One of the most common questions clients ask a developer is, “Why use React for eCommerce?” As per the latest market statistics, there are almost 11 million online stores globally. If you have the right React eCommerce website application design knowledge, then your company can generate revenue in a good way.
Read our case study on how we helped Zinarya increase their sales by 20%.
ReactJS, created by Facebook, is a widely used UI library that aids in the development of attractive online apps with minimum effort and coding. React is a popular framework and is very useful for developing eCommerce online apps because of its features such as atomic design principles, a component-driven approach, and fast performance.
What is an Ecommerce Website Application?
It is a website that sells a wide range of goods or services. A customer can purchase a product by filling out an online form and filling in a payment. An eCommerce website application works on the principle of a web page, where there is a “root” component that is responsible for rendering the HTML content and services. A component is a specific domain, for example, the Product Component is responsible for rendering HTML. Components are responsible for assigning the HTML into the DOM and also providing interactivity to users.
An eCommerce website application consists of different components, which are defined with different attributes. For example, there might be a Shopping Cart Component, which is responsible for showing the user list of products available in a certain category.
Then there might be a Search Component, which displays a list of search results with the names of products, along with their prices. There may be other components as well, like a Product Listing, Payment Processing Component, Shipping and Receiving Component, etc, that are also responsible for showing relevant information and improving user experience.
The choice of choosing an eCommerce website application framework should be straightforward. Most developers chose to React for its lightweight, fast, and relatively easy-to-use features. React.JS provides a great framework for managing components, it provides data-binding, DOM manipulation, and rendering capabilities. Because React has proven to be a great framework for building an eCommerce website application, many developers see it as the future of eCommerce.
Choosing the right e-commerce platform for building an e-commerce website application with React
When building an e-commerce website application with React, one of the most important decisions you will need to make is choosing the right e-commerce platform. There are many different platforms available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
Here are some of the most popular e-commerce platforms that you can use with React:
Shopify
Shopify is a SaaS platform that is known for its ease of use and its wide range of features. It is a good option for businesses of all sizes, but it can be expensive for larger businesses.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that allows you to build an e-commerce store on your own WordPress website. It is a more affordable option than Shopify, but it can be more difficult to set up and manage.
Magento
Magento is an open-source platform that is known for its scalability and customization options. It is a good option for large businesses that need a lot of flexibility.
How to choose the right e-commerce platform for your business
When choosing an e-commerce platform, there are a few factors that you should consider:
Your budget
E-commerce platforms can range in price from free to thousands of dollars per month. It is important to choose a platform that fits your budget.
Your needs
Think about what features are important to you and your business. Do you need a platform that is easy to use? Do you need a platform that is scalable? Do you need a platform that is customizable?
Your technical expertise
Some e-commerce platforms are easier to set up and manage than others. If you have limited technical expertise, you may want to choose a platform that is more user-friendly.
Once you have considered these factors, you can start to narrow down your choices. It is a good idea to read reviews of different e-commerce platforms and to compare their features and pricing.
React.Js Is the Future of Ecommerce
React is widely used for building Web Applications, such as Web Browsers, native mobile apps, and websites. We can easily build an eCommerce website application using React and then extend it to create powerful and interactive eCommerce websites.
Read our case study to learn more about how we helped e-commerce app develop a successful ecommerce website application.
React ecommerce web application for mobile first
Today, businesses are predominantly relying on the web as their main mode of marketing and product delivery and billions of people across the world are mostly mobile phone users. This makes it very important for eCommerce website applications to be mobile-friendly, optimized for performance and speed. The Mobile-first approach requires seamless and clean code and React allows for the development of stunning apps without thinking about anything else.
React JS for better result
The problem is that most of the eCommerce websites are slow and unresponsive. The main reason behind slow websites is that many of the sites are too big to be displayed properly without the use of a single page. While developing the website, developers often use a complex network of view controllers that make it hard for the users to find the desired page. These view controllers get in the way of the overall website performance because they fail to have a well-defined UI design. ReactJS solves the problem with its React.js UI library, which makes web applications fast and easy to develop. The application can be developed as easily as if they were in Flash or ActionScript.
ReactJS lets developers create interactive and highly interactive user interfaces using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It also offers integration with server-side components like REST APIs, CRUD interfaces, and other supported technologies. React has helped many developers to build beautiful and smooth responsive websites.
Optimize your web app and compress CSS
Web Application code comprises several external JavaScript files, which will be a time-consuming thing to be compressed and loaded in the client browser. So, the developers try to optimize their bundle size and compress CSS so that it will consume less memory and will load faster.
If you want to have more options and flexibility to create a functional, intuitive and compelling User Interface (UI) for your web application, ReactJS can be your best choice. You can take one or more unit tests for proper coverage of your code and react components can be tested at the same time. These features combined make ReactJS a powerful and great eCommerce development framework.
Also in React, you can use Async Import to build Higher-Order Components (HOC) that import various pieces of your app only when the user requires them. This not only ensures that your pages load quickly, but also makes an application smaller in size.
IZII Inspirations Jolies is a jewelry and accessories e-commerce store that we helped to create. You can read more about the project in our case study.
Why React for Ecommerce Web Applications?
