PWA for Linzmarket Online Store
Launched May 11, 2020
Linzmarket.by is an online store of contact lenses and care products for them.
Developed a Progressive Web Application (PWA) for the online store.
Now with the help of the PWA users can install the online store website on their smartphone and use it as a mobile application.
How it works
The user opens the Linzmarket website on their smartphone and in 5 seconds sees a banner with the suggestion to install the application. The banner is shown to users starting from the second visit to the website.
The 5-second trigger and the visit number are parameters that we defined ourselves. On the whole, they can be different. For example, another time interval or specific action, say, transition to a specific website page.
The user agrees to downloading and the application installs on the smartphone. Besides, it happens instantly, because in contrast with a classic mobile application, a PWA is very light: it weighs no more than 50 mb. More often — less than 1 mb.
There is another cool thing: to install a PWA, Linzmarket users do not need to go to Google Play or App Store. The app is downloaded right on the website.
The online store icon appears on the smartphone’s home screen.
This is what the installation of the PWA looks like on Android. It’s quite another matter with iOS. As yet, iPhones block the appearing of a banner with the suggestion to install a PWA. That’s why iPhone users need to go to browser settings and click the «Add to Home Screen» button to install the Linzmarket app.
After installation the online store application is accessible to users by one click. A PWA opens without browser interface, though, in fact, works through the Chrome browser.
The pages, which the user has visited, are stored in browser memory. Thanks to that, consumers can use the website even with a poor internet connection or completely without it — pages from cash continue to be available.
You can also make purchases while offline. After the customer has placed an order a message appears about the user being offline. The app will save order details and send them to the store on its own, as soon as the internet is back. It means that the customer won’t need to wait for the connection to be back and won’t have to make all the steps of the ordering process again.
Thanks to the PWA the online store can send push notifications. First of all, Linzmarket uses notifications to inform customers about order status. Thus, push notifications help the shop to economise on sending sms.
Linzmarket also uses push notifications to remind their clients about the end of the period of time they can wear their lenses. Such notifications are useful not only to customers themselves, but also to the store, as they help to stimulate repetitive sales.
It’s also easy to send advertising messages with the help of push notifications. For example, to tell customers about special offers and sales. In this case, the notification will be made up of a heading, a short description and a link that leads the customer to a specific page of the online store website.
An important thing: as yet, iPhones block the sending of push notifications.
Another advantage Linzmarket got thanks to the PWA is speed. A PWA works considerably faster than a website. It happens because a lot of data is stored in cash after the fist load of the app.
Since the PWA for Linzmarket was launched not long ago, we don’t yet have information about the usefulness of the PWA to the store expressed in numbers. However, once such data is available, we’ll surely share it in the follow-up to the case.
You can learn more about features and advantages of progressive web applications here: pwa.iquadart.by.
The website is available at:
linzmarket.by