Hyva: The 3 Biggest Myths
In this article, I will describe three pieces of information regarding Hyvä that are exaggerated or simplified (resulting in miscommunication). I will also discuss the real results that can be achieved.
What are the 3 biggest myths about Hyvä?
What is Hyvä?
Myths about Hyvä
Summary
The three myths about Hyvä that prove to be false are:
These are all the myths I wanted to debunk today. If you’re interested in delving further into this topic, I encourage you to continue reading.
Before discussing the myths, let’s review what Hyvä is.
Hyvä is a type of Magento frontend that entered the market a few years ago. It is distinguished by its incredible speed, allowing for very high Google PageSpeed scores. As a result, an online store or B2B ecommerce is rated higher by search engines, especially Google, which translates into better organic results.
The site is also noticeably faster for the user, making it easier to use and speeding up placing orders or other actions on the website.
It should be emphasized that Hyvä is not a headless solution, so it’s not a PWA. It can be said that Hyvä simply replaces the old Magento frontend, known as Luma (and the templates based on Luma).
If you are considering implementing a new Magento-based B2B ecommerce or online store, Hyvä should be your first choice.
Hyvä has been on the market for some time, which has resulted in the first implementations. Along with these implementations, various case studies have emerged.
You can read about a variety of interesting effects that have been achieved after implementing Hyvä. However, it should be noted that some of these things are simply overstated. Simplifications that mislead are also often used in communication.
I must admit that at Growcode, we also overestimated our optimism in our communication about Hyvä. After many implementations, we noticed that Hyvä has its limitations, which are difficult to exceed under certain production conditions (i.e., after making the site available to the final users).
It’s often heard that thanks to Hyvä, an online store will achieve scores of 99 on the mobile version. This is true unless you don’t use Google Tag Manager.
Google Tag Manager is a tool for managing scripts on a website, which loads these scripts asynchronously. It is a CMS for scripts.
If there’s no Google Tag Manager on the site, achieving scores above 90-95 on mobile with Hyvä is possible.
Unfortunately, nearly 100% of online stores and B2B ecommerce use Google Tag Manager to add scripts. Google Tag Manager is a tool that liberates the marketing department from the IT department. You shouldn’t give up using it.
However, it’s worth remembering that the way of implementing this tool, specifically the implementation of the container code script and the data layer code, lowers scores in Google PageSpeed.
If you have Google Tag Manager implemented traditionally, you won’t reach 99 or 90 points in Google PageSpeed. A realistic expectation is a maximum score of around 80 points in Google PageSpeed (I’m writing about mobile).
A possible solution is the implementation of Google Tag Manager Server-side. This doesn’t solve the speed problem completely but allows for slightly higher results (a few points). And there’s still the question of whether Google Tag Manager implemented server-side will correctly handle all scripts.
If you expect that after implementing Hyvä, you’ll automatically achieve 99 points in Google PageSpeed on the mobile version, I must disappoint you. You’ll likely need to have Google Tag Manager implemented, which will lower your results to around 80 points.
Another myth about Hyvä is the belief that after its implementation, the conversion rate will increase by 50%, 100%, or 200%.
The problem is that if we have an old graphic design based on Luma and an identical graphic design based on Hyvä, the conversion rate increase after implementing Hyvä will only be a few to several percent. This small difference is solely due to the speed of the site.
The impact of site speed and Google PageSpeed scores on the conversion rate is often overestimated. It’s often expected that if we improve the Google PageSpeed score from 45 to 80 points, the ecommerce conversion rate will double.
This isn’t true. If the conversion rate increases by a few to several percent, that’s already a very good result. Unfortunately, there aren’t many A/B tests that would show the impact of speed on the conversion rate in ecommerce.
So, where do the case studies that suggest implementing Hyvä significantly increases the ecommerce conversion rate come from? These case studies result from the fact that along with Hyvä’s implementation, a complete redesign of the site was carried out.
If the old site had usability errors and poor sales communication, and a new, clear, and useful graphic design was created, the conversion rate could increase by 40-50%.
But this is not the result of Hyvä implementation alone, but rather the effect of a site redesign.
Therefore, if you do not undertake a custom graphic design and improve usability, Hyvä implementation alone will not increase the ecommerce conversion rate by several dozen percent.
Also, if you see in a case study effects such as “conversion rate increase by 190%”, then:
a) probably a site redesign was executed (and not limited to just changing technology)
b) someone probably measured the change in the conversion rate by looking at the average conversion rate from 3 months before implementation and compared it with 3 months after implementation, which is a methodological error—to properly examine the change in conversion rate, A/B tests should be conducted
c) perhaps the implementation of Google Analytics was changed, and therefore, the conversion rate is now measured differently
Another myth is the belief that Hyvä is such an incredibly simple frontend that even less experienced developers can quickly code in this technology, and that coding will take 10% of the time compared to implementing Luma.
For coding in Hyvä, we don’t need to hire highly experienced Magento developers, and the costs of implementing Hyvä are significantly lower. That’s true, but let’s not exaggerate. Although Hyvä is a simple frontend, a custom graphic design on Hyvä cannot be implemented in 160 hours.
Realistic assumptions are about 650-750 hours. Magento is a platform chosen mainly by medium and large online stores, as well as B2B ecommerce.
If online stores and B2B businesses opt for Magento, they do so not to implement a standard Hyvä template, which, let’s face it, isn’t the prettiest and doesn’t generate a high conversion rate or high average order value.
You don’t invest much in Magento to not create a custom graphic design. Therefore, if you decide on Magento, it’s not to have a template like everyone else but to create a custom graphic design to build a competitive advantage.
If you decide to create a custom graphic design based on Hyvä, it won’t take 160 hours of a programmer’s work. It will be about 650-750, maybe 800 hours, and sometimes much more if you want many unusual functionalities on the frontend.
In this article, I described three myths about Hyvä that are circulating on the internet.
The first one claims that Google PageSpeed scores on mobile will be around 99. That’s not true. You should expect scores of around 80 because they will be lowered by Google Tag Manager, which you are surely using.
The second myth states that Hyvä implementation increases the ecommerce conversion rate because Hyvä is fast. Hyvä is indeed fast and provides the end-user with a better feeling of speed. This results in an increase in the conversion rate, but not by 50%. Such a considerable increase in the conversion rate results from a simultaneous site redesign.
The third statement, that you can implement a custom graphic design on Hyvä in 160 hours of programmer work, is untrue. Coding in Hyvä is easier, which allows less experienced programmers to work with this technology, and coding individual functionalities takes less time than, for example, in PWA Studio. However, coding a custom graphic design on Hyvä takes about 650 to 750 hours, sometimes even more if the project contains many unusual functionalities.
If you are considering Hyvä and want to learn more about Hyvä’s implementation time, check out this article!
