Until recently, the most popular method was to offer a separate website and app for mobile devices. This is because mobile apps have unified interfaces, offline modes, faster reaction times, and push notifications, features that users and business owners want. This trend is also relevant to online shops because e-commerce supports experiences on smartphones, tablets, and desktop through native device interactions.
But, according to recent studies, most people install only a few apps that they'll use. There are different reasons for this, including long app loading time, the constant need for internet access, and finding and installing apps from Google Play or the App Store takes time and phone space. Sometimes the functionality of mobile apps is so similar to what you'd see on a website, that people ignore installing the mobile app altogether.
It's clear that E-commerce shop owners can't fully rely on native mobile apps alone, in this case, consider looking into web apps. We'll describe a couple of the most popular options below.
What is a Single Page Application? A SPA is an application or website that is loaded once and doesn't reload at any point after that, in the process. During the first load, it only requires code (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS).
After this, the user can interact with the page, and any other features will be dynamically loaded and added to the page, as necessary, with user interaction.
The most popular frameworks for SPA app development are:
- Angular
- React
- Vue.js
- Ember
The above frameworks create SPA-class apps in several weeks or months, it depends on the complexity of the project.
PWA (Progressive Web App) is a web app launched like a regular website, via any modern web browser, and after the homepage is loaded, it asks you to add the app to the home screen.