How to add a wishlist in WooCommerce

If you were to ask what is critical to a successful online store, over 800,000 people would tell you it’s the wishlist feature. Probably more, but at least 800,000 sellers have decided to install this feature in their WooCommerce store.

In the course of this article, we will go over why, what a wishlist is, and how you can easily install it in your WooCommerce website.

What is a wishlist?

The term “wishlist” or “wish list” refers to a feature introduced in online sales that allows customers to add products to their personal list, with the optionto purchase these products later or shae them with friends or family via social networks (it’s common for content creators to use this feature to gain support from their fans, for example).

The wishlist feature, which has quickly become one of the most popular in online stores such as Amazon, has great benefits for both customers and sellers.

For customers, it allows them to save products they are interested in for a later purchase without having to add them to the the cart and risking loss of the items when they leave the website. Sharing wishlist pages is also a great way to ensure users to get the right gift for Christmas or birthdays.

This way, it becomes a benefit for both the birthday person, who receives exactly what they want, and the gift-giver, who avoids the hassle of searching for the perfect present. Thus, the wishlist feature elevates the gifting experience beyond gift cards, removing the impersonal nature of the transaction while still guaranteeing a quality gift.

And how does the wishlist feature benefit the seller? Let’s find out.

Why a wishlist is essential for WooCommerce stores

There are many benefits associated with the wishlist feature, but we decided to simplify them and highlight the three most important ones:

• Reduces shopping cart abandonment – Shopping cart abandonment is a major problem for every online store. Forty-eight studies of shopping cart abandonment have found rates approaching 70 percent. While it is impossible to solve this problem at the root (there are so many reasons for abandonment, and some are beyond the seller’s control), it is still possible to mitigate it as much as possible by simplifying navigation and checkout, avoiding unexpected additional costs, and offering a wishlist feature to save products of interest.
• Improves customer retention and conversions – As mentioned above, this is a very popular feature among users, which translates into success for your business. Incorporating a wishlist feature on your site boosts the chances of repeat visits from both customers and guest users, leading to increased purchases and higher overall conversion rates. Additionally, you can generate discount codes for the most popular wishlist items and notify customers, encouraging them to make a purchase.
• Creates a personalized shopping experience – In today’s online sales landscape, providing a personalized experience for each user is becoming increasingly important. In an online world where interaction with salespeople is limited (compared to traditional physical stores), many customers seek eCommerce stores that listen to them and allow them to express their individuality.Features such as offers tailored to wishlist items, direct communication, and customizable wishlists are gaining popularity, enhancing the customer experience and fostering loyalty.

There are many other benefits to consider, but let’s jump into action and see how you can bring this functionality into your WooCommerce store.

Step-by-step guide to installing a Wishlist in WooCommerce

The tool we are going to use today is YITH WooCommerce Wishlist, which allows you to add a wishlist feature to your online store in just a few clicks.

The YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin is available in both a free version, which has over 800k installations on WordPress, and a premium version with advanced features. This allows you to experience its quality firsthand before making an investment.

To make the most of the wishlist feature, we will use the premium version in this guide.

Overview of the plugin

Once you have installed and activated the plugin, all you need to do is go to the WordPress side menu and click on YITH > Wishlist. The page that will open is the dashboard, which contains very important information for your store:

As you can see, in the dashboard you can see all the wishlists currently created on the site. Not only that, but the second tab in this section, “Populars”, shows all the products that appear most frequently in the various user lists:

It is not hard to imagine the many applications this information can have, since it tells you directly which products customers are most interested in.

Create a promotion

For example, you can create a promotion for your most popular product by creating a special discount code and sending it directly to all users. To do this, go to the Marketing > Promo Codes section of WooCommerce and create the discount code that will be offered to your customers:

Of course, you will need to set the coupon so that it can only be used with the product you have decided to promote.

Once this is done, you can move on to creating a promotion for the item on your Wish List. Go back to the Populars page and move your mouse to the right of the product you want to promote:

Clicking on “Create a Promotion” will take you to the Promotion Email Customization page, where you can customize the content using numerous placeholders, and where you can decide which coupon to attach to the email at the bottom:

Plugin settings

The YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin also offers numerous options to customize its behavior and appearance. If you go to the Settings tab, you will find four subcategories: General, Add to List, Wishlist Page and Request Quote.

Let’s take a quick look at what each one contains, starting with General:

In this section, you can decide which users you want to make the Wish List option available to, what messages you want to display, and what style you want the tooltip to appear in.

Next is the “Add to List” option:

Here you can decide how the plugin behaves as a result of the player’s actions, specifically what happens when the “Add to List” button is clicked on the shopping cart, how the navigation is conditioned after being added, and if and when a link to the wish list is displayed.

The third tab is “Wishlist Page”:

Here you can set up the page that will host each user’s wishlist, choosing the type of list display and what details about the list (such as creation date, downloadable pdf, number of products, and more) will be displayed within it.

Finally, we have the tab dedicated to quote requests:

This is an advanced feature that you can request. By activating it, your customers will be able to fill in a form and request a quote for the products they have on their wishlist. In this way, you will be able to offer customized pricing and increase multiple product purchases by creating a dedicated package.

Wishlist Appearance

Once the plugin is fully configured, this is how it will appear to customers. They will find a new button to add products to their wishlist:

When they click the button, they can choose which list they want to add the product to, or if they want to create a new one:

And then they will find the added products in their own lists:

The operation of the plugin is really very simple and intuitive, and within minutes you can have this feature active on your online store built with WooCommerce.

How to manage wishlists to increase conversions

As we suggested earlier, the Wishlist is a feature that holds great potential for increasing conversions and sales. We summarize the most common practices for getting great results with this tool:

• Email reminders for wishlist items – Even without offering discounts, simply reminding customers that a product is on the wishlist can help increase sales, especially if the reminder comes after a stock restocking in the warehouse, thus providing customer service.
• Offer discounts on products in the wishlist – The plugin itself offers this feature, as it is one of the most popular in stores that use the wishlist. In fact, many shoppers add products to a wishlist in the hopes of getting a discount on them later. Even services such as Steam, the largest video game distribution system, routinely notify customers when products on their wishlist are the subject of an offer.
• Analyze wishlist data to improve targeted marketing – As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the wishlist gives you a lot of important information to determine the popularity of your store’s products. If several wishlists share the same item, you can see not only that it is in demand, but also that there is a barrier to purchase, and a small tweak (such as a special offer) can bring you numerous sales in no time.

Of course, there are many other ways to use this tool, all you have to do is experiment and find the ideal solution for you!

Conclusion

Wishlists are an extremely important tool for getting to know your customers better, increasing customer loyalty by offering a personalized experience, increasing conversions and reducing cart abandonment rates, one of the biggest threats to the success of your online store.

Try YITH WooCommerce Wishlist today and take your WooCommerce store to the next level.