ReactJS is a very powerful and easy-to-learn library. ReactJS is so quick that it allows the developers to accomplish real-world applications with lesser efforts in code writing. The interface of the application looks beautiful, smooth, and comes with a great user experience.
In order to create a powerful ReactJS eCommerce application, you need to know that React is basically a technology that allows you to create a component-based UI. So that each UI is independent and can be updated without touching the code. The UI components can be stored in a configurable state and passed to the views as props. So, there is no need to write any code to control the flow of data from the UI to the view.
React for Progressive Web App (PWA)
In the last couple of years, the Progressive web app revolution has gained tremendous pace and popularity, many eCommerce websites are already using these frameworks and getting excellent feedback from users. According to Google, PWA gives a web app the attributes of reliability, performance, and engagement.
PWA is a web application that enables fast access to its services, without making users download a full-fledged eCommerce website application to enjoy a large set of features. PWA has a set of minimum requirements like a web browser with internet connectivity, HTTPS security, the ability to work offline and to be stable, multi-platform, and overall an experience that is identical to the one you have in the native mobile apps.
React is no exception to this rule, as it comes as a complete package for creating a PWA. Below are some of the features of a PWA that the React ecosystem gives to the developers.
A progressive web app (PWA) can be identified with the three-striped icon in a browser. Such an app functions similar to that of an app but does not include browser runtime. That means that it consumes little or no network and loads when the app-specific URL is submitted in the address bar. Progressive web apps are highly efficient mobile web apps.
So, PWA is something that can be created using all modern technologies, such as mobile web, desktop, and even local storage and data synchronization. A progressive web app gives control over the page flow to the user. If they want to go back to the app after they finish a piece of content, they simply have to click back or close the browser. Progressive web apps allow users to set permission for each page they want to open or control which content should be available on a particular page.
Why You Need SPA and PWA for your Web app
Many web app developers end up spending a lot of time trying to find solutions, and the end-users can’t navigate or use an eCommerce site without having a bad experience. The need for a seamless experience is growing and React-based SPAs and PWAs can provide it.
They work across devices and load quickly; developers should take advantage of the tools. Using React-based SPAs and PWAs will help you keep your user’s attention on your app or website by providing an experience that they can’t find anywhere else. It also offers developers a few more advantages such as easy maintenance and development.
One of the biggest concerns while developing a mobile website is performance. You need to ensure high performance and robust UI to avoid page refreshing and prolonged loading time. PWA is the answer to all these issues. It is a mobile-optimized eCommerce website application that contains all essential elements of a web application. It is available for all the platforms and doesn’t require plugins like Flash or Adobe Animate.
React.js Makes it possible to build a mobile application using just a few lines of code. React simplifies the interaction with UI elements, and adds a layer of visual appeal to the site that makes it suitable for small screens. It provides a familiar and familiar UI that can be used across devices and platforms.
PWA Engagement and Conversion Rates
In 2016, Wix was also reported to use React to build its portfolio pages. Vimeo is also one of the big players to use ReactJS to develop websites for their studio. IndiaGuru.com and one of the largest news portals in India “Cricbuzz” had also adopted ReactJS to build their portfolio page for IndiaGuru in 2016. All these and many more examples show that you can build a web app with minimal size, that is fast and beautiful.
Not only did Facebook encourage and offer all necessary tools like build tools, libraries, and tools for ReactJS developers, but even established eCommerce sites like Airbnb, Newegg, etc have implemented React as their platform of choice.
You Need a React-based SPA
React-based SPAs are powerful. They are easy to maintain and develop. React-based PWAs are also lightweight, which means that they can be loaded quickly by the end-user. And finally, they offer a seamless experience across devices.
The first step in developing an eCommerce website application PWA using React is to create a Single Page Application (SPA). A lot of visualization methods, wireframing, and so on go into architecting your Redux project. You must create UI components and set up an express API to retrieve data from a database.
Learn more about how we helped Quality Spa create a high-quality online store
React Components That Make It the Best Choice Of Framework For Building Ecommerce Website Application
React components are the building blocks for building your UI. It is used to define the look and feel of an application. React components are developed through functional components. By changing the function, the React component will be changed to provide an alternative style to its parent element.
The biggest difference in ReactJS is the render function. When you type a value in a text box, the screen contents will be rendered into a component with the help of JSX or template language. This is similar to the syntax of JavaScript. As React can easily understand the syntax, developers can easily configure React to provide a desired behavior to the components. This is important because it helps in speeding up the development time for writing apps for mobile and different platforms.
A component is the core component of an application. A component consists of data and styling components. The data and styling components share a unique render function that is called by the parent component. A single data and style component can be accessed by children components. Data and styling components communicate with each other to instantiate child components and can be used to extend the functionality of a component.
Testing and Debugging React.js Applications
Testing and debugging are critical components of building high-quality e-commerce website applications with React.js. There are several React.js testing frameworks that you can use to write unit tests for your components. Additionally, you can use Chrome DevTools to debug your React.js applications and identify and fix issues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, React.js is a powerful library that can be used to build high-quality e-commerce website applications. By following best practices and optimizing performance, you can create a seamless shopping experience for your customers.
Additionally, testing and debugging are critical components of building high-quality e-commerce website applications with React.js. We hope that this article has provided you with a comprehensive guide to building a high-quality e-commerce website application using React.
