PWA benefits are compelling: mobile, fast, good looking, light. As the user persona of web and mobile products is gradually changing and becoming more demanding, the PWA comes in place.
No matter the business industry, these remain some of the most valuable for the mobile/web user:
- Minimum Time Consumption. The user does not want to wait till the website loads or starts performing requested actions. The app has 3 to 5 seconds to convince the user to stay in. - Efficiency. The user expects an easy and intuitive web and mobile flow. Frictionless UX and seamless UI are integral, when competing for user loyalty. - Reliability. The web/mobile user expects stable performance. For instance, poor internet connection should not ideally interfere the browsing experience.
Using PWA will help you meet these requirements.
Several industries have already tested the PWA when building their web/mobile solutions. Let’s see what businesses already benefit from PWA.
Retail & eCommerce
PWA has gained so far most of its popularity in the sphere of Retail and eCommerce. Several famous eCommerce websites, like AliExpress and Alibaba, have considerably increased their traffic and conversions after the launch of PWA. Other great examples of PWA application in Retail and eCommerce are:
Flipkart – India’s top online store Lancôme – luxury cosmetics store OpenSooq – largest marketplace in the MENA region PetLove – a major online petshop in Brasil WestElm – furniture and houseware retail store Garbarina – Argentina’s electronics store OLX – global online marketplace 5miles – mobile marketplace app Konga – Nigerian eCommerce Walmart Grocery – grocery shopping George – UK clothing store
Why PWA is a great fit for Retail and eCommerce:
- PWA enables wider customer reach. Whatever the device (older or newer), desktop or mobile, with strong or poor connection – PWA can handle those. - PWA empowers your SEO efforts. Some of the top rules to be SEO-friendly are responsive design (good looking website on any device) and high page load speed. The nature of PWA is excellent in providing both. Another important factor is that even though the mobile web app opens in the browser many users navigate it and perceive it as a mobile app. The Google crawlers have access to the content of the mobile web app (unlike with the mobile apps), and consequently raise the SEO score of the website. The app then becomes more searchable on the Internet. - PWA enhances user acquisition and engagement. PWA, unlike conventional mobile apps, does not require downloading the app and registering before the user gets to see the actual app. The less the steps it takes to sneak in, the bigger the chances of higher conversion. - PWA secures higher reliability. PWA goes together with the Lighthouse (an automated tool for performance audit). The Lighthouse report shows the performance issues and even suggests ways to fix them. It obviously helps to spot and resolve any weak points, and thus offer a stable user experience.
No surprise that the eCommerce and Retail business now tend to opt for PWA. The benefits of PWA are crucial for their industry specifics.
Travel
Travel industry has experience with multiple and various software solutions to run the business and serve the traveler. PWA rather makes sense for the tourist side of the business. Many travel-related service providers have already tried and took advantage of migrating to PWA.
Trivago – hotel and flight search service Treebo – India’s budget hotel chain Best Western River North Hotel – hotel in Chicago Grand Velas Riviera Maya – hotel in Mexico The Raphael Hotel – Kansas city boutique hotel Wego – travel search service, based in Singapore Jumia Travel – online travel agency in Africa CoolCousin – a service connecting travelers and locals MakeMyTrip – Indian online travel agency Carnvival Cruise Line Australia – leisure travel company BerlinAir – major German budget airline Tajawal – Middle East flight and hotel search service Google Maps – navigation service
How PWA helps Travel industry
- Effective user acquisition and engagement. Easy access to the PWA contents, requiring no commitment, attracts and engages users. The Travel industry players having adopted PWA experience better click through rates and smaller bounce rate. - Communication channel with the users. PWA can have push notifications, allowing for better communication with the users. Unlike with websites, where users mostly opt out of notifications, the mobile app users rather opt in. Mobile-like PWA has bigger chances to convince users to receive push notifications. This provides an excellent tool to send travelers information like flight time changes, guided tour details, important reminders etc. Besides, a PWA may contain a feedback form. The chances are bigger that the travelers will fill in this form more willingly as it is easily accessible. Timely and accurate feedback is valuable, when you want to provide high-level service. - Easy discovery on the web. SEO benefits of PWA equip travel service providers with a competitive edge over analogous conventional solutions. Higher SEO rank increases traffic and consequently conversion.
