Why are online merchants Considering Building a Progressive Web App?

Introduction

Having an online business means more than just maintaining your inventory. You would have to stay abreast with ever-growing changes in technology and leverage new opportunities in the market. One such amazing technology is Progressive Web Application.

Progressive web applications were introduced in the year 2015. They have many advantages over the mobile applications we are so much used to. They provide an engaging user experience and do not require a user to download it over a device. Many leading applications use progressives web app; this includes Twitter, Trivago, Alibaba, Walmart, and other companies.

It is notable how in a very short time, big companies have embraced the technology. Progressive web applications are the future of web and mobile applications. Many case studies are available of the brands that have increased their conversion rates and revenue by two times. So, is this the reason why online merchants are considering building a progressive web application?

Looking at big brands adapting to the progressive web applications, soon the small and mid-sized businesses started showing interest in the technology. Today, online merchants use the technology to provide a native-like experience to their users easily without having users download the application.

What are progressive web applications?

Progressive web development is a type of advanced web application that has all the features and characteristics of a native application. One of the biggest challenges faced by any mobile app development company is to render a superior user experience, which is difficult to achieve on web applications. Web applications are more of a tool that allows people to access the application or features of an over a web browser without having to download the app.

But, this all adds to the hustles of the user. Thus, reduced user experience and challenges in retaining the customers. Progressive web development helps you mitigate this challenge well. The technology brings more consistency to the user experience by eliminating the need to download the app and also the hurdles of a web application.

It helps you find the balance between the two and helps you to cherry-pick only the benefits. It allows you to create an engaging user experience and behaves in the same way as the native app. It doesn’t take time to get downloaded on the device and offers features such as push notifications, offline functioning, etc.

Benefits of Progressive Web app development

Being an online merchant, you are required to weigh the advantages and disadvantages well to support your decision. It helps in ensuring the success of your idea and achieve a higher return on investment. Here is a list of benefits that might interest you.

1. Reliability

Progressive web applications are highly efficient, and they load fast even when the network is slow. Since they work like native applications, they even work offline and ensure an instant and reliable connection to your app. This helps a PWA development company improve user experience to a great measure. Also, the bad experience caused due to a slow or non-existent internet connection doesn’t hinder user experience.

2. Faster apps

Slow web applications can increase your bounce rate and thus makes it difficult for you to earn revenue from your product. But PWAs load very fast and respond quickly to the user actions. Improved website performance helps you in improving your conversion rate, retention rate, and user experience.

3. User Engagement

Native applications were thought to be superior to other applications as they give a lot of scope to the developers to use their creativity. But they are costly and require users to download them, meaning taking up the memory of the device. But Progressive Web Applications will soon take over hybrid app development services and render a similar experience at lowered costs and without any hassle.

Why are online merchants so inclined towards progress web applications?

There is no one reason. There are many thingsthat have attracted online merchants to progressive web applications. Mobile applications have taken over the market, but not everything is perfect. Not every time a mobile application is able to deliver the needs of an enterprise. The shopping experience conversion rates are fairly low on mobile applications as per the traffic they generate.

This might be a big reason why ecommerce stores are moving on to progressive web applications. Progressive web applications cost way less than the development of android and iOS native applications and also boost the revenue by 20%. With the conversion rate doubled, you can meet your business goals much faster.

These applications are more than just the regular webshops; they are more than just showing your inventory and delivering them to the people. It is about going onestep ahead and out of the way to convey convenience.

1. Better tech adaption and convenience

One of the biggest issues faced by business owners is to get their applications downloaded. Usually, online shops don’t get traffic all day long from people, they just come when they are looking for something, and if they like the deal, they will purchase. Thus, low download rates.

Progressive web applications are not needed to be downloaded. They can simply save the page on their homescreen and access all the features and functionality from there itself. It doesn’t take much space on the device and in no way provides a bad userexperience.

Progressive web applications make things as simple as visiting a web link and saving it on the homescreen. From a user perspective, it is a big leap into the future.

So is progressive web application a “browser shortcut”?

It is not a web browser shortcut; it is a full-fledged application that sits on your homescreen. It works in the same way as the application that you download from an Appstore. Additionally, after the PWA is installed on your homescreen, you don’t require to keep on updating it everytime. It gets updated automatically in the background assuring your customers see updated content each time they come on your app.

Brands like Flipkart saw a 60% increase in their customers; they were able to retain the customers that initially rejected their mobile applications. PWA gets quickly installed and proves highly beneficial in making a difference in user engagement and success.

