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. I the sent these lists to the girls relatives so that they would have a selection of gift ideas, without worrying about choosing something that would be appropriate for them. Wish lists have become a powerful marketing tool because they can be emailed to other people. Recipients of such lists can typically browse items from the list on the Web and select a gift they would like to purchase. By sending a wish list to friends and family, new potential customers are brought to the retailer s website.