Why You Should Set Up Wishlists on Your eCommerce Store

Many online stores include a wishlist function. This feature allows customers to add products to customized lists to consider buying later. At first glance, lists seem like a “fluff” feature, something to make your ecommerce website seem more official and well thought out. However, they actually serve a deeper purpose that many store owners don’t realize. Here’s why you should set up wishlists on your website, and some best practices to follow:

• Build customer profiles
• Increase engagement
• Drive traffic
• Make sales more powerful
• Reduce the hassle of running out of stock
• Capitalize on the holiday season
• Wishlist best practices

Build Customer Profiles

The items your customers add to their wishlist can tell you a lot about them, both individually and as a whole. At the individual level, you can use wishlists to put customers into groups with similar interests. For example, if you run a bookstore, customers who regularly add fantasy novels to their wishlist can be grouped together. This is useful for creating future marketing campaigns for specific audiences. In terms of your audience as a whole, you can use lists to identify storewide trends. For example, if one item is often added to lists but rarely purchased, why do customers stop short of buying it? Putting that item on sale might be the solution, which is info you gathered from offering a wishlist function on your online store.

Set Up Wishlists to Increase Engagement

A wishlist function is great for businesses to understand their audiences. But they’re also great for customers and, as such, can drive engagement. For example, lists often function as reminders of things to buy down the road. Knowing an online store has this feature makes it easier for customers to shop with a business because they know they won’t forget what it is they were going to buy. In general, users must create an account in order to build a list. This opens up the opportunity to communicate with them in future in the form of emails or direct mail.

Drive Traffic

Most store owners think traffic is driven by their active efforts, such as marketing campaigns. But did you know that passive features like wishlists can also drive traffic? That’s just one of the reasons to set up wishlists on your online store. They help increase traffic in two ways: first, having lists to come back to can turn a one-time shopper into a return visitor. Second, if you make your lists shareable, they can help drive social traffic, from the friends and families of your shoppers who see something they like on a list.

Make Sales More Powerful

You can actually make your sales more effective and powerful, if you set up wishlists on your website. Normally, when you launch a sale, you pick a product that you believe will be successful. But, your prediction may be wrong, resulting in a less successful sale than expected. However, by having lists, you get a direct look into your customers’ interests. You can use lists to send them sales for products actually on their wishlist, which is more likely to result in a purchase.

Reduce the Hassle of Running Out of Stock

Sometimes stores run out of a product. It happens. Unfortunately, this can be frustrating for customers who came to you specifically to buy the out of stock product. Wishlists can help reduce the frustration. By encouraging your customers to add the product to their list, you can then send them a notification when the product is back in stock.

Capitalize on the Holiday Season

Wishlists are one of the best features your web store can have when the holiday season rolls around. Customers can create and share their lists with loved ones, who can then purchase items from the lists as gifts. Your customers will be happy because they’re getting exactly what they want for the holiday. And you’ll be happy because you’ve made a ton of sales all from one simple feature.

Wishlist Best Practices

Setting up a basic wishlist function is usually fairly straightforward. However, there are a few things that can make the feature even more effective for your business. Try the following:

• Name Lists: Allow your customers to create and name multiple lists. This helps them sort through products based on their different interests and makes it easier for you to understand who your customers are. Something as simple as what they name their lists can give you a wealth of information.
• Include Share Buttons: Wishlists are a great method of getting customers to come back to your store later. By adding a share button, lists can also bring more customers to your store, by allowing your existing customers to interest new ones.
• Be Mobile Friendly: Every year, the number of people who shop on mobile devices (like smartphones and tablets) increases. Make sure your wishlist function works just as well on these devices as it does on a regular computer.
• Plan Marketing: Because users have to make an account to create a wishlist, use this to market to them. Create discount codes and sales for the products in their lists, to help convince them to make a purchase they’re already considering.

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