Magento will give you more feel and experience of app-like e-commerce store through Progressive Web Applications (PWA) studio.

Yes, you read correctly!

As said by Peter Sheldon, Senior director of strategy, digital experience, Magento “PWAs blur the lines between the mobile app and mobile site by equipping merchants and developers with a new front-end architecture that allows them to leverage open web APIs to build ‘app-like experiences directly in the browser that is fast, engaging, boost online conversions and enhance the pervasiveness of the in-store experience,”

You can see the changes that happened five years ago from conventional desktop to interactive web design. Same way, PWAs also comes with an advanced tool to bring the evolution of the mobile web.

Apps are a bit costly to build and maintain and customers only like to use the app from brands that they are using for a long. As per Gartner, a lot of brands are unable to convince even 10% of customers to download their app because they use the mobile website as it is very interactive.

Now here PWAs comes into the picture:

• It delivers a fast and slick “app-like” experience in the mobile web browser which can tackle multiple challenges at once for retailers.
• As per the company, AliExpress has experienced a 100% jump in conversion rates from the moment they switched.
• Its “full-screen” mode hides the browser URL bar on the top and navigation tools on the bottom giving you the more “app-like” feel and look.
• PWAs supports Push Notification in the browser letting marketers send real-time, contextual, and personalized communications with a simple “one-click” opt-in directly from the PWA site.
• PWAs are instantly discoverable and usable through the browser, thus no longer need to “download” or “install” an app before use.
• Google provides a testing tool to benchmark your PWA’s performance.
• Just like any other app, you can save PWA to the home screen so now you don’t have to open the browser and type the entire URL.

Further. Magento said “PWA will improve the in-store experience. For instance, retailers can build native integration with the mobile camera hence customers can scan barcodes and make payment in-store using Google and Apple Pay”.

PWAs have the potential to open up a whole new world for store associates. It can replace the legacy POS system and retail associate platform by giving a fast, cost-effective, and efficient way for store associates to find the product online and in-store. It also provides self-checkout, saves the sale and service return directly from an employee’s smartphone. Because we all want that sales associates should be completely knowledgeable about the online product.

Now retailers don’t have to connect customers to their in-store wi-fi to deliver the best mobile experience with their brand. PWAs provide you with highly personalized cross-channel experiences on mobile without having to build a native app

Definitely, PWAs offer exceptional opportunities for merchants to boost conversion rates and increase in-store engagement.