A True Look at eCommerce Website Prices South Africa (2023)

Considering the super-fast expansion of this commercial landscape, it’s no surprise that more and more eCommerce sites keep popping up. But how much does an eCommerce website cost?

If you plan on opening your own online store, chances are you’ve already weighed the pros and cons. With no monthly building rental, very few sales staff expenses, and a generally cheaper approach to business operations, it almost seems too good to be true. So when deciding which eCommerce platform to use, it’s crucial to know the ins and outs, especially when it comes to costs.

Now, it’s time to find out what you should expect from your eCommerce website pricing with Netcash Shop.

Costs of an eCommerce Website in South Africa and What You Should Know

One of two things is true right now. You already have an established business but want to expand and reach a global audience online. Alternatively, you are an up-and-coming startup looking to get your foot in the door with a virtual presence. 

Regardless of where you find yourself, there are a few things you need to know. And with terms like ‘payment gateways’ and ‘transaction fees’ flying around, it’s easy to settle with the first and biggest name you can find to ease your online transition.

Now add ‘price plans’ and ‘eCommerce web design pricing’ to the picture, and you can quickly feel overwhelmed. Before getting into the nitty-gritty and why opting for an easy solution like Netcash Shop might be the best for you, let’s strip bare some important info.

General eCommerce Website Price

While the idea of setting up an online store seems simple enough, the actuality is a bit more complicated. First things first, what are the general costs you’re looking at? This all comes down to the eCommerce platform you choose to use.

Luckily, there are quite a few for you to choose from, with names like Shopify, Squarespace, Square, and Netcash quickly coming to mind. Yes, each one gets the job done. However, there are unique features to all of them that impact what you’ll be paying.

Not to get too technical, these features significantly affect affordability, capability, and user-friendliness. Ideally, you need a one-stop shop to help manage your overall costs, including those pesky hidden costs that often come to light a little too late.

What Are Payment Gateways?

Okay, so let’s get a bit technical. The payment gateway you’ll be using is an essential factor when putting together your eCommerce website prices. A payment gateway is the middleman software that captures and processes purchase information between the buyer and seller.

Simply put, having a trusted payment gateway is one of the most crucial parts of operating a successful eCommerce store. It’s important to note that while they form a big part of your online store, they act as a third-party service provider.

This means that choosing the best eCommerce platform in South Africa, with integrated payment gateway support is the more affordable option for you. While certain platforms have limited gateway options that require external plugins or extensions to be installed when setting up your online shop, Netcash Shop includes the highly efficient  Netcash eCommerce payment gateway by default.

eCommerce Website Builders in South Africa

Next up is the actual shop your buyers will be using. Some might consider this aspect of eCommerce to have the potential for hidden costs. This is because there is a clear and distinct difference between an eCommerce platform and eCommerce hosting.

While the platform you choose is responsible for the eCommerce site’s building and design, including its appearance and functionality, all of this needs hosting. What often happens is that a third-party hosting service handles this eCommerce hosting at an additional cost.

eCommerce Website Prices with Netcash Shop

After discussing some of the costs involved in setting up an eCommerce site, it’s worth considering how Netcash Shop stands out from other global giants like Shopify. Despite the competition, Netcash Shop offers several unique and attractive features that set it apart and make it a compelling choice for businesses.

Setting Up Your Online Store with Netcash

So, why should you choose Netcash Shop when adding an eCommerce element to your existing business or creating a fresh entry into the market? First and foremost, it’s all about costs.

While alternative options like Shopify focus on delivering an all-inclusive service, they don’t focus on the South African market. Other major names like WooCommerce, while easy to integrate (using the free or paid version), commonly cause slow site speed, which isn’t ideal.

When creating an eCommerce website with Netcash Shop, the fact that you’ll only need to pay one monthly fee plays a significant role. You can choose which price plan you sign up for when partnering with Netcash Shop.

• Free – The most basic pricing package, with the only additional cost being the Netcash eCommerce Payment Gateway at R54 (excluding VAT) per month.

• Venture – This is best for emerging and small businesses and includes the essential sales features and the Netcash eCommerce Payment Gateway at R315 (including VAT) per month.

• Business – Choose this tier if you have a growing company that needs more powerful online tools. You’ll pay R659 (including VAT) monthly, including the Netcash eCommerce Payment Gateway.

• Unlimited – The best option for your business if you have an extensive and established product range. You can access all the advanced Netcash Shop features and the Netcash eCommerce Payment Gateway for R1599 (including VAT) per month.

Netcash Features

The fantastic thing about using Netcash Shop is that within this monthly fee, your website builder, which includes an Instant Site, free SSL certificate, and integrated security, and secure backups, comes stock standard. In essence, your monthly cost covers the security of your store and purchases made by customers.

Now for domain hosting, unless you already have an existing one (which you can easily connect to your Netcash Shop) you’ll get a free hosted domain on the shop.netcash domain. All this means is that your shop will be a sub-domain, for example, youronlinestore.shop.netcash.co.za.

But let’s say you already have a website with another platform. With Netcash Shop, it’s easy to add the online shop (eCommerce) functionality. 

