Why Consumers Don’t Utilize Wishlists?

By Ed Jette in wish Posted June 3, 2019 Tags

Wishlists are becoming an important part of eCommerce as they allow you to save desired products that you may not want to purchase at a particular time.  Wishlists are used to signify interest in a product but you have no intent on buying that product at that time. How often do you actually go back into a particular wishlist for a specific site and purchase those products you saved? If you’re anything like me, never. This is because if we really want something we usually go right ahead and buy it because you don’t want to risk the product going out of stock.  So, what problem are current wish lists really solving? Wishlists have become a way for retailers to gather data on specific products to determine the amount of interest a consumer is showing in those products.  But as a consumer wish lists are often forgotten about and left behind to collect dust.  Why is that? Personally, the issue I often run into is that these wish lists aren’t easy to share and sharing them with family and friends is a little awkward. Sending a wishlist directly adds pressure to the recipient to buy gifts that may be out of their price range and you assume they will all buy something different from the wishlist.  What happens when everyone you share the list with buys the same gift?  How do you know if someone has already purchased a particular gift?  With the current wish lists on the market, these two issues are almost impossible to avoid.  This makes wish lists almost useless to consumers.  It is time for someone to create a universal wishlist to connect with close friends and family to share gift ideas.