site to be secure and fast. Different subscription based models would take care of all the server maintenance work and make upgrades to keep your store available and it will load different pages quickly.
•  Customer Support-Different subscription based models would give customer support whenever you need. It does have different mediums by which you can contract customer services. And many community forums are available with extensive documentation.
• Mobile Ready-With different gadgets available, most of the users use mobile devices. Hence it is essential to set up an online store for mobile devices. A subscription based model for building ecommerce websites would assist in mobile application. It includes different mobile applications which let you manage all different stores.
• SEO marketing tools-With a subscription based ecommerce development website, all marketing tools come along with it. Any businesses do not need to spend a large amount on marketing and seo services. An app store will give you access to a wide range of different marketing tools such as social media integration. 

Should you go for ecommerce development from scratch or use a subscription based model?

• Different businesses do have different needs and based on needs a business can decide about developing an ecommerce website from scratch or use a subscription based model. Both of them have their own advantages.
• A major difference between both the models is that, for developing an ecommerce website from scratch, you do need to have a team of developers who expertise in ecommerce website development.

• It becomes quite expensive to hire a developer and you do need to have different teams for marketing and SEO,but building an ecommerce store from scratch is a single investment.  If you want to build an ecommerce application, you need to get a different team expertise in mobile application development.
• A subscription based model does require an expert team for building design of the ecommerce website but here a business does need to spend money even if you are not selling any goods and services. Different subscription based models do all your work such as marketing and SEO. it comes with different plans which allows different businesses to buy according to its need. 

Conclusion

Getting and setting an online store is not an easy task. It does need a group of experts who guides you and assists you to set up an online store. Different companies do develop an ecommerce website from scratch and set up a subscription based model. It does need a lot of guidance in developing and designing an ecommerce store. An ecommerce website from scratch would require you to hire a team which can develop, upgrade and give full customer support. 

Hence  a subscription based model is quite cost effective if you get a fixed amount of sales since here you need to give fees until you are subscribed even if you make sales or not.