Progressive Web Development – What’s So Great about it that Big Brands are Embracing PWAs?

Do you know that 87% of the users spend their time on mobile apps as compared to websites? This shows how important it is to create a website presence. In these competitive times, having a website alone is not enough. You also need an app to survive, if the niche of your website demands that. 

Speaking of developing an app, two types of apps are most common. Native app and progressive web apps. Many businesses especially big brands are embracing PAWs and going for progressive web development these days. Wondering why? Read this blog to figure everything out. 

When to Use Progressive Web Apps?

Progressive web apps are a good choice when your primary focus is videos, text, and images. In case you are building an app for news, influencers, or an ecommerce store, PWA will best serve the purpose. PWAs have a history of helping businesses boost conversions, session lengths, and page visits. These apps don’t require a big budget either which is why lots of small businesses love them.

Here are some benefits of progressive apps:

• Improved performance
• Better user experience
• Fast load time
• Less use of data

Progressive web apps don’t deploy native-like apps to all stores at once, their objective is to reuse the existing code to offer a mobile experience.

How Are Brands Using PWAs to Connect With Users?

Using progressive web development to design a PWA brings ease, faster load times, and several other benefits to consumers. Lots of brands are using PWAs to get their consumers hooked. Here are some benefits brands are enjoying with PWAs:

Rising Customer Expectations

Fast speed and technology have reduced patience among customers. They now have little tolerance for brands with a poor digital experience. Consumers can easily switch to another brand if they are not happy with the experience. Starbucks and Pinterest launched their PWAs. Pinterest experienced a 60% increase in mobile interaction because of quick page loads. Starbucks designed its PWA for receiving web-based order management. Customers love this version over native app version of Starbucks. 

Native App Like Appeal

PWAs have an adaptive interface, which is consistent across all devices. The app loads like a standard website. You can also add advanced features like push notifications, operate offline, and more. The app has all the benefits of a website too such as search engine discoverability. That’s not all, PWAs can appear in the App Store and Google Play store too along with other native mobile apps. 

Single Code

PWAs require one code base only. A single version works on all devices and browsers. This implies you only need one team, one software platform, a single test approach, and a single roadmap to plan the digital product. Progressive apps don’t just reduce the cost of the product design, development, and maintenance, they also save money on adding new features and fixing bugs.

Adaptive

Technology is changing at a rapid speed. Brands need to implement forward-looking technologies for avoiding rapid cycles of reconstruction, redesigning, and reproduction. Progressive web apps are versatile and they continually change to meet the functionality improvements.

PWAs are very highly adaptive. Companies don’t have to invest in one-off websites and mobile apps that need redesigning for meeting the evolving demands and technologies of the modern world.

What Makes PWAs Faster?

React JavaScript framework is among the common frameworks used for progressive web development. This technology was formulated by Facebook and it has been highly prominent ever since it was introduced. This framework provides native-like feel to progressive web apps. With the help of React, developers can easily integrate a variety of third-party APIs into the app.

Other frameworks like Vue and Angular are also used for progressive web apps but React is more powerful and flexible. Why? Because it makes the load time faster which as a result increases conversions for customers. 

React uses VDOM for achieving this level of speed. It is a programming concept where a virtual representation of the user interface is kept in the memory and synced with the real DOM. Because of this, less data is used and visitors enjoy a faster experience. 

Another great quality of PWAs is that they use a minimal amount of code to power the interface. When a visitor uses the PWA of your product for the first time, a service worker gets installed and the app shell is cached. This ensures that the app loads faster. When the website loads quickly, the user can enjoy an outstanding experience. This boosts the chances of conversion drastically.  

Flipkart, an Indian eCommerce site when implemented progressive web app solution got to witness incredible results. Here is the summary of the results:

• 40% higher re-engagement
• 70% boost in conversion
• 3 times less data usage

Apart from Flipkart, several other big brands like Twitter and Alibaba were able to optimize conversions as well by employing PWA development. 

Testing Made Easy

Developers love working on PWAs because the code is very easy to test. This reduces the potential for errors and bugs. When you are using React, everything is built as components. Developers don’t need to perform intricate tests on each component. React is highly constructed which makes testing simplified. Even if there are errors, it’s easy to identify them. 

Traditionally, web apps were tested for features provided by the app. The newer form of testing was to see if the app works well on all mobile devices and its behavior is consistent. For progressive web apps, the method of testing is much different. They are not just tested for features and functions but they are tested for reliability and native-like behavior as well. All this is easier than testing a traditional web app using traditional testing methods. 

Conclusion

PWAs are the future. These apps are highly profitable for the online retail industry when it comes to retaining customers, providing them a robust user experience, or maximizing return on investment. Even if you have an IM app, converting it into a progressive web app will bring you a world full of benefits.

Talk to your web development team or company and see if progressive web development is an ideal choice for your digital product. There are good chances it will be.