Magento PWA: Will It Work For Magento Stores?

The strong growth of mobile commerce has forced Magento merchants to find ways to upgrade their online store and improve customers’ experience on mobile devices. And there is no better solution to this issue than converting the website to Magento PWA.

Some merchants question whether PWA could genuinely bring their online store to a whole new level, or they still need to develop a native mobile app.

This post will introduce to you what Magento Progressive Web App is and how it helps Magento stores to create a competitive advantage and win in their niches. Let’s begin!

The Quick Description Of Magento PWA

A Magento Progressive Web App is a Magento website integrated with the PWA technology so it looks and behaves as if it is a mobile native app.

By upgrading the websites to Magento PWAs, merchants are giving their customers app-like features without downloading the app from any app store. Also, Magento PWA sites can be located with a search engine query and accessed through most browsers.

Magento PWA vs Regular Magento Website & Native Apps

When it comes to starting an eCommerce business, merchants are usually presented with two options: developing a website and building a native app.

The question here is: What are the outstanding characteristics of Magento Progressive Web App that make it surpass these two choices?

Add to home screen

PWA can be easily installed by tapping the popup “Add to the home screen”. The process takes only a few seconds.

Magento PWA installation means creating a shortcut on the screen, so it is very lightweight (not consume too much space in memory like using an app).

Meanwhile, native app installation requires more steps. Customers need to log in to their account, look for the app on the app store, download the app, and confirm their personal information.

Plus, the app also consumes too much space in the device’s memory. If the device only has limited storage or the number of apps on the device has reached the maximum, it may be unable to be installed.

How about the website? It is clear that websites are impossible to install.

Offline mode

For data that was accessed before on Magento PWA, customers can read it even when the connection is of low quality or even in places with no Internet.

Service workers support this function through precaching technology, which helps save information in the devices.

At the same time, not every app allows users to view information when offline. And without connection, store visitors can only see a blank page from the normal website.

Background sync

This function works in the same way as the offline mode.

Customers can place an order from the website even when the Internet connection is not available. When the Internet is reconnected, the order’s information will be sent to stores to be processed.

For mobile apps, it depends. Some stores cannot store information for customers when the connection is unavailable.

The website’s information is lost when customers are out of the area of Internet connection.

Fast loading speed

The loading speed of a Magento PWA is 2 – 3 times faster than that of a normal Magento website. The reason is that it only needs to load the pages once. From the 2nd time, the content will appear within a second.

Push notifications

With Magento PWA, the push notification feature will notify customers about sales discounts, new products’ releasement, and special events.

This feature allows merchants to have effective interactions with store visitors. There is no need for buyers to access the website every day to update with the news.

Meanwhile, on regular websites, this function is unavailable.

SEO friendly

After PWA integration, the online store still appears on Google search results because Magento PWA maintains all the website’s URLs. This is good for SEO, and it can help increase site traffic by attracting new customers.

Also, PWA brings a better online shopping experience for customers. Thus, they can spend more time on the website, increasing the session duration, and decreasing the bounce rate. This is good for maintaining and boosting Magento sites’ Google ranking.

Meantime, the mobile app is only available in app stores.

The loading speed could be the reason for the lack of websites’ SEO-friendliness. And it can cause Google to decrease the ranking of the website.

Magento PWA Development Cost & Time

The price to integrate PWA on the Magento website is varied. For example, if you apply a ready-made Magento PWA theme (e.g.: TigrenPWA theme), the cost is around $1,500, not including complex customization. However, in case that you use custom PWA development services, your project will cost at least $5,000.

Compared to native app development costs that start from $10,000, PWA is still easier to achieve.

Besides, the Magento PWA development process is up to 1 month, depending on the solution that merchants choose.

Meanwhile, developing a native app for an operating system (iOS or Android) takes 3-6 months. And since the stores need to serve as many customers as possible, merchants usually decide to develop the apps for both operating systems. It also means that they will need 6-12 months to finish the app development.

Wrapping Up

Investing in PWA brings a better experience for both Magento merchants and users. It has opened a new path for the development of several eCommerce businesses.

With several new PWA features added to the online store, merchants would be satisfied with this change.