2. Boosting User Engagement with push notifications

Push notifications allow you to inform your user about many things such as deliveries, customer support messages, new arrivals, and more. Push notifications allow you to creatively convey the messages. Progressive Web Applications have the capabilities to send push notifications to mobile devices in an intuitive way to engage your users in a creative way.

Push notifications help in making a big impact on your customer journey. They help you grab attention, and as compared to traditional marketing methods, such as emails, they are relatively more successful in engaging them. The biggest advantage of push notifications is that it allows you to customize the notifications and stand out from your competition.

Push notifications also help in case a user is not registering for your application. It doesn’t require any email address or contact information. Since 96% of internet users surf the web anonymously, push notifications become a great tool to boost your interaction with the brand.

Also, people don’t mind allowing push notifications. It is much better than signups for email newsletters and requires less time than filling out the signup form. In a report by Google, it was found that more than 60% of people allow notifications from PWAs for the promotion ofproducts and services.

3. Reduced development cost, innovation, and continuous delivery

When cross-platform app development came into the market, they took the load off the shoulders of business owners. It allowed people to develop applications for different platforms without increasing the development cost.

The point is the time has changed, and you cannot just go with a single platform. You have to make your approach omnichannel and have a bulletproof strategy for multi-platforms. You have to maintain all the different platforms – the website, iOS, and Android application, and other native applications you would be building.

A progressive web application is a step up in the league of mobile and web applications. It doesn’t require you to develop applications for different platforms or maintain different apps and release updates. It eliminates the extra work, and you can focus and concentrate on your business and a single product. You would not want to miss the opportunity to serve your users on a single platform, built perfectly and maintained easily. It reduces cost and turnaround time drastically.

4. Excellent instant performance

People are becoming more and more impatient. Internet users are only waiting 8 seconds for a website to open. This is difficult to achieve as ecommerce websites are big, complicated and they might become slow if not developed properly. The massive rise in mobile usage has made it important for online merchants to have a mobile-first approach. Page speed depends on many factors.

Progressive web applications are built to deliver a smoother experience. They are fast and allows you to capitalize on various opportunities. And with an instant speedy experience, you can start engaging the user right from the start. They don’t use any disk space and the business server and the user device. It provides many benefits such as less data usage, faster loading time.

5. PWAs can improve your SEO

Progressive web applications are web-based, and thus, SEO becomes much easier for them. The content placed on the progressive web applications can be optimized to meet the SEO guidelines. It helps in ranking on Google and Bing.

This feature makes it stand out from the native application. PWAs are easily crawlable by search engine robots and helps you eliminate the challenges of web and native applications. Users can just search for something online, and your progressive web application would appear that can be downloaded to any device, irrespective of the OS. It is sophisticated, fast, and reducing your bounce rate. These all factors help you in improving your SEO ranking and boost your chances of lead generation.

Progressive web applications are built using JavaScript, which makes it easy for google to crawl JavaScript or AJAX site. It helps you get discovered easily and get accurately indexed. If you hire an experienced PWA development company, they will help you in optimizing the site to ensure the page gets indexed appropriately. They would know how to use server-side rendering and provide PWAs the right architecture to rank better.

Read the blog- How Are Big Brands Making Use Of PWA To Improve Their Business

6. Increased conversion rates

In the end, business is all about selling your products and services to people and retaining them with good services. If you make it too difficult for people to approach you, browse your products and services, you are creating problems for yourself. The way should be as easy as possible. It is necessary to take off all the friction and frustration. Make your customer journey smooth from the start itself and achieve your goals easily.

Progressive web applications provide you many opportunities to improve your customer experience. As said, it is a step up, it is innovative, and there are new developments happening in the industry continuously.

Take Alibaba, for example; it tapped 76% more conversion across browsers, and 14% more active users on iOS, and 30% on Android. This is a 400% higher interaction rate achieved from progressive web applications.

Similarly, Lancome achieved 17% more conversion, and 53% increase in mobile session on iOS, and an 8% increase in conversion rate through the push notifications feature on Progressive web applications.

Progress web applications are fast and modular. They instantly load in the background onto their homescreen with all the features of a native application. This helps in retaining the users and keeping them engaged with new features, push notifications, etc.

Progressive Web Applications: Key Takeaways

Progressive web applications are the new thing in the market that are going to transform the web. It is perfect for modern browsers. They have all attributes that can help you transform your business journey. Here are few things you need to plan when going for progressive web app development.

