A digital presence is essential for businesses these days, also because 70% of the population uses the internet not only for entertainment but also to buy products and services. With the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, online sales have risen sharply, so having a website or online shop can often mean a company's survival. 

It used to be very expensive to have your own website and only a person with web development skills could create it. Today, with the popularization of the Internet and the advancement of technologies, anyone can have a website: there are currently almost 2 billion websites and this number keeps growing every day. 

If you have chosen a Magento online shop, you should already know that it is the best known e-commerce platform, certainly in terms of self-hosted solutions. Each year, Magento handles a gross volume of over 100 billion US dollars.

Advantages of Magento

• All-in-one e-commerce solution with countless functions
• Flexible adaptability and expandability
• Multishop and Multilingual capability
• Extensive marketing, promotion and social commerce features
• High usability
• Self-hosting on any PHP hosting
• Good availability of the developers to customize Online shop
• The software is free to start
• Widespread and well-known platform
• An active community 
• More than 5,000 extensions available
• Highly scalable 

Magento is used by large retailers such as Samsung and Nespresso as well as countless small and medium-sized e-commerce companies.

Source: BuiltWith https://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Magento              

Explanation of the scheme: TOP 10K, 100K, 1m - means: TOP of websites by traffic, i.e. among the 100K most popular websites, for example, Magento-based websites took about 1750 in 2022. Among the TOP 1m in the same year - about 8750.   

The most important Magento functions at a glance:

• Inventory management
• Processing of shipping costs
• Shopping Voucher
• Several payment options
• API for web services
• Optimized for mobile phones and tablets
• Built-in SEO functions
• Customer groups
• Newsletter management
• Marketing tools
• Order processing
• Customer service 

How much does a Magento online shop cost?

Determining the cost of an online store can be a complicated task, as it is a personalized service that depends on several factors. The costs of an online shop can be divided into 3 phases: construction, launch and operation. Each phase can be reasonably affordable or extremely expensive, depending on the budget and goals. 

The price of creating a Magento online store basically depends on what plan one have. A very important factor is the size of your company, which also influences further actions: which edition to choose, which design and which shop functions and modules are needed. Magento is more suitable for large companies that have a complex business model and the sufficient funding to support it, as Magento is an expensive shop system . 

Hosting and Domain

Costs vary depending on a website's functionality, where it is hosted and who is developing it. When you start a new online shop, the first thing need to consider is hosting and domain costs. A web host or hosting service provides a server on which to host website and makes it available to online users.

There is a wide variety of hosting providers to suit every budget. The following hosters are popular in Germany: Hetzner, 1&1, SchlundTech, Hosteurope, Strato, Domainfactory and All-Inkl. 

After choosing the hosting plan, business owner need to register a domain name. This is your website's address and allows users and search engines to visit the website. 

Magento Editions 

Magento offers a free Community Edition and a paid Enterprise Edition. 

The main difference between the two editions is that Magento Community Edition is free. That's wonderful, after all everyone can use Magento. But this edition has no support from Adobe developers. Everything has to be done by in-house developers team or the company hired to develop Magento shop. 

The Enterprise Edition is chargeable. According to official information, Magento Enterprise starts at around 15,000 euros (licence for 1 year). For larger projects, however, the cost can be as high as 100,000 euros, and there are even more expensive packages. 

Magento is fundamentally identical in both editions. The two editions use the same core of the Magento shop. For the Enterprise Edition, the Community Edition was used as a basis and additionally expanded. 

Magento Store Design

With the domain and hosting in place, now is possible to move on to the most important (and expensive) part, which is the development of the website and its design. Appealing design is crucial for the success of an online shop. There is also a choice here: to use a standard template or a custom template. There are available themes on Magento Marketplace that one can use or also can have an individual design created. A custom design for Magento 2 is a tedious but rewarding task. The appearance of your online shop embodies your company, your product range and your corporate philosophy at first glance. Attractive designs are engraved in the memory of your customers - this also ensures brand awareness and loyalty from existing and potential buyers. 

Magento Standard Theme: 

Shop functions 

The costs for developing a Magento online shop also depend on the shop functions: the more complicated the structure and functionality, the more complex and therefore more expensive the implementation. These include:

• Structure of the products, categories, navigation 
• Configuration of the customer groups 
• Shipping processing, forms, confirmation emails, search function, evaluation function 
• Payment methods and shipping methods
• Price groups for e.g. retailers
• User access and administrator accounts

Magento modules  

If more functions needed for the online shop that Magento Standard does not offer, you can purchase additional modules on Magento Marketplace. There are many extensions for every need.

The costs for a Magento online shop also depend heavily on the modules needed. So if there are specific requirements that cannot be covered by extensions, it is also possible to create individual modules. It goes without saying that he more complicated the module, the more expensive the development. The creation of product configurators for Magento is also time-consuming, but worthwhile. 

Selection of the Agency 

Choosing the right e-commerce agency is the most important task if your Magento online shop is successfully launched. The quality of the work, the reliability and the deadlines are crucial.

When choosing a web agency you need to look at the customer reviews and/or references as it is the best sign of qualifications. You can compare finished projects with your expectations.

The role of the team is equally important, as creating an online store requires different skills and qualifications. Such specialists are needed for a project as programmers (frontend and backend developers), designers, project managers. Each member fulfils a specific role that is essential to the smooth running of the project. 

The cost of the services is also very important - hourly rates selected should be not too low or too high. It is also very important to find out about the conditions of sale in advance:

• Are there any hidden costs?
• Do you have to pay everything in advance?
• How is maintenance carried out?
• What is the guarantee and how does it work?
• How about bug fixing? 

A good agency will always be transparent on these issues.

Support for the Magento online shop

In order for an online shop to function error-free even after launch, it needs support. As time goes by, you may want to ask for information, personal advice, have technical difficulties, add new features or change something else – Magento support is essential. The following variants are possible: you can purchase a support package where the services are prescribed, or you can work with an agency on an hourly basis.

Conclusion

The development of a Magento online shop is a complex, multi-stage process, and the costs depend on many factors: hosting, edition, functionality, modules, design and much more. Since this shop system is suitable for large projects with complicated business logic, we would offer instead the shop software OXID or Shopware. You can read about the benefits of migrating from Magento to Shopware in our article. 

Our agency is an expert in creating and supporting Magento online shops. We take care of the qualitative implementation of your projects with the highest demands on performance, design and user-friendliness. We create the excellent online shop for you and with you, also take care of digital marketing and are happy to consult you.