A few years ago, it was believed that if you are not online you don’t exist. Now, almost every business is online, and yet this is not enough. Nowadays, the major focus of brands is to increase conversion rate and sales. They are adopting and implementing new technologies and techniques that lead to better conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Progressive Web Application (PWA) is one of them which is integrated into the website, especially by e-commerce players.
The increasing use of Smartphones and Google’s algorithm (mobile-first indexing) increases the importance of mobile apps and mobile sites. Mobile apps and sites are remarkably important for businesses but PWA exceeds the consumer’s expectations in terms of ease of use, reliability, and speed. It gives users a similar experience to mobile apps but with lightning speed, better accessibility, and frictionless user experience. Plus, it is designed to provide a similar experience to native apps but it can work offline and it is cross-browser compatible.
Here is a quick comparison of PWA with native mobile apps:
Major Reasons to Apply PWA in Magento 2
Brands can enjoy many economic and efficient features and functionality of the Progressive Web App. Some of the major benefits that must be considered are:
Optimizes user experiences
PWA combines the best features and eliminates the constraints of both mobile websites and native apps to provide a magnificent experience for the end-users.
Offline supports
Consumers need not download any apps on their mobile, they can start immediately after adding the app to the home screen. They can even enjoy a seamless experience with no or bad internet connection.
SEO friendly
PWA supports browsers and it supports technical SEO aspects for site optimization and discoverability in search engines. Major search engines such as Google have mechanisms that crawl the JavaScript of the site including Progressive Web App sites.
Site security
PWA can be secured with HTTPS that will help you in two ways-
- It improves the trust factor of your site
- It helps in SEO ranking by maintaining a crawlable sitemap
Relatively easier and less expensive than native apps
Brands need to develop two separate apps for iOS and Android users which is not the case with Progressive Web App. A single base code will be used for both platforms and save money, time, and effort on app development and maintenance. Additionally, Developers and the merchant community can take advantage of Magento PWA Studio to accomplish their job (coding, deploying, and maintenance) more efficiently.
Hold a significant place in the eCommerce landscape
PWA in Magento is making a buzz around. Flipkart increases its conversion rate by 70% with its progressive web applications and many more giant players in the industry are making billions with this technology.
A Few Popular Ways to Build Magento PWA Magento 2 PWA Extension
There are various PWA extensions available that can be installed to add progressive Web App features to a Magento website. Though it is an easy and cost-effective way to turn a site into Progressive Web App, most of the extensions do not deliver full features. Some modules provide basic PWA features such as “add to home screen” and send push notifications but ignore some essential features such as fast page load, offline mode, etc. Be careful with extension installation, first try the demo and then come up with any decision.
Magento 2 PWA Studio
Magento 2.3 and above offers the Magento PWA Studio project, a set of developer tools to develop, deploy, and maintenance of PWA storefront.
It is a comprehensive solution in comparison to the PWA extension to build a PWA from scratch. Your Magento storefront will be replaced with a PWA storefront that will be connected to your backend via API.
Magento 2 PWA Theme
Magento 2 PWA Theme is an advanced process to convert your Magento storefront based on PWA studio, ReactJS, and GraphQL. It allows you to connect a PWA storefront using built-in API to the Magento backend.
This is the most efficient solution to integrate Progressive Web App with all essential features such as fast loading speed, ease to add on the home screen, easy update, offline mode, low data consumption, and more. It offers ease and scalability to the developer as well, as its storefront demo is much better than the default version of Venia Storefront.
The cons stay with the third-party extension compatibility that needs to be checked for new storefront and storefront design has to be customized as per your requirements.
Get Ready for the Future
Experts are seeing great potential in Progressive Web App in the future and it Is believed that it may replace native apps down the road because of its extensive benefits for developers, marketers, and end-users. Cost-effective, easy to develop, secured, SEO enabled, and you have so many reasons to integrate PWA into your Magento websites. You can either choose it as an alternative or supplement to your native apps or conventional site. Moreover, you can consider all PWAs, conventional site, and native apps to connect with a greater number of potential users and improve the conversion rate.
If you have any queries or need expert help for PWAs development, deployment, and maintenance, contact NextRow at marketing@nextrow.com.
