Wishlist and compare are quiet features with outsized strategic value: wishlists are purchase-intent data customers hand you voluntarily, and compare drives considered-purchase decisions. Both ship with Magento out of the box - the value is in how you configure and exploit them.
Wishlist Mechanics
Open Source provides a single wishlist per customer; Adobe Commerce adds multiple wishlists (“Summer”, “For the workshop”, “Gift ideas”) - shareable by link, which is a genuine acquisition channel for gifting-heavy verticals.
Behavioural notes worth knowing:
- Wishlist requires login - the “add to wishlist” click is a registration prompt in disguise, which converts browsers into known customers
- Items persist indefinitely and surface in the account and (optionally) the header counter
- Shared wishlists email/links carry your products into inboxes you did not have to buy
Wishlist Data Is Marketing Gold
The wishlist is a declared-intent feed:
- Price-drop and back-in-stock triggers: email customers when a wishlisted item goes on sale or returns to stock - these are among the highest-converting automated emails you can send
- Demand signal: wishlisted-but-unbought items inform buying and promotion decisions
- Segmentation: wishlist category affinity predicts future purchases better than browsing history
Wire wishlist events to your email platform (Dotdigital/Klaviyo track them) before running campaigns on blast alone.
Compare: For Considered Purchases
Product compare shines where specs decide: electronics, tools, appliances. Configuration points:
- Choose which attributes appear in the comparison table (comparable attribute setting per attribute) - 5-10 decision attributes beat 40 rows of noise
- Category-relevant: enable where comparison is how customers choose; a fashion store’s compare table is clutter, a power-tool store’s is a buying tool
When to Turn Features Off
Both features cost UI complexity and (for compare) page weight. Disable them when the vertical makes them useless rather than leaving dead icons in the header: single-product stores, fast-consumable repeat purchases, B2B quick-order flows. An unused feature is not neutral - it is cognitive load and maintenance surface.
Small Optimisations
- Wishlist icon placement next to add-to-cart, consistently across listing and product templates
- After-login redirect back to the wishlist action, not the dashboard - respect the original intent
- Guest wishlist via localStorage (extensions exist) if registration-gating costs too much intent capture
Treat wishlist as the intent-capture system it is: surface it well, feed its data into lifecycle marketing, and it repays far beyond its modest UI footprint.