E-commerce website development in India: cost, timeline & platform choices

Selling online in India is no longer optional — but the “build a store” decision hides a fork that decides your costs for years: which platform. Get it right and you scale cheaply; get it wrong and every change becomes a fight. Here's the honest breakdown.

The three real options

Shopify — fastest to launch, but monthly fees + transaction cuts, and you're renting; deep customisation is limited.
WooCommerce (WordPress) — flexible and self-owned, but you maintain plugins/security and it slows down as it grows.
Custom (Next.js) storefront — highest control and speed, cleanest checkout, you own everything; more to build up front.

What it costs in India

A clean, conversion-focused store — catalogue, cart, payments, order management — is a mid-range build for most brands. A custom platform with inventory, multi-warehouse, subscriptions or marketplace features scales from there. The trap is the “cheap” template store that you rebuild in a year; a fixed scope up front is cheaper than a redo.

Payments & logistics — the India layer

Payments: Razorpay/Cashfree for UPI, cards, netbanking, wallets; add EMI/pay-later (Snapmint) to lift order value.
Shipping: Shiprocket/Delhivery integration for rates, labels and tracking.
GST invoicing and COD handling built in, not bolted on.
WhatsApp order updates — Indian buyers expect them.

How long it takes

A focused storefront can start shipping in days and reach launch in a few weeks, depending on catalogue size and integrations. The timeline stretches only when scope is vague — which is why we write and freeze scope before building.

What to insist on

Source-code and data ownership in writing — never get locked to an agency.
Fast Core Web Vitals — slow stores lose sales and Google rank.
A real admin to manage products, orders and stock without a developer.
Fixed, one-time pricing with a support window after launch.

Our take

We build e-commerce sites as a one-time, fixed-price project on a fast, SEO-ready stack with Razorpay, Snapmint and Shiprocket wired in — and you own all of it, backed by a money-back guarantee. Tell us your product range and we'll recommend the platform honestly, even when that's not a custom build.