What are Push Notifications?

A push notification is a short message delivered to a device outside the storefront session, either through a browser that supports the Web Push standard or through a native app. Delivery requires an explicit permission that the operating system or the browser records, and the message reaches the notification centre even when the shop is closed. In commerce the channel carries cart reminders, price drops, restock alerts, order status updates, and campaign announcements. Payloads are limited to a title, a short body, an optional image, and a target link.

Definition

Web push relies on a service worker and a push service maintained by the browser vendor, while app push uses the platform notification services of the mobile operating systems. Reach therefore depends on browser and platform support rather than on a contact list the shop owns outright. Compared with email the channel offers immediacy and a very small payload, and it lacks the depth of a newsletter. Permission is a consent event in its own right: the prompt should be preceded by context, frequency needs a cap, transactional and promotional messages should be separable, and an unsubscribe path must stay available in the shop itself.

Why it matters

In a composable storefront the service worker that receives push events is part of the frontend deployment, so its scope, caching strategy, and update cycle belong to the same build pipeline as the storefront. Subscription tokens are forwarded to a messaging service through an API and stored against the customer profile in a CDP or marketing platform rather than in the frontend. Deep links in a notification resolve to storefront routes, which requires stable URL structures across locales. Triggers such as an abandoned cart or a restock event are emitted by backend services, keeping message logic out of the rendering layer.

Use cases

A browsing session that ends without a purchase can be followed by a cart reminder within a defined window. Product detail pages collect subscriptions for price drop alerts on watched items. Restock alerts turn an out-of-stock page into a retained contact. Order updates cover dispatch, delivery, and returns and usually perform best as transactional messages without promotional content. Campaign pushes announce a sale window or a product drop, where timing matters more than volume. App-first retailers also use push for loyalty balances and for local store events tied to a chosen location.

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