Since Magento 2 Progressive Web App appeared, it has been changing the M-commerce development landscape in the Magento community. This technology perfectly bridges the gap between webs and native apps to get the best of both worlds. It is still easy to approach customers like a website while offering an icon on the home screen, push notifications, offline mode, and fast speed like a native app. Also, Magento PWAs can satisfy any users regardless of their mobile devices and browsers.
Up to now, PWAs have caught the eyes of many big companies from different industries. The more interesting thing is that all of the PWA early adopters got impressive achievements in their traffic, conversions, sales, and customer satisfaction after launching their web app. Below are some outstanding PWA examples:
It’s undeniable that using Magento 2 Progressive Web App is beneficial in varied ways, it is still evolving. As a result, there are still some drawbacks associated with PWAs that you should know before implementing this technology.
Magento 2 PWA Benefit Summary
- Affordable development cost
- Network independence
- Low data usage on mobile devices
- Easy to “add to home screen”
- Useful push notifications
- Fast and reliable performance
- No installation from any app store
- Highly secure with HTTPs
- Improved SEO indicators
- Full control of PWA release process
- Easy for developers to update
- No manual updates required for users
- Large number of user approaches
- Cross-platform and one codebase
- Shorten time to market
- Sharable on various channels
- Dynamic PWA storefront
- Enhanced user experience
- Available tools for development
Magento 2 PWA’s Constraints
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Unable to access certain features of mobile devices
In spite of being a perfect replacement for Magento native apps, Magento 2 Progressive Web App cannot deliver some complex features like the traditional apps. For example, it might hard to build a PWA with high graphics and intense animation.
Moreover, unlike mobile native apps, PWAs have limited access to a device’s Bluetooth, vicinity sensors, proximity sensors, ambient light, advanced camera controls, NFC, geofencing, fingerprint scanner, contacts, and so on. However, since most of the Magento e-commerce stores don’t require these accesses, you can ignore this weakness.
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Missing potential traffic from the app stores
On the one hand, Magento PWA helps to eliminate the time-consuming app searching, download and installation process. The store owners don’t need to submit their PWAs to any app store. On the other hand, due to PWA’s absence, the stores might lose a wide range of users who still prefer searching for apps on the central app stores.
This issue might be solved if you use Progressive Web App as a supplement rather than a replacement of native app. However, if you care more about traffic from websites while having a tight budget, converting your website to PWA instead of developing a new native app is highly recommended.
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Different workflow on iOS devices
On Android devices, when users visit the website, it will instantly show a message on the bottom to catch the users’ attention. If the users click on this message, they will be asked to enable push notification and add the PWA to their home screen.
Magento PWA demo on Android device
Meanwhile, on the iOS devices, the users must click on the Share button, navigate to the section “Add to Home Screen” on the menu and manually create the shortcut without the step-by-step instructions. Also, when launching the PWA, you will not see the splash page like on the Android devices.
Magento PWA demo on iOS device
Apart from it, Magento 2 Progressive Web App might not be compatible with some old iOS devices. It only supports devices with the iOS version from 11.3 and above.
Back to several years ago, when PWA was just introduced, it even didn’t work at all on the iOS devices but now it can run with core features. Hope that in the near future, this technology will run with full functionality on the iOS operating system.
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Not many choices of experienced Magento PWA developers
Compared to native app development, it would be definitely more difficult to hire Magento PWA developers with reliable expertise. Up to now, there have been less than 10 Magento development companies providing Progressive Web App integration services for Magento 2.
Among those, Tigren agency stands out by offering their exclusive Magento 2 PWA Theme that can convert your site to PWA with minimum time and effort. It includes a well-designed PWA storefront (can be customized) and a base API (covering all Magento default features). Although you can some similar themes from other providers, none of them can deliver a more comprehensive PWA version like Tigren’s.
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Take time to educate users
Undoubtedly, Magento 2 PWA is a highly concerned topic in the Magento community but it might still be a strange concept for the end users. Sometimes, the customers are invited to add the PWA to their home screen or enable push notification but they deny due to the lack of PWA understanding.
As a result, Magento store owners should also prepare for that by introducing about the new technology before its official launch and let the buyers know various benefits when using PWA. Gradually, everyone will be familiar with Progressive Web App and might change their habit from downloading native apps to more convenient web apps.
All Things Considered, Should We Implement Magento 2 Progressive Web App?
As you can see, there are five major shortcomings of Magento Progressive Web App. Nonetheless, the benefits that this technology can bring about far outweigh those downsides. Moreover, PWAs haven’t reached its peak of development, many experts believe all of the existing issues will be tackled sooner or later. If you are a Magento store owner, it’s time to bring your site to the next level, with the help of PWA.
Do you want to provide reliable, fast and engaging mobile experiences for your customers?
