Vue Storefront is the future of global e-Commerce. It’s also a great place to grow and develop a career. We’re going to take a look at the solution, some of the integrations, and the people behind the success of what is now the world’s fastest-growing eCommerce frontend project, with nearly 7,000 stars on GitHub and a Slack developers community that had hit 3,000 members and is still increasing.
In this article:
- The story of Vue Storefront’s dynamic growth and some of the key team members
- How mobile-first commerce now is driving the need for PWA solutions
- The COVID-19 crisis has changed the way we shop forever
- Why Vue Storefront is a place to build your eCommerce or to build your career
Behind every great product, stand great people. I already told you the story of Filip Rakowski and his technical work with Vue Storefront, but the person largely responsible for growth in VSF is Patrick Friday. He joined Divante and Vue Storefront in mid-2018 after time spent previously in the development of businesses and applications, working with companies that based their model on native mobile apps.
Patrick could see the huge potential of PWA (Progressive Web Apps) technology but could not develop his career in this direction in his previous company. Once he saw Divante and their Vue Storefront proof of concept, it was a breakthrough moment which, in time, resulted in a huge career step forward.
Today, as CEO and co-founder, Patryk cooperates with Krzysztof Podeszwa, who has been in Divante for five years as B2B and B2C eCommerce Consultant. During that time, Krzysztof has dealt with many implementations in Divante covering complicated eCommerce implementations, custom solutions, and the painful process of introducing PIMs platforms across entire organizations. With time, he noticed that one of the biggest issues in eCommerce is the frontend, and that the future is strongly connected with the mobile-first approach. He realized that Vue Storefront might be the answer to market needs and had an impact on the development of its core features.
Tracking the Asian markets is one of his hobbies, as he believes that US dominance on the Internet is currently waning in favor of the Asian global powers. Mobile is one of the key differentiators. He saw that, in a few years, the real boom on PWA would begin, making this technology a standard. The demand for such services is already growing. With his extended knowledge from previous eCommerce projects, he provided real support for Patrick and for the Vue Storefront project. They formed a strong sales team and were able to start really pushing the boundaries.
As a result, global brands like Marc O’Polo, Tally Weijl, and Lampenwelt have decided to base their eCommerce on Vue Storefront. VSF is growing very fast but this is just the beginning.
Vue Storefront is the open-source frontend for any eCommerce
Built with a PWA and headless approach, using a modern JS stack, Vue Storefront provides shopping experiences like native apps and boosts site performance and customization possibilities. VSF is the fastest-growing frontend project in the world, supported by an active community of open-source enthusiasts. It works straight out of the box and connects to any backend.
There are integrations with Magento, commercetools, and Shopware, and total coverage is just a matter of time. The API approach also allows you to merge VSF with any third-party tool like CMS, payment gateways, or analytics. With no license and vendor lock-in, the sky is the limit: build what you like and you’ll always own your site. Vue Storefront turns months of making your eCommerce into weeks. It transforms lagging load times into fractions of a second. And clunky end-user experiences become seamless online or offline interactions with your brand.
Vue Storefront originated in Divante but it is now a standalone brand cooperating with many agencies and merchants around the world. Divante is still the leading partner for VSF and is clearly the best implementation agency as the people have the know-how and understand the topic from the inside out.
Closing the mobile gap. Vue Storefront meets the market needs
The percentage of mobile traffic over desktops has been growing for years. Most brands that want to sell online—especially in beauty, fashion, and fitness—already have more than 70 or even 80 percent mobile traffic. The problem is that the conversion on mobile is, on average, half as low as on the desktop. Therefore, if the number of site visitors is stable, but the breakdown of the devices they use is skewed towards mobile, then income will be lower. The challenge is to change the paradigm in which people browse on mobile devices but still buy on desktop.
For brands, this is a growing problem. PWA technology and a mobile-first approach are solutions to this problem.
We want to help merchants to increase conversion to mobile by implementing PWA with a modern frontend. PWA is a responsive web on steroids. Soon PWA will be a new standard. Today, nobody can imagine a modern website that is not responsive. In two to three years, no one will imagine a website that is not written in PWA technology – Patrick Friday
Many companies are looking for a headless approach. Vue Storefront combines it with PWA.
