Retail in Saudi Arabia is mobile. Riyadh shoppers routinely check app-exclusive deals, loyalty points, and store inventory before driving to a supermarket. For this 12-store chain, their mobile presence was a liability rather than an asset: a poorly reviewed native app (2.1 stars average), 47 second load times on 4G, and a user interface that hadn't been updated since 2020. Annual maintenance costs for the native iOS and Android apps combined: SAR 280,000 (approximately ₹62 lakhs).
Why DBes Techno Recommended a PWA
After auditing the existing app and interviewing 30 regular customers, DBes Techno's recommendation was unambiguous: replace the native apps with a Progressive Web App. The reasons:
- 95% of the app's features could be implemented as a PWA with identical user experience
- Saudi users predominantly use Chrome on Android — the optimal PWA environment
- PWA development cost: 35% of native app rebuild cost
- Ongoing maintenance cost: 20% of native app maintenance cost
- PWA would appear in Google search results — the native app could not
- No 30% Apple/Google revenue cut on in-app purchases
The PWA: Key Features
- Product catalogue with barcode scanner (in-store price check)
- Digital loyalty card and points balance with QR code for in-store scanning
- Weekly deals and personalised promotions (behaviour-based)
- Home delivery ordering with live order tracking
- Push notifications for deal alerts and order updates
- Arabic + English with RTL layout support
- Offline product browsing (last viewed products cached)
- "Add to Home Screen" prompt with native-like icon and splash screen
Performance Benchmarks
- Time to interactive on 4G: 1.8 seconds (vs 47 seconds for old native app)
- Lighthouse Performance score: 94/100
- Install rate via "Add to Home Screen": 34% of first-time users
- Push notification open rate: 41% (industry average for retail apps: 22%)
Business Results
- App store rating equivalent: 4.7/5 (user surveys, first 90 days)
- Customer acquisition cost via PWA vs old native app: -40% (organic search discovery)
- Annual technology cost: SAR 63,000 (vs SAR 280,000 for native apps)
- Online orders: +145% within 6 months of PWA launch
This project validates the business case for PWAs in the Gulf retail market unambiguously. The performance, cost, and discovery advantages made it the correct technical decision by every metric.
