Why PWAs & Headless Commerce are the Future of Mobile Commerce with Salesforce

Well, PWAs bridge the gap between mobile websites and native apps. They offer an app-like user experience with features like push notifications and home screen shortcuts, allowing users to receive updates and access the platform in a single tap. But unlike native apps, PWAs don’t require long and heavy downloads from app stores. This eliminates friction associated with app discovery, download time, and phone storage limitations. They are automatically updated in the background, ensuring users always have access to the latest features & information.

As for Headless commerce, it’s an e-commerce architecture that separates a store’s frontend from its backend, allowing for more flexibility in design and easier integration with other systems and technology. Unlike a traditional architecture, headless commerce takes on a modular approach. The storefront is built separately from Salesforce’s backend functionalities, enabling the introduction of PWA technology. Each platform function communicates via APIs, offering the ability to create a modern PWA experience – all while maintaining Commerce Cloud as the back-end.

PWA and headless commerce work together to create a mobile shopping experience that’s truly unbeatable.

• Firstly, PWAs offer an App-Like Experience. This includes push notifications and home screen shortcuts, mimicking the familiarity and convenience of a native app.
• They offer Lightning-Fast Performance. By leveraging service workers for pre-caching content, PWAs serve pages faster, cutting load time from 3.5 seconds to a mere 500 milliseconds. This is especially beneficial for customers with slow connections. Not to mention a great lighthouse score.
• PWAs also offer offline Functionality. Unlike traditional websites, they can function without an internet connection. Offline, users can browse products, add items to carts, and even initiate checkout for completion later. This caters to situations like commuting on subways or being in areas with unreliable internet access.
• With headless commerce, e-commerce sites will also benefit from Reduced Development Costs. Thanks to APIs, you can leverage a single codebase for both your PWA and web storefront. This translates to significant cost savings compared to developing and maintaining separate mobile apps for different platforms.
• Businesses will also be able to offer more personalised shopping experiences. Headless enables the integration of customer data platforms for a deeper understanding of user preferences. This in turn will allow you to deliver personalized product recommendations, targeted promotions, and really just a more relevant shopping experience for each individual customer.
• The decoupled architecture of headless commerce allows you to make independent updates to the PWA’s interface without impacting the back-end, ensuring your mobile storefront stays modern and adapts to evolving technology.

So, in short, by combining PWA and headless commerce, businesses can essentially create a high-performance mobile shopping experience that’s fast, engaging, and personalized for each customer. This translates to increased sales, higher customer satisfaction, and a mobile storefront that keeps pace with ever-evolving technology.

• Lilly Pulitzer, a popular women’s clothing retailer, increased mobile traffic by 80% and mobile revenue by 33% after implementing a PWA into their Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform.
• Major British retailer Debenhams achieved a 40% increase in mobile revenue and a 20% increase in conversions with a headless commerce approach and a React PWA.
• And French high-end audio equipment company, Devialet,increased its conversion rate by 100% and decreased its bounce rate by 25% with the Front-Commerce PWA and headless architecture.