Should You Choose a PWA or Native App for Your Ecommerce Business?

Let’s start with understanding what are Native Mobile Applications? These are customized according to Android or iOS or Windows or any other OS service providers. Native Apps access a device’s native features like GPS, camera, microphone, gallery, notes, messages, compass, accelerometer, swipe gestures, emails and behave and function in that way. These have optimal performance and are considered better off than cross-platform mobile apps. We are here to determine which native app features coincide with PWA’s along with what makes them distinct, followed by which of these two supports e-commerce app development in a better way.

What Are Progressive Web Applications (PWA)?

Progressive Mobile Applications combines the cost-effectiveness of websites/cross-platform web applications and the performance of native applications. This makes them weigh above their native counterparts.

Moreover, businesses can create PWA’s even if they already have their mobile applications as these are dynamic, load quickly in full-screen mode, feature push notifications and can be put on the home screen of the device.

Additionally, progressive web applications enable you to get rid of connectivity issues. Some of the best PWA examples include –

Web Apps vs. Native Apps

Web apps and native apps can be distinguished based on purpose. Web applications are primarily used to access information while native applications are typically used to accomplish any task like GPS is used to search any location, the camera can be used to take pictures from the app itself, e.g.: while submitting a product review, a user can click on the star ratings, write a text review and upload pictures from the app itself in Amazon Shopping App. The app asks users to allow camera and microphone access for photo/video accordingly.

Web Apps vary considerably in design; blank state, usage information, upgrading or downgrading of a plan, states of UI elements, simple and intuitive user interface, use of visuals, provision of instructions, optimization of UI speed, using appropriate cursor pointer and ALT attributes need to be considered while designing a web app.

Designing a native app requires a user to check the responsiveness, design iterations, keeping it simple, getting rid of excessive scrolling, knowing the latest design trends, adding finger-friendly designs, and provision to add feedback.

Where Do PWA’s Stand Along The Lines?

Progressive Web Applications will confidently take over from Native Applications in upcoming years. To validate this, we know already the PWA’s have been around for the last 12 years. The standard format for apps on the iPhone would be HTML5, CSS and would not require any SDK. They will be able to access native functionality and even naive programmers with some web development background will be able to build them. More than 80% of new non-gaming apps on mobile phones will be created using web technologies in the coming 5 years.

Apple did not take long to decide if they should or shouldn’t use iOS SDK native development. It was intended to work in a browser and required making use of new programming languages and programming paradigms. Web apps have since then become feature-rich and far more impressive than their native counterparts.

How Progressive Web Apps Have Marched-Past Their Native Counterparts?

JavaScript has become an extremely powerful resource with the introduction of PWA support in both Android and iOS, it gives much-needed hope to web developers looking to create native-ready applications without needing to learn an entirely new language.

With numerous offline capabilities, the ability to pre-cache with service workers – making for a more faster-smoother shopping experience, PWA’s weigh above native applications. The PWA audit, in Chrome DevTool Extension, (tagged along with Google Lighthouse), enable fixing performance issues. This helps in boosting user engagement metrics that are a premier metric to enhance SEO ranking. This also reducing the development budget subsequently as a single app works both as a website and a mobile app.

PWA Key Technologies

Progressive Web Apps are websites that work as native mobile applications. These leverage the emerging technologies, adapt HTML5 and helps the business achieve the desired reach and mobile app’s accessibility. The key technologies which help PWA’s function that way is:

• Secure contexts (HTTPS)
• Application Shell Architecture for a fast loading time
• Transport Layer Security (TLS) to provide privacy and Data Integrity
• Service Workers API for offline support enables caching, push notifications on mobile and works in the background
• Web App Manifest File to provide home screen access provides details about an app like author, name, icon, UX/UI information

PWA Frameworks

Some of the best and prevalent PWA frameworks to create progressive web apps include:

• Gatsby – To build static PWA sites with React
• Deity – a micro-service to offer scalable, robust web and mobile experiences, foster innovation and lower cost of ownership, headless configuration
• Vue.JS – can work in combination with Gridsome and Next.js and follows an inclusive, global and adaptive approach to web application development
• Angular.JS – can facilitate PWA development
• Ionic – contains WebView that renders web pages to give websites the appearance of native applications
• Polymer – an open-source JS library for creating web applications using reusable web-components

Are We Ready To Acknowledge Progressive Web Applications?

