PWA for eCommerce is a revolution, the gift that everyone has been waiting for. Technology that generates content quickly and delivers it to the user, offers low-cost scalability, is secure, convenient and opens new horizons for business growth is destined for success in an area for which these are key performance metrics. No wonder more and more brands are using this technology to increase their revenue and improve their customer experience (https://dinarys.com/pwa-development).
The use of PWAs in ecommerce inherently heralds the beginning of the era of the ‘headless ecommerce approach’, where two platforms are used – one to handle the so-called ‘presentation layer’ and the other to support the required ecommerce functionality. The presentation layer refers to all those functions that are not related to online sales, such as content creation and management. This sounds unusual and would seem to undermine the whole ideology of ecomm platform development that has evolved over the past few years, but this approach offers undeniable benefits: speed, convenience, security, scalability and flexibility.
Companies that need to constantly patch, augment, and find replacements for legacy systems – spending millions and losing valuable time to market – should consider the ‘headless approach’ as a viable alternative to traditional e-commerce platforms that provide all website functionality and e-commerce infrastructure in a single solution.
Obviously, when it comes to e-commerce, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and much depends on project specifics, nomenclature, functionality and targets that can be achieved by different methods and e-commerce platforms.
To convert your website into a PWA, the resource must initially be configured according to the following checklist for a progressive web application
Use of a secure HTTPS transfer protocol (instead of HTTP);
Adaptive/adaptive coding of the webpage;
A dedicated URL for each web page.
If we’re talking about converting Magento-based sites to PWAs, you additionally need to make sure you’re using version 2.0 or higher of the platform.
Given the difference between PWAs and normal websites, we must now also clarify how such solutions differ from native software. Here is a sample list of PWA features that directly points out the differences from standard web application features
Lightweight. Unlike traditional applications, PWAs do not consume any user memory to load. This solves memory problems for users without requiring them to delete anything to optimize space;
Offline updates. No need to go to the App Store or Google Play to update your app, everything happens automatically without any manual input from the user;
Extended support. PWAs are supported, as we mentioned above, by all modern versions of the most used browsers such as Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. Furthermore, they are compatible with any mobile hardware regardless of form factor and other physical parameters.
Frontend is one of the fastest growing areas of modern development. Not surprisingly, there are many tools, libraries, and frameworks to help it work. In the JavaScript world, for example, new frameworks and libraries appear almost every day. In fact, it is an almost continuous process, with favourites changing literally every few months. However, in the case of PWAs for Magento, we may be talking about the uncontested leaders – Vue.js and React (Check more here).
Vue.js was created by former Google employee, Evan Yu. His goal was to develop a platform that combines the best features of existing frameworks.
React is a JavaScript library that was created by technology giant Facebook. One of the main reasons for creating React was the company’s desire to improve its interface shaping mechanisms. The React library is known as a powerful tool for creating dynamic and interactive user interfaces.
