Behind Poland's First TWA Implementation: morele.net
Morele.net
A rapid response to mobile users' needs
13 Nov 2019
We recently partnered with the morele.net group to release a new mobile application that utilizes Google’s TWA (Trusted Web Activity) technology. Morele.net is one of Poland’s largest online consumer electronics retailers, and this was the country’s first TWA implementation. Remarkably, the project took only two weeks.
TWA is the fastest way of “packaging” an existing PWA so that it can be presented and rated on the Google Play Store platform and downloaded onto users’ devices as an app. Such applications offer the best performance among currently available solutions and provide a user-friendly experience that’s comparable to native applications.
About morele.net
The morele.net online store was opened in 2004. Today, as one of the market leaders, it posts the following impressive numbers:
- 1.5 million site visitors per month.
- Over 1.3 million products on offer.
- Approximately 5,000 orders completed daily.
Morele has expanded to include a number of different online stores, including amfora.pl, which sells perfumes, and budujesz.pl, which offers construction equipment. Today, the Morele Group owns nine online shops in total. The company has also won many industry awards, including the European Business Awards' National Champion. It also came second in the household appliances/electronics category in Opineo.pl's 2019 Online Stores Ranking.
Aim
Morele recognizes the needs of its mobile users. For this reason, the Morele Group redesigned their mobile and desktop sites in 2018. They were nominated for the prestigious Mobile Trend Awards in the category “website or mobile service/RWD”. However, there was still some room for improvement with the mobile app, as it was not achieving its objectives. Better performance and a smoother and more comfortable user experience was needed.
"We decided on a PWA almost a year ago. We now wanted to speed up the application and maintain even greater consistency between the application and the web page. That is why we chose the ‘lightest’ solution offered by this technology. We received broad support from e-point’s team of PWA experts during our TWA deployment. Thanks to their commitment, knowledge, and close cooperation with Google, the implementation was successful".
The solution
e-point proposed improving the current application by introducing an innovative solution: Google’s Trusted Web Activity, which provides the main features of mobile applications with significantly shorter development time and lower costs.
What is the Trusted Web Activities (TWA)?
A Trusted Web Activity (TWA) is a technology developed by Google that allows “wrapping” websites in the PWA (Progressive Web Application) standard as Android applications. In other words, TWA serves as a lightweight PWA container.
Why choose TWA?
TWA offers these sizable benefits:
- Budget optimization: Development costs are much lower. Applications aren’t built from scratch; we only “wrap” the existing website.
- Quick win: A shorter timeline (in this case, only two weeks) means we can quickly see the results.
- High application speed: The application works efficiently and smoothly, providing users with a great mobile experience.
CEE’s first TWA
Because morele.net’s TWA application was a pioneering project and incorporated a new technology, we worked closely with Google. We regularly exchanged knowledge (for example, about web analytics) and searched out possible improvements.
"The use of Trusted Web Activity provides new promotion possibilities for PWA applications. The publication of your PWA in the Play store allows you to promote your applications on a much larger scale, both organically and through paid Universal App Campaigns".
PWA audit and tuning
The first step in the cooperation between e-point and Morele was a web performance and PWA audit report, which helped us accurately identify what needed improvement. Using TWA meant that the Morele.net website had to implement the PWA standard at a higher level, as measured by Google’s Lighthouse benchmark. Previously, the site met this standard at 40 percent, which is why a series of enhancements were introduced. The most important addition was the Service Worker, which makes the website’s key functions available when the user goes offline.
For morele.net, adopting TWA as a mobile solution had led to the following wins:
"TWA is currently the best and fastest method of publishing a website – such as an online shop – among other traditional applications in the Google Play Store. Additionally, we can base it on the current interface instead of writing a completely new platform".
Such an application can be viewed, installed and rated just like any other application in the marketplace. This new trend arises from the PWA (Progressive Web Apps) standard. It means providing an excellent experience in the form of web pages that will be immediately available on all platforms and in every channel, thanks to modern browsers and technologies - says Michał Szklarski.
The app is now available on Google Play. You can download it here.
We can also help your company. Write to us and we will analyze your business needs and determine how to improve the employee and customer experience.