This can be done to websites such as WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace, to name a few. Why is this important? Well, this gives you a clearer idea of how much you’ll pay per month without playing a guessing game. 

The cherry on top is that signing up for Netcash Shop is easy to do no matter where you are, what device you’re using, or if you’re pressed for time.

Netcash Shop Payment Gateway & Payments

As mentioned a few times already, calculating the running costs of an eCommerce website depends on your payment gateway. With the Netcash eCommerce payment gateway included in your price plan, here’s what you need to know about it.

While other platforms allow you to incorporate a number of different gateways to allow customers to choose from various payment methods, Netcash brings all of that together. With the eCommerce payment gateway, your customers can pay via

• Debit and credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Diners Club)
• Scan to Pay (all banking apps with Masterpass functionality)
• Bank EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer)
• Ozow Instant EFT
• Visa Click to Pay
• Retail Payments 

Note that you don’t have to pay any additional costs to allow a customer to pay using any of the above methods. These come standard regardless of the package and price plan you choose from Netcash Shop. The good news? When Netcash adds more payment methods to its gateway, they become immediately available to you at no extra cost.

But what about your payments? Well, when you sign up for Netcash Shop, you get instant access to a safe and secure Netcash Account. You can view all your customer transactions (including fees and payments) from here. All deductions from your account, including your monthly Netcash Shop fee, payment gateway fees, and transaction fees, will be shown as well.

Aside from those handy tools, you can download statements, withdraw funds, and do customer invoice reconciliation all in one place. 

Netcash Shop Transaction Fees

Let’s kick things off with transaction fees. Competitors like Shopify (depending on your price plan) typically charge between 0.5 and 2% above and beyond the transaction fee per order. This is an additional cost to the one required by the local payment gateway, for example, Payfast, Peach, or other local providers. Although a 0.5–2% transaction fee doesn’t seem like much, it’s essential to consider that you’ll be paying in USD.

So if you’re using Shopify (for example), your eCommerce website costs are heavily  impacted by the prescribed varying transaction fees. Add to those extras, such as shipping and cart transaction fees, and you could be paying more than 5% of the value of an order — just in fees alone. For you, this means a lower profit margin; for your customers, it means higher prices.

Just to give you a better idea of what you can expect from an alternative such as Shopify paired with a local gateway, have a look at these comparison tables:

On the Regular Shopify Plan, this is how it would play out with regards to transaction fees:

While with the Shopify Advanced Plan this is what you will be paying in transaction fees:

However, with Netcash Shop and the available pay-now methods through the eCommerce payment gateway, there’s no guessing about transaction fees. Beyond the monthly fee of R52 ex VAT incorporated into your price plan, these are the transaction fees for purchases through Netcash Shop:

• Credit Card – 2.95% of purchase cost + R1.50
• Scan to Pay – 2.95% of purchase cost
• Bank EFT – R3.50 per purchase
• Ozow Instant EFT – 1.6% (minimum of R1.50 purchase cost)
• Visa Click to Pay – 2.95% of purchase cost + R1.50
• Retail Payments – 3.9% (minimum of R8.00 purchase cost) 

To give you an idea of what your transaction fees could look like using Netcash Shop when a purchase is made using a credit card:

Comparing transaction fees alone, we can see that the additional fees charged by Shopify for example, make a considerable difference to an eCommerce website’s cost per order.

Note that all pricing above is correct at time of publication and will be updated periodically as information changes. For the latest pricing, please get in touch with Netcash Shop.

What About Hidden Costs?

By now, the upfront costs of running your eCommerce website should be a bit more clear when using Netcash Shop. But just like every other online platform or business platform in general, what are the potential hidden costs, and how do you spot them?

Think of your virtual shop as a physical one, and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? 

In South Africa, the most evident answer is security. So while certain platforms offer some safety measures, you can easily find yourself having to pay hefty additional fees for the appropriate protection.

With Netcash Shop, you receive an SSL certificate (a fancy term for safe digital communications), secure and real-time backups, and on-call technical and sales support.

Beyond safety, domain registration is another potential hidden cost you should know about when choosing your eCommerce platform. Choosing one that allows for the use of a sub-domain or, better yet, one that will enable you to integrate a shop into your existing domain is super important. This saves you money as you don’t have to look elsewhere for domain hosting.

Final Thoughts on Running Your eCommerce Site with Netcash Shop

At the end of the day, knowing the above, which Netcash Shop plan is the best for your business? Having gone into the upfront and some potential hidden costs of eCommerce websites in South Africa, there seem to be a few key factors to remember.

While fantastic at what they do, options like Shopify do not cater to the South African market, and you’re looking at quite the currency conversion conundrum for pricing and fees. You’re also opening the door to payment gateway fees and a host of other costs that might topple your profits.

Choosing Netcash Shop, on the other hand, means you’re keeping things local and in local currency. With the Forever Free plan, you get the most basic eCommerce services and are on the right path for a small business. Moving on to Venture and Business, you aim for a more significant online storefront that can handle more traffic. Finally, with Unlimited, you want every possible feature to match a large-scale online retailer.

Not to mention the peace of mind knowing you won’t be paying extras so often associated with eCommerce platforms. So contact Netcash Shop and get the best in the local business to handle your local business.