Until now, if someone used Magento in his e-commerce, it had a backend and frontend combined with business logic behind. This meant slower growth and constant problems with performance. Each connection to third-party services was difficult and time-consuming. With Vue Storefront on Magento, we let it go smoothly. For customers like Lampenwelt and Tally Weijl, this is ‘added value’ which lets their users purchase goods on a mobile funnel more easily and faster than before. We shouldn’t forget about significant improvements in UX which have a direct impact on conversion rates and, most often, are also under discussion during the implementation phase of Vue Storefront
Krzysztof Podeszwa
Another argument was the possibility of huge savings. These companies did not have to spend huge budgets on separate iOS and Android applications. For them, PWA was the best solution. With time they can check if the investment in the native mobile app will still make sense and if it will pay off in time. This is not so obvious. At this point, PWA can offer 85-90 percent of the features that a dedicated eCommerce mobile application has. An increasing number of companies understand that there is no point in investing in the development of several channels at once instead of only one.
As you can see, Vue Storefront is the real answer to many companies’ needs.
Why is it worth joining Vue Storefront?
The technology I spoke about above is one reason to join Vue Storefront. It is a future-proof choice for eCommerce builders and for developers looking for a stable career. However, there are many more reasons.
The fastest-growing frontend project in the world
Vue Storefront is growing rapidly. Currently, it’s the fastest-growing frontend eCommerce project in the world and the number one open-source PWA for eCommerce. With over 100 implementations, Vue Storefront outgrows even the Magento PWA Studio, which is the official Magento eCommerce with only a few implementations.
Growth revenue +400% year on year
With growing popularity, comes higher revenue. Vue Storefront revenue in Q1 2020 is 400% higher than Q1 2019. Vue Storefront is currently one of the leading budget lines in Divante. Divante has implemented Pimcore for five years and Magento for eight years. VSF is only 1.5 years old, and everything indicates that it will achieve a similar result this year to those technologies. And this is just the beginning. Both eCommerce and PWA are growing fast.
Agnostic frontend
Vue Storefront is a headless, agnostic frontend. Merchants can first choose the frontend (VSF) and then link it to any backend like Magento, Pimcore or Shopware. No matter which one of these the merchant chooses, Vue Storefront will always work, which makes it a quite unique solution.
Global Brands
Marco Polo, Tally Weijl, Lights.ie, Dickies, Staples, and Kubota are just a few from the long list of big brands that chose Vue Storefront. These are all global companies with very high culture and standards. Cooperating with them enables the VSF to develop skills and helps to attract other big brands.
The COVID-19 crisis has changed commerce forever
The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed the way people shop and their buying habits. When countries first entered lockdown, there was a slight downturn as people were cautious about what comes next, but then they turned to the only available option with physical stores closed and started to buy online. The shift was significant as many people who had never tried eCommerce were forced to try online purchasing. eCommerce penetration rates in most countries doubled within a month and, as people received good service, survey results showed that a significant proportion of new eCommerce users said they would continue to buy online after the crisis passed.
Find out more about the post-crisis landscape: Read the blog post by Divante CEO, Tom Karwatka Compare how different industries will adapt and bounce back: Read the article from Tim Clayton
Vue Storefront and PWA answer the needs of modern stores
The crisis has also accelerated the development and adaptation of PWA. More and more people realize that mobile traffic is a problem. Companies are starting to think about what they can do to give the customer an even better online experience.
“When you enter a physical store and encounter a mess of scattered products, poor range, and sub-par service, you quickly get annoyed and usually leave. It’s similar in an online store. Customer experience has to be at the highest level; everything has to be arranged well or the customer will leave quickly. Customer experience is the showcase of the store. PWA can deliver it. Providing similar quality customer experience with classic methods is very expensive. Sometimes it’s even impossible.”
Patrick Friday
PWA and Vue Storefront are also strong technologies for companies which have been affected by the crisis and need to enter the online commerce world at speed to offset losses from physical store closures and activate new revenues streams. For example, the new Shopware PWA enables the launch of a new online shop in around four weeks.
“Vue Storefront is an open-source project. It is free and you do not have to pay for the license. This is a great great option for businesses, especially in a time of crisis, when they can get up and running for minimal budget and start negotiations with potential clients.”
Krzysztof Podeszwa
Vue Storefront is a great place to grow and develop career
Divante and Vue Storefront are known for the great atmosphere in the workplace, which results from the company’s unique culture. It is a place where one can develop quickly in many ways.
In our team, you get a lot of support from experienced people. If someone is not afraid to ask, has natural curiosity, knows how to listen, and wants to absorb knowledge about e-commerce and the mobile market, Vue Storefront is a great place to develop
Patrick Friday
Vue Storefront operates on the global market. Therefore, you can count on the opportunity to participate in many meetings, conferences, and workshops around the world. Traveling is an essential part of working at Vue Storefront. It gives unique opportunities to broaden interpersonal skills and build a network of contacts.
And you get to influence the future of eCommerce…
Published May 29, 2020