1. Progressive web development work on every browser, so it gives more freedom to the users. They work for every user regardless of the device they choose to browse.
2. Responsiveness is one of the key benefits, as different devices can be used to access the application; it has to responsive for any device of any screen size and other attributes.
3. Progressive web applications are non-dependent on internet connectivity. They work even when the connection is slow and there is no network available like native applications.
4. Progressive web applications eliminate the need to develop native applications for different platforms.
5. They are speedy and provides a seamless experience to their users, and the native characteristics of progressive web applications improve your chances of user retention.
6. Progressive web applications do not require any updating, they get updated automatically, and the user gets to see the fresh application.
7. They use an HTTPS server.
8. Progressive web applications are SEO-friendly; they are easy to index and thus boost your lead generation.
9. Progressive web applications give you an opportunity to engage your visitors and offer creative features such as push notifications to keep them engaged.
10. They are very easy to install; users just have to tick off a notification. And the hassles of going through an app store and signing up are completely eliminated.
11. Progressive web applications are well-structured, and people can easily share the URL of the site, and you can start earning some organic leads.

These all attributes contribute to an amazing user experience. They are safe, engaging, give you an amazing opportunity to promote your application. They are easy to share and technically everything you need to be successful in the market.

Here is something technical that you must know about progressive applications that will make the decision better.

1. HTTPS

A progressive web application is very safe and secure. It transmits the data over HTTPS and ensures safe browsing for the users.

2. Web App Manifest

Progressive web applications use a web app manifest, a JSON file that contains all the metadata that the device needs to know about the page to be able to get installed on the homescreen. The file contains information such as icons, colors, fonds, landing page URLs, and more.

3. Service Workers

Service Worker is the most important part of a progressive web application. They are technical “JavaScript Proxies” unlocking the capabilities such as offline mode, instant speed, and push notifications features. It allows the application to run offline. It has made the impossible possible, and now the web browsers allow a native-like app experience.

Service Worker is a technology by Google that allows you to control network requests programmatically, which allows you to build offline experiences and deliver lightning-fast speed. It can run in the background and display push notifications even when the browser is not being used.

Is progressive web application the right solution for you?

Progressive web applications are one of the best technologies around right now. They are modular, they don’t require much budget to get built, and the technology adaption is incredible. More and more people are using PWAs as they don’t want an application sitting on their mobile phones and taking up a lot of space.

Also, since the user experience is ten folds better, progressive web applications increase your profitability by increasing engagement, reduced bounce rate, boosting sales, etc. They tick right for everything you need for faster checkout.

Considering a progressive web application for an ecommerce site will double your conversion rate. Flipkart, Alibaba are two case studies you can use to decide. Progressive web applications are a new technology, and you might have to hunt for an expert web app development company to get the desired results, but when don’t right, they are a profitable business.

1. Building Progressive Web Application

Early adaptors will surely get benefitted more from the technology. You can consider turning your site into a progressive web application, and the process would not be any different than a simple web application or native mobile application. In fact, it would be much faster and cheaper as it takes less time to build them. It will help you get ahead of your competition and capture the market faster.

Progressive web applications allow simple implementation and provide you amazing benefits with minimum time to the market. If you start by giving your audience the opportunity to install the progressive web application, the only thing that gets installed on their phone is the web app manifest. This busts the myth around progressive web applications being expensive and resource-intensive.

2. Implementation

Progressive web applications have a simple implementation, which offers a great opportunity for people to integrate with BigCommerce. It offers flexible APIs and Webhooks and uses technology such as DEITY Falcon to turn a simple storefront into a progressive web application.

Bigcommerce combined with DEITY Falcon benefits you in many ways. Bigcommerce is a top technology for webstore development. It gives you a core back-end engine, combined with DEITY Falcon, offers a scalable, robust web experience to people helping you engage them and convert them.

So how do you get started?

Mobile phones penetrated every part of our lives, and they are not going anywhere. But it is surely time to move on from mobile applications, considering they are not as successful in retaining customers as they used to be. As people start increasingly use mobile applications, they see many flaws in that.

Progressive web applications can fundamentally change the web world. It has worked amazingly well for many brands and contributed to their success. They are fast, engaging, robust, and have a high conversion rate. They also don’t need an active internet connection like web applications.

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As a business owner, you would not want to miss out on all the amazing benefits it gives you, especially when you are facing huge competition and finding it difficult to get people to download an application.

Minimum requirements, small investment, and record-breaking speed, there is nothing you are going to not enjoy about progressive web applications. We recommend you go for a knowledgeable web development company that can offer you expert development services for doing it the right way.