
// Development
How Much Does it Cost to Build an Auction Website?
// Development
This article reveals how much the creation of an online auction website like eBay or Etsy costs. It also tells how the budget of similar project forms, what factors have an impact on it, in which cases you can save and in which cases you shouldn’t.
If you liked a specific domain name, but it turned out that it’s already taken, in some cases, you can buy it out for $100-20000. The seller determines the price as he wishes, however, in general cases the price depends on the name's closeness to popular keywords – the closer it is, the higher the price will be.
You can rent a domain and buy the name, which is already in use, on godaddy.com.
Hosting is a server connected to the internet, where all files of your website will be stored. Due to hosting, the users will have access to your auction at any time and you won’t have to do anything for it. Obviously, you can use your personal computer for this purpose. However, in this case, you have to provide smooth operation of your computer 24/7, speed and quality of internet connection. This is unprofitable because even an internet bill will be bigger than a bill for hosting rent.
There are two types of web hosting: virtual and dedicated.
Virtual hosting — it’s when one server’s resources are owned by several users. Each user has a part of storage space and a part of capacity. They’re used simultaneously. Such an approach reduces downtime and quality of hosting, but hereby its price significantly drops (to $5 per month), which is ideal for the platforms with a relatively small number of visits and unacceptable to the sites with millions of views per day.
Examples of the cost of virtual hosting:
Things that influence design pricing:
Template solutions. The simplest and the cheapest option to build an online auction website is to use WordPress themes. Their cost is $0 to $500. Moreover, you might need additional plugins for the normal work of these solutions. For example, plugins for theme customization, integration with payment gateway, marketing tools, etc. Such plugins cost $20 and more as a one-time payment or $5-15 per month as a subscription.
The main disadvantages of template solutions are low uniqueness of design and features, low level of security, bind to CMS WordPress, and low bandwidth. Besides, these themes are usually written poorly, so users see bugs, lags, and other errors when viewing them.
SaaS services for eCommerce. These are cloud services, which work on the plug-and-play principle. Their primary advantage is that you don’t have to worry about technical aspects and service improvement — it’s a service provider’s job. You take up marketing and direct sales. This service costs $300 to $6000 per month. Options of the lower level are limited in the number of users, transaction volume, and extensibility.
Main shortcomings of SaaS: conventionality, dependence on a service provider, inability to influence directions for the service development, unprofitable over the long run. Besides, if the SaaS service provider goes broke or closes the project, your website will stop working.
Custom development. The only acceptable option, if you need to create a unique project for a highly competitive market. Development cost — $5000 to $50000 and more. Development time — 3 to 6 months. People usually outsource the company to build an auction website from scratch because it’s cheaper, faster, and simpler than creating their own development team.
Here’s the indicative plan of an auction website development in hours with the average cost of hourly work — $50 per hour:
In the case of custom development, there are no specific numbers, it’s necessary to look at what you want to add and who will do it.
The core content of a marketplace is photos of products and text with their description, which your users will make. Your task is to create convenient and comprehensible tools to publish and edit advertisements and also to write instructions for any cases and questions.
Besides, you can start a blog and profiles on social networks to share useful knowledge and skills with the users. You can do this by yourself to save money. But it’s better for: