Use Wish Lists to Bolster Online Sales

Selling products online has added significant value to retailers looking for alternative ways to add to their bottom lines. However, the same convenience that's so appealing to stay-at-home shoppers drains any sense of urgency from purchasing, leading to a “Why should I buy now when it’s so easy to get later?” mentality. Consequently, many sales are lost to indecisive buyers who don’t immediately commit, then forget about the items and never complete the transactions.

As people become more comfortable buying online, the more savvy the technologies available to them become. The newest generation of web shopping carts have introduced a range of features to internet shoppers. Wish lists, in particular, are an easy way to add to a merchant’s web store sales and can be used in a number of ways. (For three more ways to optimize your web store, click here for my July 21 article in The ROI Report.)

Wish lists offer shoppers a way to put placeholders on products they don’t want to purchase immediately but might in the future. Increasingly, consumers prefer to do their browsing separately from their purchasing, choosing to come back at a time when they may be more prepared to seriously consider purchases. While browsing, shoppers can send products to their wish lists rather than standard web carts, which they can later review when they have more time. Rather than forgetting about products that might interest them, wish lists give consumers a chance to return to them later after further consideration. What might have been a lost sale eventually becomes an order.

Wish lists also can be used as the modern version of a gift registry for special occasions, such as weddings or birthdays, where friends are sent a list of pre-chosen items from which they can purchase.

The most obvious benefit to wish lists is increased sales. Creators of wish lists express interest in products found on merchants’ web stores, encouraging their purchase by a group of targeted shoppers — and invariably increasing the purchase ratio of visitors. Wish list authors are, in fact, prequalifying buyers broadcasting calls to action that are hard to ignore: “Please buy me these things.” However, there are secondary effects to wish list shopping that create long-term benefits for online retailers.

Not only do wish lists increase sales volume, they recruit new shoppers to your web store, broadening your exposure and encouraging customer loyalty by simple virtue of the fact that a trusted source — e.g., a sister, a son, etc. — has asked his or her loved ones to purchase from your store. By inviting new shoppers, wish list authors exponentially increase merchants’ markets by providing their own incentive to bring new eyes to their web stores.

This results in not only more visitors, but also a degree of trust that's already been achieved when that visitor arrives at your web store, an unspoken testimonial that helps to reassure those who are new to online shopping. The relationship between shoppers and creators of wish lists can only serve to enhance the loyalty of the purchasing community. As these new shoppers register and create their own wish lists, the community grows and the list of emails with whom a merchant can communicate grows quickly, too.

For wish lists to be effective, they must be able to accept new items easily, in a way that doesn't interrupt customer browsing. A successful wish list is one where consumers can rapidly send the products they like using fast and intuitive keystrokes or clicks that can be integrated easily into the browsing pattern.

Whether it’s a personal reminder or an invitation to others, online wish lists create opportunities for merchants to increase buying from their web stores. Among the list of features available when choosing a web store, remember that the addition of a wish list is a simple way to make sales that might otherwise be lost.

Brad Malmberg is the training manager of Xsilva Systems, makers of a suite of retail tools tailored to the Mac platform and intended to help individual retailers and small retail chains grow and manage their businesses more effectively.