REMOVE WISHLIST

Wishlists can provide shoppers with a way to procrastinate on making a purchase decision. Removing the “add to wishlist” feature from the mobile checkout design will increase website sales by reducing unnecessary distractions, encouraging shoppers to focus on the “add to cart” button and complete their purchase.

*These results reflect the average findings of all participating merchants and are not guaranteed for all users.

What We Are Doing

We are removing the “add to wishlist” option from the checkout design of merchant websites in the treatment group.

Why We Are Doing It

A recent study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that shoppers are often reluctant to use wishlists as they expect them to entail a high interaction cost (e.g. registration, account set up). Despite this, wishlists are increasing in popularity and are a common feature on many eCommerce sites. The “add to wishlist” feature offers buyers a means to procrastinate on making a purchasing decision. Removing the feature may encourage shoppers to complete their transaction faster and increase website sales.

ANALYSIS OF DATA

What it Means

In the beginning, removing the wishlist feature from the checkout design delivered very positive results for all core metrics across all device types. However, as time has passed and more merchants began testing, the performance has declined somewhat. Despite the decline, results are generally positive and suggest that the absence of the wishlist button creates more urgency for the buyer to complete the transaction and removes the “I’ll buy it later” mentality.

Things To Consider

Merchants in the fashion industry noticed mild dips in revenue per visit from the removal of the wishlist feature. This could be due to the fact that fashion buyers like to save items for later as they build their complete outfit or watch saved items in the hope that they’ll get a deal during seasonal sales.

We recommend this experiment for any merchant who currently have a wishlist feature on their eCommerce site. If wishlists are a much-used feature in your industry, approach this experiment with caution.

Get deeper insights into over 120 mobile checkout design experiments available through the Initiative.