5 Best Examples of PWA for E-commerce Marketplaces
The article was originally published on Codica blog.
Progressive web applications are getting increasingly popular owing to their security, fast loading, and rapid installation.
E-commerce quickly caught up with this innovative trend. Online marketplaces convert their websites into PWAs to enhance user experience and increase sales.
In this post, we want to show you the most successful examples of progressive web applications for e-commerce platforms. You will see how technology implementation helped famous brands improve the main KPIs.
What are the benefits of PWAs for e-commerce
Before we discuss specific results of turning websites into PWAs, let’s take a look at the general benefits of this technology for e-commerce platforms.
Customer engagement and re-engagement
In the crowded e-commerce world, consumers’ expectations are higher than ever. Online marketplaces are aware of this fact. They actively use PWAs to interact with their customers.
First, merchants can use push notifications to inform the audience about new products, special offers, and discounts.
Secondly, thanks to the “Add to Home Screen” option of PWAs, it is easier for consumers to come back to the website and re-engage with their favorite brands.
Finally, rapid installation increases users’ reach. Chances are that customers who don’t want to download and install any native app may want to try a progressive web app.
High security
To manage a successful and profitable marketplace, you need to earn the trust of buyers and sellers. Let both parties know that your platform is a safe place to buy and sell products and they will use it on a regular basis.
PWAs use HTTP protocol and SSL certificate to protect transmitted data and prevent men-in-the-middle attacks.
Improved conversion rate
Web speed and performance are crucial for your online marketplace. At the end of the day, the slow speed of response and bad performance leave you without the desired conversions.
PWAs are noted for excellent performance. It means that users can find a required product, add it to a shopping cart, or purchase an item online in no time.
Besides, progressive web applications cache and display images, text, and other content efficiently. As a result, impeccable performance positively influences user experience and boosts conversion rates.
Seamless performance on unstable networks
Offline mode is another advantage of PWA technology. Thanks to built-in Service Workers, the content of a progressive web app is cached automatically. It means that users can access the required data even without the Internet connection.
The offline functionality will be a great bonus for people living in rural communities where the Internet connection is weak or consumers going in and out of connectivity during the day.
Improved search ranking
After launching mobile-first indexing in 2018, Google prioritizes fast and mobile-friendly websites. This is why PWAs possessing these qualities will be helpful for your business.
First, progressive web apps are mobile-friendly websites in their nature. Users don’t need to download them from the app stores. They add a PWA to the home screen of their devices and interact with it right away.
Besides, since a PWA is still a website, Google discovers and indexes it easily. It means that when users are looking for a particular item available on your online marketplace, they will find your platform and you will have better chances to get traffic and leads.
Cost-effectiveness
The native app development requires building, maintaining, and promoting a separate version for Android and iOS operating systems. Since you need to hire two development teams, the total cost of your product is two times as expensive.
Besides, there is no guarantee that customers will want to download your app.
With the PWA development approach, building an application will require less time and money because now you will have only one cross-platform app to launch. In this regard, you can significantly cut down expenses on creating a mobile app.
Best PWA examples for online marketplaces
As you can see, progressive web apps have undeniable benefits for the e-commerce industry. Now it is high time to take a look at concrete results.
Jumia
Jumia is a prominent African e-commerce website. Its target audience accesses the platform via an unstable 2G Internet connection. Besides, most customers owning low-end phones face data limitations issues.
Jumia found a good way to provide shoppers with smooth user experience — their website was transformed into a PWA.
Fantastic stats that prove the successful PWA implementation by Jumia look the following way:
- 33% higher conversion rate;
- 50% lower bounce rate;
- 12X more users versus native apps (Android & iOS);
- 5X less data used;
- 2X less data required to complete the first transaction;
- 25X less device storage needed.
Flipkart
Flipkart is a famous Indian e-commerce platform. In 2015, the company abandoned its mobile website that could not overperform a native app in terms of fast and responsive user experience.
That’s when Flipkart Lite was built. This progressive web application offers customers a great native app’s experience. Push notifications allow getting timely and relevant updates from favourite stores and working in offline mode.
PWA implementation brought exciting results, including:
- 3x lower data usage;
- 40% higher re-engagement rate;
- 70% more conversion rate by “Add to homescreen”;
- 3x more time spent on site.
AliExpress
AliExpress is a global online retail company launched in China in 2010. Their mobile commerce platform was growing much faster than e-commerce.
So the company built a solution that caters to the needs of both web and mobile customers. A fast and reliable progressive web app allowed AliExpress to revamp its mobile presence, improve visitor engagement, and increase conversion rates.
The PWA got a remarkable 91/100 from LightHouse thanks to a number of useful features including push notifications, offline mode, fast page load, and seamless UX/UI.
Let’s take a look at the impressive results that PWA implementation brought:
- 82% increase in iOS conversion rate;
- 104% more new users across all browsers;
- 2x more pages visited per session per user across all browsers;
- 74% increase in time spent per session across all browsers.
OLX
OLX is a global online marketplace headquartered in Amsterdam that operates in 45 countries. The majority of traffic (90%, to be more specific) comes from the native app and mobile website. The application brings the most conversions while the website has a high bounce rate due to low performance.
The company needed a solution that could improve the metrics in the above fields. That’s when a progressive web application came into play.
As in other cases, PWA implementation proved successful. The ‘Add to home screen’ feature and push notifications increased the engagement level by 250%.
Other results look the following way:
- 23% less time until a page is interactive;
- 80% lower bounce rates;
- 146% higher click-through rate on ads;
- 250% more re-engagement.
Alibaba
Alibaba is a global wholesale trade platform serving millions of buyers and sellers in more than 200 countries. Most users discover this e-commerce website via the mobile web. Therefore, a well-designed and highly functioning mobile web experience was their priority.
The company transformed their mobile website into a PWA. Their aim was to provide both first-time and repeat visitors with a fast and engaging mobile experience.
Here are some important metrics proving the success of PWA implementation
- 76% higher conversions across browsers;
- 14% more monthly active users on iOS;
- 30% more monthly active users on Android;
- 4X higher interaction rate from the ‘Add to Homescreen’ feature.
How can Codica help you with progressive web app development?
At Codica, we are passionate fans of PWA technology. Our team firmly believes that it has enough power to become the future of the web. Therefore, all the web products created by our team are PWAs by default.
Here are some reasons to choose Codica for progressive web application development.
- Profound PWA development expertise;
- Strong team of experts;
- Building PWAs based on all Google’s recommendations;
- Cost-effectiveness and quick launch;
- Recognized web development expertise.
Conclusion
Progressive web applications offer numerous benefits to e-commerce marketplaces. However, the specific figures make the power of the technology even more meaningful.
The examples above show how PWAs can help you achieve any business goals you set for an online marketplace, be it an increase in time spent on the website or boost of conversion rate.
For more information about the advantages of progressive web apps for online marketplaces and best cases of their implementation, read our full article 5 Best Examples of PWA for e-commerce marketplaces.
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