Why Would You Choose Progressive Web Application for Magento?
Written by Trasha Sharma
Business Analyst at Royal Cyber
PWA or Progressive Web Application is a next-generation web application that uses modern web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) and design patterns to deliver reliable and fast app via mobile and desktop devices. PWA websites are fast, responsive, and secure. They are also able to work offline, thereby providing an increase in revenue generation.
It is highly recommended to switch to PWA to meet the business demands. PWA is the future of multi-platform development as they are powerful, more secure, fast, and app like. PWA is an all-in-one solution for a site or an app and takes very less space in the app directory of the device.
Why is PWA used for Magento?
Generally, Magento (know about the latest version, Magento 2.4) store uses theme components to define the look and feel of the front-end of the website. However, Magento's PWA studio provides a different and modular approach for creating a custom front-end experience using storefront applications. PWA Studio development requires less Magento tool knowledge to create a customized storefront, and the concepts and the tool it uses are more common and standard among the general front-end developers.
Various benefits of using PWA are:
- Fast content loader: PWA uses a variety of performance optimization and responsive design strategies to load content fast on any network and thereby provides a consistent experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Time saver: PWA can save the user’s time on installing the app on their devices. Unlike native and cross-platform apps, the PWA can be readily placed on the home screen with just a few taps. Also, the PWA occupies less space as compared to the native apps and it can be seen in the app directory.
- Cost-effective: PWA can be implemented in its existing website, thus saving the cost of deployment and maintenance.
- Helps vendors gain new customers: Because of its fast loading speed, low data usage, and offline mode browsing, it attracts a huge range of customers.
- Increases conversion rates: Because of easy access and fast loading, customers can browse through products at a faster rate resulting in quicker sales and revenue growth.
- Offline mode: PWA is designed in a way that it can be used in offline mode, and so, poor internet connections or any network interruptions are no longer a problem for customers.
How is PWA used for Magento?
A PWA Studio storefront application communicates with Magento using its external API. These external API services interact with Magento’s internal service modules and return the response through the same external API. GraphQL is the preferred API for this purpose (fetch and push data).
PWA is installed in Magento using Venia storefront (PWA storefront). The coupling between a PWA Studio storefront and Magento should be such that the storefront has a dependency on Magento, but not vice versa. A PWA Studio storefront and its backing Magento server are two independent applications. Therefore, unlike Magento themes (which has its codebase in Magento), PWA’s codebase is separate from each other.
PWA is integrated with Magento using the following major steps:
- Cloning the PWA studio repository
- Installing the PWA studio dependencies
- Specifying the Magento backend server
Magento's fron-tend themes such as assets, scripts, layout files, etc. are not used by PWA studio storefront. Instead, PWA studio uses its own storefront applications to build front-end store and uses Magento’s GraphQL and REST APIs to send or receive data.
Therefore, PWAs are taking the technology industry by storm. They provide a solution to the many issues merchants, customers, and developers encounter with omnichannel commerce. PWAs allow sites to present their content and other information in a very appealing way and it is in such a quick format that it serves both applications and the websites. PWAs act like an application but can function on mobile websites – thus terminating the need to download an application from the app store, saving users both time and space.
Contact us for more information on PWA for Magento; you can email at info@royalcyber.com or visit www.royalcyber.com.
1 Comment
Yes, PWA is a great solution for your Magento website. The technology has already manifested its positive effects and is in demand by the owners of E-commerce websites. We can enhance user experience for Ecommerce applications with PWA as it renders nicely on Mobile devices.