What comes to your mind when you hear the term "wish list"? Applying this feature is exactly what it sounds like: a list of things you would like to have. As an online store owner, would you like your customers to be able to save products to their wishlist so they can review or buy them later? Would you like your customers to be able to share their wish list with friends and family for gift giving?

Offering your customers a wish list feature as part of their shopping cart is a great way to build loyalty to your store website. Having a wish list feature on the store website allows online businesses to interact with their customers in a smart way as it allows shoppers to create a list of their wants and preferences for future purchases.

Does every ecommerce store need a wish list? The answer to this question most often is yes, for the following reasons:

Understand your customers' needs - A wish list is a great way to see what your customer has in mind. Try to think of purchase history as a small part of the customer's preferences. But a wish list is like a wide open door that can give any online business a lot of valuable information about their customers and what they like or desire.

Shoppers love to share their wish list with friends and family - Providing a way for your customers to email their wish list to their friends and family is a fun way to make online shopping fun for shoppers. It is always a good idea to make the wish list sharable with a unique link so that it can be easily shared via different channels like email or on social media sites.

A wish list can be a great marketing tool – Another way to look at the wish list is a great marketing tool because it is highly targeted and recipients are always motivated to use it. For example: when your younger brother tells you that his wish list is on a particular e-commerce store. What is the first thing you will do? You are more likely to visit an e-commerce store, check out a wish list and end up buying something for your younger brother.

So how is a wish list a marketing tool? The reason is very simple, it introduces your online store to new customers just how it is explained in the above example.

Encourage customers to return to the store website – Having a wish list feature on a store website can increase return traffic as it encourages customers to come back and buy later. Allowing customers to save a wishlist in their online accounts gives them a reason to return to the store site and log into the account at any time to view or edit wishlist items.

Wish list can be used as gifts for different occasions like weddings or birthdays. So, what kind of benefits does a gift giver get from a wish list?

• It gives them a guarantee that they didn't buy the wrong gift
• Ensures that the recipient will love the gift
• It avoids any embarrassing moments when the recipient unscrews the gift wrap, and as the gift giver, you've got something the recipient doesn't want

A wish list is a great feature to have on a store website - so, what kind of benefits does a business owner get from a wish list

• It is a great way to advertise an online store as many people prefer to shop as their friends or family shop online
• Allows existing customers to return to the store location and open doors for new customers
• Allows store administrators to keep track of what's on customers' wish list and run promotions accordingly to target specific customer segments

nopCommerce offers a wish list feature that allows customers to create a list of products that they want to buy or plan to buy in the future.