The practice of making lists is an old one; most of us create several lists throughout the day. Be it for grocery or day to day stuff; we keep a list handy, so we dont forget what we need. Similarly, a Shopify wishlist is simply a type of list of the products the customer may buy in the future or wants to save for future reference. But as an online retailer, how do you get a customer to create these wishlists on your store? In this article, we’re sharing everything you need to know.
Wish Lists are not a new discovery, they date back to our childhood. Here’s what Jonathan Leblang of Amazon had to say about wishlists.
‘’The driving force behind the Wishlist were Kids. Since parents and relatives ask the kids to make a list of items they would want for their birthdays or any festival. Thus the things that were bought off the list could be crossed off, and there will be no duplication of gifts.’’

Any avid online shopper would agree that their favourite pass time while window shopping online is adding items to an eCommerce site
But who do you enable a shopper to create these wishlists on your Shopify store?
When it comes to offering the ability to wishlist items to a shopper, all you need is a Shopify Wishlist App like Flits. Are a few premium apps that give merchants the option of adding a Shopify wishlist plugin on their Shopify store.
But before we dive into understanding the customer’s intent through Shopify wishlists, we need to realize the primary advantages of Wishlists.
We will read about Shopify Wishlist Apps, benefits of adding wishlists, how wishlists can help increase sales and how to add Shopify wishlists to your store in minutes.
Advantages of having a Shopify wishlist feature on your store
Below are some common and most important advantages of wishlists :
1. Shopify wishlists secure your future sales
We have all been there where we wanted to buy something, but we were not sure if we need it right away, or it was too costly, so we wanted to save up a bit to be able to afford it. In the absence of a wishlist on your Shopify store, most of the customers would probably move on to another store to look for the product or an alternative. But if a Shopify wishlist is provided, customers can add them to it with a click of a button to buy it later.
2. Reduces cart abandonment
When an item is added to the Wishlist, the chances that the customer will buy it soon increase exponentially. This is because you know that the customer is genuinely interested in the product they saved. So their purchase intent is much higher than anyone who simply visits your store.
Whereas the absence of a wishlist would mean the store has lost the possibility of securing a future sale of the product. You wouldn’t be able to capture the shopper’s purchase intent while they were about to abandon the cart. So how would you even bring them back?
Reducing cart abandonment means wishlists eventually help in increasing sales.
3. Secures sales for out of stock products
If a product is out of stock, merchants can show a popup asking the customers to add the product to their wishlist instead. Once customers add the product in the Wishlist, they can be sent a personalized email when the product is back in stock. So you can re-capture the shopper’s purchase intent and turn it into a sale.
4. Shopify wishlists help you automate better
It is almost impossible for a merchant to notify every customer that the products they like are back in stock or are now on discount, especially if the number of customers and products is high. With wishlists, customers themselves can opt to be notified on email or any other channel. This helps you set up smart automations like ads, email campaigns, SMS campaigns and more to keep their purchase intent high.
5. Shareable Shopify wishlists can get you more customers
If merchants give the option of creating a shareable Wishlist, people who like the products in the wishlist are bound to check it out. Shareable Wishlist not only attracts traffic, but merchants can acquire new customers who are interested in the products sold on their store.
6. Makes the online store mobile-friendly
When people browse stores online, they generally check out a lot of products in one go. Lots of products mean lots of choices and a need to revisit them before making a purchase decision. Giving them the option of a Shopify wishlist feature helps them bookmarking the products to compare later on.
How does a Wishlist feature capture a customer’s purchase intent?
When it comes to Shopify wishlists, a merchant may think that a wishlist of one or two customers is a particular requirement, and they cannot focus their sales strategy based on this.
But once merchants take into account the data of all the customer’s Wishlist, it can help them compartmentalize their marketing strategy based on what the customer really wants to purchase. Here’s how:
1.Identify demand/sales trends
Once a store owner pools in all the available data from wishlists, they can figure out what kind of products are customers more likely to buy in future. Do they like new products more or traditional? Are they wishlisting products for an upcoming festival? What is the common demand of majority customers? With this data, you can plan your inventory better and also strategize your marketing campaigns smartly to play on the purchase intent.
