Who can benefit from a Progressive Web App
18 Jul 2019 / 4min
Progressive Web App are considered the next earthquake when considering mobile internet usage. But which company can benefit the most from introducing a PWA?
An average user has about 90 apps installed on his or her device but rarely uses more than 25 per month, spending 77% of the time using only three of them. In the case of millennials, that’s Amazon, Gmail, and Facebook.
So it is challenging for a retailer or any other business (that’s not Google, Facebook or Amazon) to convince the user to download an app. Also, the user usually abandons the app after 90 days of using it, especially when the user has the need to use the app only from time to time.
So this means that not only should big corporations with large product portfolios and significant financial resources be doing e-Commerce, but so should medium-sized companies, with smaller offerings and more modest means. It’s an absolute must, otherwise they risk losing the ever-growing number of internet-savvy customers that fall within their target audience.
What is a Progressive Web App
It is crucial to clarify what a Progressive Web App (PWA) stands for to understand the benefits accurately. Apparently, there are a lot of misconceptions a bit spiced up with confusion. The challenge is clearly seen when business people confront techies, with both sides having different expectations and skills to understand the matter.
The basic concept of PWA is to deliver the native app experience within a browser. The app needs to be:
- Responsive - in order to look equally good on any device is given
- Available offline - considered one of the more affordable options for smaller businesses, but can become costly as the business grows
- Installable - despite being in the browser, the user needs to be able to create a shortcut and get notifications
- SEO optimized - getting the best of two worlds of websites and apps, the PWA is seen by Google as a website, thus indexed and searchable
- Shareable - unlike the native app, every asset accessible in PWA is available on any platform, so it is convenient to share images or content via email or social media
- App-like interactions - last but not least, the PWA needs to deliver the native app-like experiences, leveraging the hardware of the device, including a camera or the accelerometer.
Considering the factors mentioned above, numerous brands can benefit from transferring into the PWA. Yet one of the key concepts of PWA is to deliver a tailored product. There is no “one size fits them all” philosophy in this case.
Who can benefit from Progressive Web App
Moreover, the PWA itself is not a single technology. It is a patchwork of available technologies delivered to support a particular goal. Furthermore, several industries see more obvious benefits than others.
E-commerce
Internet retailing see tremendous benefits from the fast delivery of the product catalog and tuning the payment process. Even a 100-millisecond delay in loading page result in a seven percent drop of conversion rate, which is a genuinely terrifying when considering the fact that an average mobile landing page needs 15.3 seconds to load.
With loading the content “on the go”, the PWA significantly boosts the speed at which pages load. Also, the workers hidden beneath the Progressive Web App surface manage the flow and the load balancing, so tuning the performance in real-time to deliver even better experience comes easier.
E-commerce can benefit from PWA in another way. Usually, customers switch from mobile to desktop to finish the transactions - 53% of traffic coming to online stores via mobile, yet this builds just 32% of revenue. One of the greatest pains is payments done inconveniently.
PWA enables the companies to deliver one-click checkout via Google Payments API, making the purchase even more convenient and seamless.
Banking
The banking industry faces digital transformation, especially when confronted with fintech companies. Online banking services witness growing popularity. Currently, over 70% of UK customers bank online with banking being the third most popular online activity outrun only by Email and search.
The first benefit is forcing an HTTPS connection all the time, delivering a decent layer of protection. PWA provides far more sophisticated architecture than any mobile website. It enables better encapsulation and more layers of user protection.
Another benefit seen in banking is delivering more convenient ways to manage owned financial products in times of rising interest in holding multiple both short and long-term assets.
Media
Media companies benefit from constant struggle for consumer’s attention. That’s where push notifications thrive. On the other hand, users tend to visit multiple news vendors to get more informed.
Media benefits from uploading content on the go, delivering fast access to numerous texts r videos, depending on the dominant type of content the vendor produces. PWA grants the user offline accessibility, so media vendors can access their users even in the time of lacking an internet connection.
Content providers (Netflix, HBO, etc.)
An increasing amount of content is consumed with mobile devices. Netflix or HBO GO is among the best examples, but there are numerous other content providers, be that online videos, e-books or audiobooks.
Delivering a progressive web app enables the user to manage the used content more conveniently and to consume it with equal ease regardless of the channel. Fast switching from mobile to desktop or smart TV aided with unified experience boosts the user’s satisfaction
Similarly to media vendors, content providers benefit from smart downloading that enables the user to access the content faster.
In fact - any other company
Progressive Web App delivers better user experiences powered by best practices forged both in mobile web development and app development. The technologies combined into the form of PWA provide a more sophisticated way to interact with the brand.
From UX to available features, push notifications and security, PWA enhances any mobile service existing. The key is to cherry-pick the beneficial parts of the solution and scrap the rest.
Summary
As stated before, PWA is not a single technology delivered in a jack-of-all-trades manner. Some companies will need a full website redesign and consulting on boosting business processes. Others need only a slight tuning of the existing experience.
Industries listed above prove that every business benefit from embracing the Progressive Web App, yet all of them look for different gains. And gains are mostly a vital point of every business change, including the PWA introduction.