This talk is about how Flipkart rethought about the web from ground up on mobile and the learnings from the journey.

1. - What it means to you?
Fall & Rise of Web and
way forward
27th April 2017 | housejoy.in

2. @nagarajuepuri
Sr Engg Mgr - UI @ Flipkart
Rewriting web story @ Flipkart

3. ➔ Year 2014, 9.6m PC vs ~60m SmartPhones sold in India
➔ By end of 2014, It was clear where India is heading
➔ India skipped PC era
➔ Mobile Traffic started growing at a fast pace
➔ Mobile web was a joke(Cloud rendering browsers)
➔ Desktop traffic started losing its share
➔ Q1 - 2015, mobile website has been killed
➔ Q4 - 2015, there were rumours of shutting down website
Fall of Web - 2014

4. ➔ Web is always a catch up game
➔ Web is at the mercy of browser vendors
➔ No real thought went into how mobile web should be
➔ Developing(no better tools) and maintaining mobile web was pain
➔ Users are not happy with mobile web either(low conversions, huge
experience gap)
Fall of Web - 2014

5. ➔ Users are spoiled with a rich experience on mobile devices
➔ Team started doing multiple POCs on improving experience on mobile web
➔ Built a Single Page Application(SPA) with rich interactions and saw a flat
10% improvement in conversion
➔ 2015-Q1, launched project called “RichViews” in native apps to bridge
experience gap between native and web screens
◆ App Shells
◆ Native API access to web
◆ Same design language/UX on web properties as native app
Rise of Web - 2014, 15

6. ➔ ServiceWorkers - FTW : First launched on April 2014
➔ From the learnings of RichViews, created mobile web POC using SW and
Richer Interactions close to what native does
➔ Internally people failed to believe it was a mobile website
➔ Partnered with Chrome team to build world’s first Progressive Web App @
Commercial Scale, FlipkartLite
➔ Constantly pushed Browser Vendors on features(Push Notifications,
WebApks, SMS, Native Share) which are relevant to countries like India
Rise of Web - 2014, 15

7. ➔ Many leaders started adopting PWAs for their mobile website.
➔ All of the Browser Vendors showed their commitment for implementing SW
➔ Web is moving at a fast pace with deep involvement from most of the
browser vendors
➔ PWAs are getting close to become first class citizens(WebAPKs, Rich
Push Notifications, Web Share API) on mobile platforms
Way forward - 2016, 17

8. ➔ There is no reason why you should not be on web
◆ 40-45% eCom traffic comes from web(differs from business to
business) and this will increase
◆ Easy adoption
◆ You can pretty much achieve similar experience on web compared to
native
◆ FlipkartLite converts close to what native app does without Push
Notifications
What it means to you?

9. ➔ Provide best possible experience to users wherever they land(App, Mobile
Web, Desktop Web). Spoil them with choice :)
◆ Users are spoiled with best experience on mobile devices. Try giving
them similar experience.
◆ We saw ~90% jump in conversion by providing FlipkartLite experience
on UCWeb(not kidding!)
◆ Try bridging experience gap as close as possible on mobile web so
users don’t need to learn new behaviours.
What it means to you?

10. ➔ Browser Vendors would like to hear from you on problems you are facing,
to provide best experience to end users. Share your inputs.
◆ They are keen to understand your problems
◆ Most of the recent browser improvements are shaped by dev
community.
◆ Good part of web is, its an open platform.
What it means to you?

11. Web is at a mercy of developers to shape it better.

12. Do not settle for average
#AverageIsOver

13. Q & A

14. Thank You