It’s hard to keep track of all the products you’re interested in when window-shopping in a brick and mortar store. Online shopping simplifies this with the wishlist.

What does a wishlist do?

It allows customers to keep track of products they want but haven’t made a final purchase decision on yet. Wishlists are also used to store products that customers want but cannot afford to buy at the moment.

A wishlist also helps you protect your customers from sticker shock and subsequent checkout abandonments. When a store lacks a wishlist feature, customers tend to use the cart as a holding area for products they are interested in but still not completely sold on the idea of buying them.

Over time these products can add up and create a problem when the customer actually wants to check out for real.

The cart total is bound to stun the customer and while unwanted items can be removed from the cart, that process can take a long time if those products are numerous which isn’t ideal for a good user experience.

Remove the account wall

A majority of sites require users to create an account in order to to add items to a wishlist which might not be ideal for guests who aren’t completely sold on the idea of being your customers. Allow them to look around and feel comfortable. They’ll create an account in their own time. Besides, it costs you nothing other than some negligible bandwidth.

Keep wishlists private

That said, the main purpose of a wishlist is perceived by users to be for sharing gift ideas with others, and they see this as greedy or inappropriate. So naming it “Saved Items”, “Favorites”, or “My List” might be better. Also, keep the wishlists of all your users private unless they choose to share it with friends.