Should Every E-commerce Business Build A Progressive Web App (PWA)?

In the age of technology, Progressive Web App (PWA) has become an issue that every e-commerce business should concern. Many people believe that the Progressive Web App is filling the gap between the website and the native app. It not only delivers a faster shopping experience but also taps into a lot of native capabilities (e.g.: shortcut on the mobile home screen, push notifications, offline mode…).

The thing is, who should use the Progressive Web App? Is it suitable for all online stores?

1. What is Progressive Web App?

Progressive Web App is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies. To simplify, PWA is an app-like website.

Unlike the native apps, PWA can work cross-platform (on both iOS and Android devices and all web browsers). Moreover, it’s unnecessary to submit PWAs to the app stores since it can be shared, found on the search engines and has a strong online presence.

2. Which Businesses Have Applied PWA?

There are a number of big companies (in different business sectors) in the world that are using PWA for their e-businesses.

Below are three standing-out examples of Progressive Web App:

Lancôme (Cosmetics)

One of the very first famous brands that integrate PWA into their website is Lancôme. This France cosmetic brand seems to know how to seize the opportunity. Becoming the pioneer in using PWA, Lancôme gained huge benefits since every single PWA article mentioned its name.

Alibaba (Marketplace)

The second company using new technology is Alibaba, one of the e-commerce giants worldwide. They proved that Progressive Web App was immensely powerful with the ability to increase user satisfaction, conversion rate, dwell time on site, the volume of web traffic, and site rankings…

Starbucks (Food & Beverages)

With the challenge of building a user- and mobile-friendly platform for online users, Starbucks — one of the most well-known coffee brands has joined the game of Progressive Web App. Up to now, Starbucks’s impressive monthly traffic (18 million) results from its fast, reliable, and engaging PWA.

As you can see, e-businesses from various industries can build PWAs to enhance their user mobile experience and associated benefits. Indeed, there are plenty of firms that have already joined in this run of modern technology not only the three examples above.

3. You SHOULD Develop A PWA, If…

You want to enjoy All of the following amazing features of the Progressive Web App:

• The most noticeable improvement of PWA is the loading speed. According to some studies, PWA can be three times faster than its original website.
• The storefront design of PWA is fully responsive, allowing a nice display on any user device, from the desktop, tablet, to smartphone.

• PWA brings app-like experiences to the users with quick access on the mobile home screen, push notifications, Ajax load, and fullscreen presentation.
• Moreover, offline mode is also added to the PWA. As soon as the content had been already online loaded, it can be approached without a wifi connection.
• In addition, PWA requires no installation. When accessing a PWA, there’s always a popup for users to add it to the home screen.
• Furthermore, PWA is born to be SEO-friendly. PWA is linkable and shareable since it is still a web-based application.

… And you have a good budget:

Although PWA development requires a lower cost than that of the native app, it’s still more expensive than developing a pure website. In general, it will take at least $5,000 to convert a site to a Progressive Web App.

4. PWA Would Be NOT For Your Business, If…

You are an e-commerce startup with a limited budget.

As mentioned before, the store owners must have enough financial capability to build PWAs. Therefore, if you are a small firm or startup owner, starting with a simple e-commerce website might be a better choice. When your site reaches a certain number of users and you want to expand your business, PWA integration would be right.

Or, most of your customers prefer browsing online on desktops instead of mobile devices.

Although the majority of customers today have the habit of shopping online on their smartphones, there is still a number of users who don’t. The reason might be that they are looking for products with a lot of information and details, which are better to view on desktops. Or, with the items with high costs, the customers also favor browsing on large-screen devices.

In these cases, PWA is still valuable (since it boosts page speed on both desktop and mobile), but less important.

Or, your current website platform does not support PWA.

Now, there are only a few e-commerce platforms supporting Progressive Web App development such as Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, Prestashop, BigCommerce. Among these, only Magento offers us various solutions to build PWA such as Magento 2 PWA Studio, ready-made Magento PWA theme, and Magento PWA extension.

If you are using other platforms (e.g.: Wix, WP eCommerce, Drupal, Opencart, osCommerce, Virtuemart, oroCommerce, Saleor…), integrating PWA into websites would be more difficult.

Wrapping Up

To sum up, none of us can deny the fact that Progressive Web Apps are so powerful, even more than native apps. The thing is that you need to well prepare your budget before thinking of PWA development.

Otherwise, if you feel this investment like a financial burden, just go ahead with the website development first, and move to PWA when it’s appropriate.