Getting Started With Vue Storefront [ Beginner Guide ]

Are you looking for a free eCommerce application that could drastically improve your online store’s user experience and SEO ranking as well? If you need a revolutionary system that is so flexible that it can comfortably run on any eCommerce backend, the Vue Storefront is the ultimate solution for you.

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If you stick to the end, I will reveal why businesses are increasingly falling in love with Progressive Web Apps (PWA).

What is Vue Storefront?

Vue Storefront is one of the biggest and most complete PWA so far. In this review, I will reveal everything you need to know about a Progressive Web Application. Moreover, I will share how Vue Storefront is connected to all that, plus of course, its accompanying eCommerce features and capabilities.

What is a Progressive Web App? (PWA)

When mobiles came first, they subsequently introduced us to mobile apps. As time progressed, applications began merging with PC and web platforms as developers continued improving the user experience to make it seamless.

A Progressive Web App offers the best in web and mobile apps. It is built on typical web technologies, with some of the latest JavaScript features acting as the seasoning. This creates a web application whose overall intuitiveness closely resembles a native iOS or Android app.

Progressive Web Apps are relevant to eCommerce because they hold user device data and downloaded files in a cache. This means that the data is availed instantaneously as soon as requests are raised from the device. Moreover, the page loading is always super-fast, even when dealing with extremely slow internet speeds.

Additionally, it is important to note that Google has been at the forefront of Progressive Web Apps. Microsoft and Mozilla have also been creating Progressive Web Apps. After testing this framework on numerous projects repeatedly, it was concluded that:

They are reliable
They are fast
They are engaging

Uber has leveraged the power of PWAs, and it was able to come up with an app that has excellent loading speeds, even on 2G. Moreover, their 50kb PWA consistently manages to load in less than 3 seconds.

Vue Storefront Review

For starters, Vue Storefront is an open-source PWA developed for eCommerce businesses. Its main objective is to help digital merchants and enterprises boost their customer experience levels.

Moreover, it does not need a specialized eCommerce platform. This is because the entire framework is built using Headless architecture. This means that you can set up your backend integration. It is a flexible application capable of integrating with any eCommerce platform to serve as a front-end.

If you are a seasoned developer, setting up a front end should not be a challenge. Nevertheless, Vue Storefront comes with multiple tutorials and comprehensive support documentation. This will help you to tweak its open-source code.

Additionally, Vue Storefront is accessible on GitHub. It has so far attracted more than 7,000 stars on the platform.

Vue Storefront Main Features

Here are some of the features it has to offer:

1. User Experience

Vue Storefront’s principle focus is trying to break the device barrier since it is a web application. This means that it can launch and run it on any device. It eliminates the challenge of developing multiple native applications for each device OS.

Additionally, Vue Storefront solves the problem of bulkiness in native apps. Developers continuously add new features to Android, iOS, and PC apps, making them bulkier. This makes updates to consume memory space on your device.

Vue Storefront takes as back to the age of Symbian apps and uses less data than native apps. Moreover, the store’s customer does not need to download anything. This means that accessing the native experience directly through web browsers is possible. Additionally, Vue Storefront allows customers in your store to shop comfortably even when their devices are offline.

There is a high chance that your site will have a huge ranking advantage if you use this framework. Moreover, Google tends to favor websites with fast loading speeds, and search engines are increasingly switching to mobile-first indexing.

2. Components

Vue Storefront has two different component types.

The Core Components are built based on the fundamental business structures of typical online stores. This saves you the trouble of creating everything from scratch. Moreover, the core components can be adopted by your site themes. However, you need to style and define the accompanying HTML markup.

The second type of component is Theme Components. They represent the front-end layout that you ultimately display on the app. You can place your specialized components within a theme, but the easiest method to apply business logic is leveraging its core components.

3. Storefront Themes

Vue Storefront continues to provide predesigned themes. However, you can create your eCommerce themes and combine them with the app’s core business logic for a complete eCommerce experience.

It is also worth mentioning that you will need HTML and CSS skills to achieve that. Alternatively, I recommend hiring a developer to handle the entire process. Moreover, you can further customize its core components if you need to.

The themes are located in the src/themes folder.

4. Ecommerce Features

Order management
Marketing promotions
Analytics and reporting
Search Engine Optimization
Checkout, payment, and shipping
Catalog management support
Customer accounts
Customer service
Catalog browsing
Product browsing

5. Vue Storefront Pricing

Vue Storefront is free, meaning that it will not cost you even a dime. However, the costs start piling up when it comes to the subsequent customization stages.

However, if you are not experienced in coding, you will be forced to hire a team of developers to integrate Vue Storefront with your eCommerce site. Moreover, they can tweak its core components and themes.

Wrapping up

There is no doubt that Vue Storefront is a revolutionary tool for improving your eCommerce site’s customer experience. If you consider this solution, the costs will be minimal, considering it is an open-source Progressive Web Application.

However, the problem is in the implementation phase. Embedding Vue Storefront with your online store is a technically complex process that requires heavy coding. You cannot manage it if you do not have coding skills.

In this post, I have highlighted the benefits of PWAs. Vue Storefront is worth the effort because of the headless architecture that makes it a flexible application. It can be embedded with any eCommerce platform backend. Using it will enhance your overall customer experience.

Editorial Staff