Article

Flipkart triples time-on-site with a Progressive Web App

web.dev (Google) Free Intermediate India

Flipkart serves exactly your users, many on 2G in smaller Indian cities, and this case study shows a fast mobile web app tripling time on site versus their old mobile experience. It is proof that a light web page can win in low bandwidth conditions where a heavy native app struggles. Useful data to counter the reflex that real products need an app.

  • 63% of users arrived over 2G, so speed mattered most
  • The fast web app tripled time on site
  • Add to home screen gave app like access with no install
Open on web.dev ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I design for users in India who are on cheap Android phones and slow, patchy internet?
  2. Should my MVP be a mobile app or a web app? My users are mostly on phones in smaller Indian cities.

Read with it

  1. This is Google's own field research on building for people coming online in markets like India, and it names the exact... Google Design Article · ~12 min read Connectivity, Culture, and Credit: Designing for the Next Billion Users Google Design (Next Billion Users team)
  2. A first hand engineering account of why Flipkart, an app first Indian company, rebuilt the mobile web to reach users on weak... Medium (Progressive Web Apps) Article Building Flipkart Lite: A Progressive Web App Aditya Punjani
  3. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  4. The book that gave the world 'MVP', 'build-measure-learn', and 'validated learning'. It reframes a startup as a series of... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries
  5. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  6. 200+ candid conversations with Indian founders and investors on how they actually found their idea, spotted a trend, and... Apple Podcasts Podcast · podcast series (45-90 min episodes) The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) Siddhartha Ahluwalia
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →