Truly Progressive Web Apps are The Future of E-commerce
If you want to win customers over across the globe, create sustaining brand image and boost your profits, you have to build omnichannel engagement strategies. Omni-channel experience is a multi-platform marketing, selling, branding and customer service approach that creates integrated and consistent customer experience, no matter which channel the customer reaches out.
Businesses with omni-experience strategies enjoy 9.5% average annual increase in revenue, years over years. With omnichannel experience, a customer can shop online from a desktop or smartphone, or by telephone, or in a showroom and receive similar kind of enhanced experience.
Thanks to the advancement of technologies, it has integratedinto our daily lives seamlessly. As we continue down the innovative pathways, we will come to see technology become a more crucial part of our lifestyle.
Soon the lines between what we do in real life and what we do on the internet will fade. So, today we will focus on PWA, one particular technology that has been catching our eyes and ears for quite sometime now.
Personalization is What Customers are Looking for…
As a brand or merchant, you need to be everywhere. With the world going digitally crazy retailers have to ensure that they offer personalized service to the customers throughout their engagement with the brand.
Our lives now totally revolve around our smartphones. And if statistics matter to you, listen to this: According to Statista report, by 2021 72% of retail e-commerce is expected to be generated from m-commerce, a major leap from 58% in 2017. This also means today people use their free times and travel times to browse through Amazon, Etsy and other online shopping websites and apps and shop.
And what’s more amazing is the truth that people shop on their mobile while they stand at the bill counter of a shop, paying bills. Now that is what technology does to us.
Mobile applications have become more user-friendly and offer a personalized customer experience that websites don’t. And this makes people choose mobile applications over websites for shopping. However, mobile applications are usually limited to particular device and operating system. This is why Progressive Web Apps are becoming the next big thing in enhancing web experience for customers.
What is Progressive Web App?
Progressive Web App (PWA) became known in 2015, when a Google Engineer, Alex Russell wrote an article where he proposed a new kind of web application that could work online and in the background as well.
Progressive Web Applications are basically websites that can give you the experience of (and also appears like) mobile applications or traditional applications.
Progressive Web Applications are supported by Google Chrome, Safari and Mozilla Firefox.
The best thing about PWA is that they don’t appear or behave like Chrome, which means no address bar, no history, no multiple tabs or anything that looks like a web browser. What is more? They are data-friendly and do not crash when Wi-Fi and data network signal fail or is down.
Itis really very hard to tell the difference between PWA and native mobile applications and that’s what makes it quite compelling.
Although there are a number of PWAs across the industries and considering the current popularity of it, only a few are well-known websites. Some of them are Twitter Lite, Trivago, Flipboard,and Forbes.
So, how can you tell if a site is PWA or not?
It is quite simple. If you are an android phone user, open your Chrome browser and type in any website (if you want to be sure, try one of the above). Open the website and wait for a few seconds. The android system will ask if you would like to “Pin Website to Home Screen”. If you get the pop-up, then that’s your PWA.
Today companies are just starting out to build their own PWA, but if the version 1.0 is so fabulous, imagine what it can do in the near future?
Why Would Customers Choose PWA over Native Mobile Applications?
It’s a good question, but here is the answer:
Though native mobile applications have many plus sides, such as personalization, better feel and look, high performance and consistency, their biggest drawback is they lack real-time updates, takes up huge storage space and has low search engine visibility, whereas PWA can reach customers three times faster than mobile applications.xperience and add an icon on the home screen.
“Twitter, one of world’s largest social media sites, decided to combine their web presence with native app to a PWA, Twitter Lite. This integration resulted in better usage and more number of user sign-ins and also 4X more time spent on the site.
Similarly, Flipkart, India’s number on e-commerce website after launching its PWA, Flipkart Lite, saw a 70% increase in conversions.”
Progressive Web Applications are mobile applications on the website. They work like a native application that includes app-style navigations and options. They run on web browsers, are self –contained, and more importantly,don’t take up your mobile storage space.
Classy Reasons Why Businesses Should Opt for Progressive Web Applications (Unique Benefits of PWA)
Progressive Web Application Experience is created by combining the best of native apps and best of web browsers.
They load quickly, unlike web browsers and do not require installations, unlike native mobile apps, and over time it becomes eveneasier as users progressively build a relationship with the apps.
They are Universally Accessible
Progressive Web Apps are very similar and straightforwardas using a web browser. No need of Wi-Fi connection for downloading heavy stuff, for that’s our first thought when we see an application with huge storage space requirement.
Gives Longevity to Apps
You won’t be using an app always, perhaps twice or thrice a week maximum? So, more or less apps stay uselessly lying on your mobile space. With Progressive Web Apps, once you have pinned the website to the home screen, it will not occupy mobile space as PWAs usually push and pull data from the web directly.
Extremely Cheap for Medium Sized Businesses
Imagine you are a local Italian restaurant or medium-scale enterprise of grocery chains – although for you native apps can be handy, maintaining them is not always cheap. You have to build and pay for separate apps for Android, Apple and Windows store. The cost of the developer, the cost of constant monitoring, bug fixes and recurrent upgrades can cost you a bomb. With PWA, you will be developing only one single app with simple requirements.
Other Major Advantages of Progressive Web Applications include:
– They are responsive, reliable and can fit into any device. They provide native app-styled user navigation and interactions.
– With the help of Service Workers, Progressive Web Applications can even work offline in the background as content are cached and local changes are synchronized to the local server.
– They provide latest and fresh updates, thanks to Service Workers.
– They are secured and encrypted, and so, no one can play with your application without proper authorization.
– Easy installation, all you need is to add a pin to home screen.
– Progressive Web Applications feature Push Notifications, which enhances user engagement, and it can be easily shared via URL.
Progressive Web Applications are here to stay forever, and they are only going to get better. They are not only the future of e-commerce but also the next big competitors for native apps. It is a collection of state-of-the-art technology, web apps, designs, and best content management that work together to provide users mobile application like experience, regardless of the platform, location, network,and user.
If you are one of those competitive brands, you really need to ace your game with PWAs. Try it and we ensure that you will never regret the investment cost.