As we all know that mobile application and web app play a major role in successfully engaging with an online business. It creates an easy shopping experience for your customers anywhere. Here we will discuss choosing PWA or native app for your eCommerce business.

Role of Mobile Application in eCommerce

Today, customers prefer to do the shopping on mobile instead of the desktop as the latter offers more speed and flexibility.

79% of the user has purchased the product via the mobile application in the last 6 months. 40% of the product ordered by the mobile application.

As you can see in the last 6 months stats, more than half of the internet traffic shopping came from mobile devices.

The future of m-commerce is blindingly bright as the growth of mobile applications in eCommerce will become 53.9% by 2021.

PWA or Native App for your eCommerce business?

Here we will discuss the popular technologies i.e. PWA and Native App. These are used to create a mobile application so that the user can easily access your online store on their mobile.

What is Progressive Web Application

Progressive Web Application uses web compatibilities and provides a native app experience to the user. By using this extension you can achieve features like push notification, work in low internet connection, load on the home screen etc.

PWA brings the best from both worlds.

This technology allows your online store to support offline experiences, background synchronization, and push notifications. All credit to this remarkable mobile experience should be given to the service worker(service worker is a script that browser runs in the background).

Let’s have a look, how big brand websites are using PWA to improve their conversion rate.

Flipkart Lite- As we know that Flipkart is the largest eCommerce platform. Firstly the used only app after that they came up with PWA as Flipkart Lite. With the help of PWA, it converts 70% user to customer.

Twitter- Twitter is a social networking service where the user interacts and tweets. It has more than 300 million active users monthly. With the help of PWA, it decreases in bounce rate by 20%.

Have a look at the Hulu stats after switching to PWA

Technical Component of PWA

Service Worker

Manifest.json

HTTPS

Service Worker

A service worker is a component of JS code which works as a proxy between browser and network. It has the ability to handle network request, including programmatically managing a cache of responses. It enables intelligent caching, push notification and most important is offline functionality.

For the first time load of PWA, service worker stores the all required resources in the particular browser cache. When the user visits again on the PWA then Service worker returns the response without checking the network so that the user can use the site in offline mode using the browser’s cache API.

As announced at the recent Google I/O 2019, you can easily install PWA on your desktop just by a single click. The feature has already been rolled out for Chrome OS last year, soon it will be available for Linux, Windows and Mac users.

Manifest.json

The manifest file is a config JSON file which stores all information about your PWA like icon which will be displayed on the home screen, name of the PWA and background color.

If this file is present then browser directly triggers the PWA and if the user agrees, it installs the icon on the user’s home screen.

HTTPS

A service worker has the ability to handle the network request and modify the response. The service worker will work on the client side, hence PWA required a secure communication protocol HTTPS.

Native App

A native application is a type of application which is developed for use on a particular platform(OS). It uses the device-specific hardware and software so that it can support the latest technology of devices.

They have access to various functions of the phone like the camera, GPS location, contact list, etc. User can also use some app as in offline mode. It provides fast performance and reliability. This type of app very costly to develop because it is tied on only one platform.

Technical Component of Native App

API

SDK

API:- API provides a set of fixed rule that is used to interact with the software component. API can be created for operating system and application. Good API will make easy development of the app.

SDK:- SDK stands for the software development kit. SDK is a programming package that enables the developer to create an app for a specific platform.

PWA vs Native App and What to Choose Between Them