Replatforming for PWAs: Is It Worth It?

No matter what eCommerce platform you use (Shopify, Magneto, Spree, etc.) you can upgrade to become a Progressive Web Application (PWA) right now.

However, if you look to your eCommerce platform to provide this option, you’ll be out of luck.

Progressive Web Applications allow your eCommerce site to harness the best of current browser capabilities and web protocols. This includes:

• Push notifications
• Offline transactions
• Home screen button
• Massive improvement of page load times (PWAs load 300% faster on mobile devices)
• Enhanced security
• Engaging user experience
• Identity information stored on device
• Payment information stored on device
• And much more

Further, our predictions are the that:

• Progressive Web Applications will decrease site abandonment by more than 50%. (53% of users will abandon a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load)
• Increase overall site engagement by 20%.
• Improve time to transaction by more than 30%.

All of this can result in conversion rate lifts by an average of 1 full point.

To provide an example, for a company generating $5 million in revenue annually, a 0.5 point lift in conversion rate would result in over $1 million + in annual revenue. This is the reason why the biggest eCommerce stores (Amazon, eBay, and Flipkart) have already upgraded to PWAs.

Won’t My eCommerce Platform Eventually Offer PWAs?

The majority of eCommerce platforms have not yet caught up to the technology advances presented in the 2017 Google Chrome Developer Summit.

Our prediction is that it will take a minimum of 1 year, but more likely 2 years (2020), before they are fully compatible.

Bottom line, you can’t wait for your eCommerce platform to offer PWAs. If you wait, your business will lose out out on 1 to 2 years of technologies that can significantly improve customer experience and therefore conversion rates.

Not being a PWA means lost sales, lost revenue, lost customer loyalty and much more.