Shopping cart abandonment is a big problem for retailers small and large but what most brands need is a new way of thinking about this key performance indicator.
While shoppers want to receive their products quickly after purchase, they aren't always in a hurry to buy initially. With countless retailers and products to choose from, they are using the shopping cart more and more as a place to store the items they are interested in but not ready to purchase. What's more, they are even becoming wiser in the digital advertising practice of retargeting - knowing that if they abandon their carts they will be incentivized to purchase. What retailers can do to combat shopping cart abandonment (other than providing a stellar user experience) is to cater to the modern shopper by allowing them to create a wish list.
Amazon offers wish-list capabilities not only allowing the user to access this feature at any time, but also their friends and family - improving gift-giving. What's more, since multiple family members may use one Amazon Prime account, they can save their wish lists for the person most responsible for the purchases in their household.
Why would retailers want to offer a wish list? For starters, they can get a truer measure of shopping cart abandonment because they'll be able to segment the browsers (the people adding to their wish lists rather than their shopping carts) from the buyers (those who added items to their shopping carts but may have experienced friction in checkout). Additionally, retailers should consider wish-list capabilities because it allows them an extended amount of time to market to individuals interested in certain items. With shopping cart abandonment marketing, the intent to buy likely has a much shorter timeframe whereas wish lists are more ongoing so retailers, for example, could target those who have kid toys on their wish lists with a promotional email around gift-giving holidays.
How do retailers add wish lists to their sites? Most ecommerce platforms and shopping cart offerings have plugins/extensions available to provide this functionality if it's not built-in already. GoECart, for example, has a wish lists and favorites feature that stores products and makes it easy for shoppers to add to their cart/bag once ready to buy:
Magento, Shopify, WordPress and others all offer wish-list capabilities.