Progressive Web App or PWA uses a mobile web browser’s capabilities to offer a native app-like experience to users. These applications are helping small e-commerce stores to save a fortune. The approach enables small companies to access ultimate tools for keeping the audiences engaged without spending thousands of dollars on developing native apps. These days, several small businesses and startups that do not have iOS or Android apps are opting for PWAs for changing the way they interact with customers.
PWAs can leverage the capabilities of HTTPS in the browser. Thanks to browser plugins and APIs, the web application can even send push notifications and allow users to work in offline mode as well. The software almost manages to convert mobile web browser into a native app. Users can create a bookmark for the web app on the home screen.
Restrictions And Limitations Faced By Native Apps
Native applications are written in languages like Objective-C, Java, C#, and work in combination with native APIs.
These are operating system specific applications and distributed via particular app stores. Companies need to pay 15 to 30 percent out of their overall revenue made from the app to these stores. Giants like Apple also charge additional fees to firms for the e-commerce app submission. Application submission and updating process remains tedious. The rejection rate is also too high. Plus, Google and Apple always reserve the right to remove the application from their app stores without giving a proper explanation.
Businesses, as well as developers, can save a fortune and launch their apps in the market faster by using the alternative to the app store route. PWAs prove to be the perfect solutions as they do not need to go through any app store for distribution and can use a web browser to reach the users.
PWA works like a web page with links that can be shared to redirect the customers directly to the desired page.
Payments API can be integrated with the platform to offer multiple payment options to buyers when they make purchases using their mobile devices. The customer does not need to waste time in extra steps involved in downloading an app.
Can Get The Best Out Of Phone’s Hardware
PWAs can get the best out of the phone’s hardware like native apps. Progressive Web App can use geo-location, data storage, biometric authentication, motion sensors, USB jack, and integrate with the device to offer native-like push notifications as well.
Put simply; the simple website can do everything that a native app has to offer. The option is cost-effective and can be deployed quickly.
Customers Dislike Bulky Native Apps
People in several countries still rely on smartphones with less disk space.
Consumers are often lured into downloading apps by offering massive discounts. However, most of the users uninstall the same after using them twice or thrice due to the enormous amount of space that they consume.
Users who prefer storing photos, videos, and podcasts on their device don’t appreciate unnecessary apps that need even 100 MB space on the device.
On the other side, Progressive Web Applications are small and hardly require more than 100 KB, excluding the video content and images.
Developers use responsive images with PWAs to ensure the device downloads the best suitable image version for its screen, right from thumbnails to a 2000 pixel wide image.
Most of the Progressive Web Applications require between 5 to 20 percent of the disk space utilized by native apps. Thus, several startups in developing countries prefer opting for PWA instead of native options from day one. Plus, customers also appreciate the app-like experience without negotiating the device disk space and performance.
Perfectly Suitable To Work With Lower Data Speeds
Mobile data is expensive, and speeds are lower in developing countries around the world. The availability of wired broadband and Wi-Fi networks is also lesser in such nations.
Traditional apps end up using a lot of bandwidth, resulting in faster consumption of data allowance. On the other hand, PWAs are smaller and have caching abilities, as well. Such web-based solutions use a fraction of the data compared to their native app counterparts.
Making a purchase using PWA can result in roughly 500 kb data consumption; on the other hand, with a native app, the same transaction would require 10 MB of data. The difference is huge for users in countries where telecom companies do not offer unlimited data packs at an affordable price.
Native apps that run in the background and consume data can also drastically reduce the device’s speed. Smartphones can perform better while the user makes a purchase using PWA as the web-based solution hardly needs device storage.
Better Searchability And Accessibility
Besides low storage and data consumption, the PWA approach can also offer better visibility for the application. Progressive Web App developers and marketers can utilize search engine optimization and other techniques to ensure the PWA store gets the necessary level of search engine visibility.
Well-designed PWAs can load within two seconds or less. The faster loading feature automatically helps the portal to get better search engine rankings. It plays a critical role in the overall SEO strategy. There are several firms with native apps that have included PWAs in their online marketing plans as it gets indexed quickly.
Studies have proved that PWA can offer a more than 60 percent increase in traffic coming from mobile devices. It can also result in a 52 percent increase in the e-commerce store’s conversion rate along with a considerable reduction in the bounce rate in comparison with usual mobile websites. An increase in page views and higher engagement rates are other benefits. If you are searching for a smartphone application development company or a Magento mobile app development company to get your e-commerce portal on track, you should contact Smart Sight Innovations. The application development firm’s engineers have considerable experience in developing PWAs for small and large e-commerce players from around the globe.
