Wish Lists and Gift Registries Customer retention is the number one focus of virtually every retailer on the Internet simply because the cost to sell to an existing customer is far lower than the cost of winning a sale from a new customer. Even as companies look to expand their customer base, they are keeping a firm eye on satisfying the needs of existing customers. The 2001-1 eRetailNews Report focuses on the use of wish lists as a customer retention tool. Wish lists encourage shoppers to return to their favorite online retail sites on a regular basis.
Wish lists are also a powerful and effective tool for viral-marketing.
Recent advances in wish list technology are allowing shoppers to save products from multiple retailers to a single wish list, making this type of wish list more valuable to the shopper. Wish list service providers are now offering shopping portals, featuring their retail client websites and making it easy for list shoppers to find merchants sharing the same list technology. Wish List Basics A wish list in its most basic form is simply an electronic shopping list of items the shopper has identified as desirable. Shoppers create lists for special events and for individual people. For example, last Christmas, I created separate lists for each of my daughters gifts.