The growing popularity of mobile devices made it essential for enterprises to develop apps separately for native mobile platforms. The process, however, is increasingly complex and requires a hefty financial investment. Since you are developing the same application to run across multiple platforms, it involves the use of multiple frameworks, tools, and SDKs. Thus, the development process becomes more expensive and time-consuming. Perhaps, a better alternative to native mobile apps is a progressive web app (PWA) that delivers native app-like experiences across a wide range of mobile devices.
Progressive web app development for eCommerce could be the best bet for small-scale retailers who cannot afford to overspend their money. That being said, there are several success stories around the use of PWAs for eCommerce as many businesses took advantage of this far-out technology. In this post, we shall explore the benefits that small-scale businesses can achieve through progressive web app development for eCommerce. Let us first begin with the basics.
Also, Read Hybrid Mobile App Development: Things You Need To Know
What Is a Progressive Web App?
A progressive web app (PWA), as the name suggests, is a web application built using HTML, CSS, or JavaScript-based technologies. The PWAs are accessible through mobile browsers and they use the latest web features to deliver native app-like experiences across all mobile devices. PWA development services bridge the gap between the web and native mobile platforms, fostering the use of a single app for all devices.
The main reason for using native apps over websites was the rich user experience that drove much higher user engagement. In simple terms, a PWA is simply a website that quickly adapts to different screens and acts like a native app across all mobile platforms. Therefore, with PWA at your disposal, you do not need to develop apps separately for multiple platforms. Instead, a single app (PWA) runs perfectly across all devices in the same way a native app works. Above all, it is faster, scalable, and more responsive than traditional websites and brings several unique advantages to enterprises. In the following section, we shall explore the main benefits of progressive web app development for eCommerce management.
Also, Read Testing The Waters For Progressive Web Apps In 2021-22
Benefits of Progressive Web App Development For eCommerce
Let us move ahead and delve into the main benefits of availing PWA app development services for small and medium-sized eCommerce businesses.
Lightweight and Responsive
As compared to native eCommerce apps, PWAs are increasingly lightweight and more responsive as they load faster even at low internet speeds. Furthermore, progressive web app development significantly improves the website performance and thus, increases the conversion rate.
Better Customer Engagement
Progressive web app development enables eCommerce companies to meaningfully engage their target customers and push them down the sales funnel. It offers one of the best marketing support, sending push notifications to customers about the latest deals and offers. The push notifications appear on the mobile homescreen to maximize user engagement and customer interactions for better conversion rates.
Offline Usage
Offline support is yet another crucial feature that only PWAs and hybrid apps could offer. Unlike native apps, the PWA remains functional even when the internet connection goes down. It automatically updates to give you real-time access to web content once you are back online.
Faster Checkouts
Progressive web apps offer a hassle-free checkout process that is relatively faster and more reliable than traditional eCommerce websites. We can also add features like one-tap checkout and save card details which is not possible in ordinary eCommerce websites.
SEO Friendly
It is quite evident that progressive web apps are more SEO-friendly than native apps. At its core, a PWA is a website with special features that render native app-like experiences. It means that PWAs are easily indexable by various search engines. Therefore, optimizing PWAs for search engines can significantly improve their SERP rankings.
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PWA Success Stories
There are several success stories associated with PWAs that outline the promising aspects of progressive web app development services. The first live example we have is AliExpress, the Chinese online retail store, owned by the Alibaba Group.
AliExpress
The eCommerce giant needs no introduction as they have an extensive market reach and huge customer base worldwide. However, they too experienced lower mobile conversion rates a couple of years back due to obvious reasons. The mobile version of their website was considerably heavy and required a high-speed internet connection. At the same time, they experienced a substantial decline in the user adoption rate of their native mobile apps. To overcome these challenges, they opted for PWA development services to build a cross-browser web application that works well for both web and mobile platforms.
PWA implementation served as the right solution for AliExpressed as it significantly improved their conversions and user adoption rate. For example, their conversion rate for new mobile users increased by 104 percent.
Flipkart
Flipkart is a leading online store in India that happens to be the second most popular eCommerce platform in the country after Amazon. The Indian eCommerce giant is one of the early adopters of PWAs as it opted for progressive web app development in 2016. A large number of Flipkart users accessed their website via 2G/3G networks on their mobile devices. As a result, the website load time was not fast enough to provide seamless access with such low-speed internet connections.
The company opted for progressive web app development in 2016 and introduced ‘Flipkart Lite’ to bring consistency across mobile user experiences. It helped them increase their user engagement rate by up to 40 percent while also improving the user adoption rate across mobile devices.
Why Choose Oodles ERP For Progressive Web App Development?
We, at Oodles ERP, provide end-to-end enterprise software solutions for web and mobile platforms to solve complex business problems. Our enterprise-grade web application development services render support for PWAs and hybrid apps that deliver native app-like experiences. We also specialize in progressive web app development for eCommerce to strengthen the web presence of our customers. Our progressive web app development services enable enterprises to enhance their user adoption rate and drive more conversions by maximizing customer engagement. To learn more about our progressive web app development services, drop us a line at [email protected].