News Media
News aggregators, media and blogs have also adopted PWA to their websites. All known cases are successful. The trick here is that Google's “mobile first’ approach is fundamental for the News Media industry. The average user of news media or blog uses mobile to search for news, often on the go, and under changing internet condition.
The benefits of PWA for the News Media industry are obvious:
- Mobile accessibility. The users in their mean time will mostly use smartphones to browse their social media, check the news, weather, and other entertainment resources. PWA is excellent in terms of mobile view. - Offline mode. When the internet connection is poor, the user can still use the PWA, as the magic of Service Worker enables so.
Most popular examples of PWA use cases:
Forbes – global media company The Washington Post – major American daily newspaper Financial Times – daily newspaper The Guardian – British daily newspaper The Weather Channel – weather forecasts media MyNet – Turkish Internet portal Voot.com – Indian video on-demand platform Medium – online publishing platform
Social Media
Social media businesses have also understood the marketing potential of PWA use. Fast – reliable – engaging is how Google describes PWA. And it applies to social media as well. Social media above all strive to be engaging, and it also requires fast and reliable user experience. Even though many of us are already social media addicts there’s still room for growth.
PWA helps social media industry solve challenges, like:
- Engagement. The cases of Twitter Lite and Pinterest have shown about 60% increase in user engagement. PWAs gain this result by resolving the issue of poor connection and by consuming much less data. - Ad revenue increase. Better user engagement entails better ad clickthrough rates and hence ad revenue increases. For example, Pinterest PWA has reached 50% ad clickthrough rates. - Bounce rate. In locations, where internet is expensive and low, the PWA capability to decrease data consumption helps prevent the users from giving up. The case of Voot, India’s on-demand video platform built with PWA, shows now 19% less bounce rate.
Some of PWA use cases in the sphere of Social Media are:
Twitter Lite – microblogging and social networking service Tinder – location-based social search Pinterest – photo sharing and publishing service Instagram – photo and video sharing social network service Tumblr – microblogging and social network service Telegram – messenger
Ridesharing
PWA is excellent in the consumer-facing industries. Ridesharing businesses have also experimented and succeeded with spreading to PWA. For example, Uber and Lyft along with their native apps, have launched PWA versions. It helps them reach bigger audience, having older devices, and open up in new locations with lower cost of living. Similar case is Olacabs – India’s cab aggregator, which developed a PWA website and re-engaged the users, who previously dropped off.
Other cases of PWA in the ridesharing sphere:
Ride – multi city bike share app Tilt – a pool of shareable bikes
Food and Beverages
In search of food and drinks people use their smartphones most often. Mobile-like and lightweight PWAs are both applicable to established and emerging markets.
Some successful examples of PWAs in the Food and Beverages industry:
Ele.me – food ordering and delivery in China Starbucks – chain of coffeehouses PureFormulas – health supplements, vitamins and minerals shop Yummly – recipe service Recipe Sage – recipe keeper and manager Menu in Pictures – crowdsourced map restaurants/cafes menus and prices
Real Estate
Businesses operating in the real estate software market discovered that many users research for housing options on their mobiles. Settled, UK based residential listing service, and Housing, India’s real estate platform, increased user mobile sessions and conversions by extending their solution to PWA.
Summing up, the application of PWA in new and existing businesses is getting contagious. And no surprise, the PWA opens up a new sales channel for many businesses. PWA often supplements the already operative native apps, helping to re-engage the users. In new businesses it also makes sense to start with PWA to test the hypothesis, and later extend to native app, if necessary, to offer more premium user experience.