2.Identify the reasons behind items most wishlisted
Many times customers add an item to the Wishlist hoping for a price drop or the shirt they wanted to purchase in a particular colour or size is out of stock, or they are waiting for a specific festival. You can send customers a follow-up email asking them for a reason why they wishlisted that item and act accordingly.
3.Test waters before launching a new product
If merchants are planning to launch a product but are unsure if it goes well with customers, wishlists feature can be a significant game-changer. You can display a popup asking customers to add the product to Wishlist if they would like to buy an upcoming product.
Give them an incentive for adding the product, like 10% off or 20 Dollar credits for purchasing the product when the product is out for sale. This will help store owners in finding out how many customers will be willing to buy the product once it is in the market. This is very much like a Kickstarter campaign, but instead of pledging money, merchants will be pledging the products to Wishlist
4. Identify opportunities and improve marketing campaign response
The very fact that a product is wishlisted increases the chances of a follow-up email being opened and responded to. If merchants run a sales campaign on the items wishlisted, it is much easier to calculate the effectiveness and formulate future campaigns based on similar products.
5. Find opportunities to celebrate with customers
Ever heard of how proactively online shoppers create wish lists on Amazon? Be it for themselves, for their own birthday, a friend or for a family, they have a lot of items saved for purchases that may come up in the near future.
Use this Shopify wishlists data to identify what exactly are these shoppers saving items for. Tie it with the information they have provided in their customer account profile, and find ways to celebrate with them.
For instance, who wouldn’t love an additional 10% off on the wishlisted items on their birthday?
Why do merchants need wishlist data?
A fundamental question might arise in the mind of merchants that what exactly can they do with the data they get from wishlists.
Many times merchants have approached FLITS support team for wishlist data. Flits provides wishlist data in the form of an xls sheet. The sheet gives them a detailed list of all the customers that have wishlisted products on a Shopify store along with product IDs.
Through this, merchants can scan the most number of wishlisted products that can help in streamlining their sales campaign and also in planning their inventory better.
Flits wishlist plugin features
When it comes to wishlist feature apps on Shopify apart from Wishlist plus and Growave, Flits is one of the leading Shopify wishlist app.
Flits also provides Customer account page features, Store Credit, Social Login etc. With Flits, merchants can convert a shopper’s intent into sales and at the same time implement other engagement and loyalty strategies to nudge the shopper towards making a purchase.
Flits wishlist comes with a variety of features that helps the merchant customize the wishlist feature button to give their customer a better experience. Following are the main features that we provide:
- Flits is a Shopify Wishlist button that is 100% customizable. Merchants can request a change in design, colour, font and icon of the wishlist button. Merchants can customize the feature according to their theme.
- Products can be wishlisted from both the Collection page and Product page.
- Merchants can see the top wishlisted products, and they can also check individual customer’s wishlisted items in personal profiles of the customers.
- Customers can see the wishlisted items on their account page. They can also add the items to the cart directly from the same page.
- There is no limit to the number of products that can be added to the Wishlist.
- You can also see the number of times an item has been wishlisted
How to add wishlist in Shopify with Flits
- Search for any Wishlist App merchants prefer to add For Example ‘Flits’ in Shopify App Store.
2. Install the app.
3.If you have selected Flits, go to the Billing page in Flits admin.
4.Select the plan according to your customer base.
5.Scroll down and select Wishlist under ‘Paid Add Ons’.
6.Confirm your plan.
Once the wishlist is enabled, you get access to what the customers are saving on your store.
Merchants can check the top wishlisted product from the ‘Admin’ itself by clicking on “Wishlisted products” from the menu.
Merchants can also check individual wishlisted items by clicking on “customers >>” View Profile”>>scroll down the profile to check wishlisted products.
Customers can see the option of Wishlist on the product page
Customers can also see the products they have wishlisted from their account page
Does your Shopify store need the wishlist feature?
Wishlists are a must-have for any e-commerce business. Skipping out on adding the wishlist feature to your Shopify store would be a big mistake – especially considering how it gives you a chance to understand your customers better.
In a market where the competition is increasing by the day, we think the answer to this question is – YES, you do need the wishlist feature on your store!
Ready to add Shopify wishlists to your store? Install the Flits app today.
Want to know more about how Shopify wishlists work? Contact us for a demo.