The Flipkart Lite mobile website has been launched in India, bearing a strong resemblance to the e-commerce company’s native app. The page is designed to work with spotty networks and comes with features such as push notifications. Someone at Flipkart finally realized that not everyone wants to download an application for every shopping site they want to visit!
Flipkart Lite was developed in association with Google Chrome and Opera. A Firefox version of the site is currently being worked on. It indicates a change in strategy for the company, which was contemplating going app-only. The closing down of its mobile web browser back in April further added fuel to the fire. The new offering is supposed to be aimed at people who don’t want to install the app.
Reasons to not download the application may vary from lack of storage space to connectivity problems. According to Peeyush Ranjan, head of engineering at Flipkart, a majority of websites compel users to get the app version of the page but only 4% of individuals actually do so. The firm therefore sought to provide an app-like experience within a mobile browser.
Flipkart spent 3 months on the endeavor with Chrome. The website can be installed on a person’s home-screen and does not require any dedicated memory space. As per the Times of India, it apparently consumes less data and renders pages at 60 frames per second to guarantee smooth browsing and animations.
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Ranjan explains that Flipkart Lite additionally requires access to a smartphone’s hardware in order to enable features like image search and offline browsing. However, the site’s messaging tool Ping will not be available. He further claims 70% of Flipkart’s traffic comes via handsets, so a hybrid webapp experience makes sense for the brand.