Chrome browser can wrap the applications in a WebAPK and users get an ‘Install’ banner prompt. It can also be accessed from the ‘Options’ menu and it will allow you to ‘Add to Home Screen’ option from Chrome and enable the user to do all the searching thereon.

Why Do We Recommend PWA’s?

A progressive web application is distinct from normal web applications. For them to qualify as PWA’s, they need to fulfil some specific requirements and few characteristics like:

• Offline Functionality – They need to be accessible even in absence of an internet connection. Every URL has to be accessible even if it is showing cached data.

• Responsive – PWA’s have to be served over HTTP’s therefore they must be responsive on any sort of device – mobile phones, tablets, PCs, Laptops etc., and the entire site must function across browsers.

• Highly Performant Across Platforms – Progressive web apps must be quicker than websites or cross-platform applications. They must comply with the load times of the network (3G-4G-5G), get that asynchronous script loading up, running and remove that render-blocking CSS and optimize that code that’s still there.

• Engaging – PWA’s must be engaging so that they give a native experience without much scrolling-waiting-back and forth navigation – frequent updates. They must support push notifications.

• Home Screen Access – Native apps reside on the user’s home screen with all the necessary icons, functional splash screens while the app loads in the background.

• Increased Support – Support for PWA’s has grown gradually during the last few years with Chrome OS, Linux, Mac, and Windows PCs. As features of PWA’s increase per platform, soon the real differences between the capabilities of native apps vs. those of PWA’s will diminish.

• Easier To Build – PWA’s are incredibly easier to build. With just a slight working experience with Vue.JS and CLI, it gives a real quick and smooth finish to pages with some minor strict requirements.

• Easy Optimization – It is now easy to create a PWA by following some guides and optimizing them for every OS, without using a JS framework/other frameworks and standards.

How PWA Focus on E-commerce App Development?

E-commerce combines technologies such as –  electronic funds transfer, mobile commerce, internet marketing, supply chain management, inventory management system, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management system, automated data collection systems. It makes use of www (world wide web) at some point in the project/transaction life cycle. It makes use of any technologies like email, chat applications, mobile devices, social media, and telephone calls and everything is considered a  sales aspect of e-business. It encompasses data exchange to facilitate financing and payment aspects of the business transactions. More reasons to explore this fact are as under:

• Highly Engaging – Progressive web apps are engaging, so they are reachable to a broader audience. These connect the API to the commerce features that help drive customers through conversion.

• Reduces Development Cost – This reduces the cost of development as they bring in the capabilities of a website as well as that of a mobile application.

• Highly Performant – They are highly performant. Any kind of lag in performance is not noticeable. This reason is good enough for a business to excel at conversions.

• Decouples Frontend And Backend – PWA’s propel commerce configurations that involve separating the frontend presentation layer from the backend database functionality.

• Executes in Browser – PWA’s run in the client’s browser, but it never seems that way. The users are not able to identify if it is a website or an app. It is accessible through the mobile’s home screen, push notifications and offline more.

Defining a Perspective: Choosing PWA or a Native App for Next Big E-Commerce Project

PWA’s envisioned to thrive and are enjoying that in the current moment. Bringing the potential to create native-like applications using JavaScript, PWA’s are easy to build without the hassle of traversing the build steps and frustrating app stores. PWA’s provide nearly full access to a device’s native functionality, which is likely the case with their native counterparts but way beyond.

In general, e-commerce applications do not target the audience based on the device that they use as they deal with customers all over the world. People are involved in buying and selling over the internet, and the one thing that attracts or diverts a customer is the speed of the app. PWA’s can therefore bring a plethora of advantages for e-commerce businesses like Online marketing and purchasing, Retail and wholesale, Manufacturing, Finance and Net Banking, Online Auctions, Online booking (ticket, seat. etc.) and Online publishing.

Progressive Web Apps load fast, allows users to work offline, perform like native apps. Many big companies have resorted to PWA’s and have experienced a significant increase in user engagement. If you would like to have an experienced and reliable custom web development company to handle your next e-commerce project, check our portfolio for our previous work on native app development and some impeccable PWA’s.