Customer Retention Tools: 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. eRetailers are increasing retention using a variety of techniques, such as frequent shopper programs, newsletters, ezines, online community pages, online chat and message boards, personalized email marketing, personalized product recommendations and wish lists. 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. Some lists now include the ability to add items from any site on the Internet! 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. Both gift giver and receiver benefit; the gift giver knows that the gift selected is something the recipient will enjoy. By sending a wish list to friends and family, new potential customers are brought to the retailer’s website. In this way, wish lists are both a retention tool and an effective customer acquisition tool. Many retailers have established highly successful offline gift registries for weddings and special occasions. In the online economy, these registries are becoming electronic wish lists. However, as list technology improves, the balance of power may move from the store owner to the list provider. No longer are shoppers limited to maintaining a separate wish list in a specific store. Registries and wish lists can now be created that span multiple stores, making it more important for retailers to be part of an established wish list network, allowing shoppers to add items to their wish list from other merchants on the Web. Although most retailers would prefer to keep their shoppers locked into their website by making their wish list exclusive, it is likely the shoppers will have the last word. Given the choice between maintaining multiple lists for several stores, or one list for multiple stores, it’s easy to predict most shoppers will opt for the latter. The eRetailNews report on Wish Lists covers the following aspects of Wish Lists: - The benefits of offering a wish list
- What features should a good wish list offer?
- Outsourcing wish list services - a quick guide
- Wish list vendor roundup - leading vendors and some of the features they offer
- Feature comparisons - quick checklist
- How to select an wish list outsourcing partner
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