How To Add Wishlist To WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the web; it is used by over 1 million stores. However, there are some features that it does not include out of the box. One of these features is Wishlist functionality for shoppers. Here’s how to add wishlist capability to WooCommerce in minutes – all you need is a free plugin!
What is a wishlist?
People often wish for various things in life, but it is hard to know what exactly they want. When someone would like to purchase something that isn’t essential, they can create a list of desired items. This allows them to see what they really desire and eliminates the risk of impulse buying. A wishlist also gives people an opportunity to share their desires with friends and family members who might be able to help them fulfill their wishes meaning more sales for you.
Why add a wishlist to your eCommerce store?
Every online shopper wants to connect with a brand and purchase products they love. But what if the user wants to buy more than just one thing? That’s where Wishlists come in handy. A Wishlist is an area on your eCommerce store that allows users to save items that they like without purchasing them yet. This helps users to find the items later on and increases user and purchase retention.
In a way, you could say a wishlist also works as a “shopping”-list to your most dedicated visitors, helping them to return and shop for more items.
How to add wishlist to WooCommerce
To add wishlist capabilities to WooCommerce we are going to use the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin. The plugin is available for free and premium versions, which we highly recommend to get fo awesome extra features. More on the extra features later.
The first thing we must point out is that this wishlist requires WooCommerce to be active to work. Without WooCommerce, you can’t use the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin. To get started simply head on to “Plugins” > “Add new” and search for “YITH WooCommerce Wishlist”. You can then simply install and activate it to have everything activated instantly. After activation, you and your store visitors can instantly use the wishlist to save items.
YITH WooCommerce Wishlist settings
Now that we have the wishlist installed, let’s go through some settings that can help you customize the wishlist to fit your store better.
To get started head on to “YITH” from your main side menu in the WordPress admin area and click “Wishlist”. Here you get to the “General settings” where you can activate AJAX if you wish to do so, though if you’re using anything that caches your site, we don’t recommend it.
Add to wishlist options
If you wish to edit the texts and icons that are shown on the store page, move on to the “Add to wishlist options” tab in the wishlist. Here you can edit all the texts that are shown and choose the look of the wishlist button when the product has already been added to a wishlist.
The choices to choose from after the product is added to the wishlist are
- “Add to wishlist” button
- Show “View wishlist” link
- Show “Remove from list” link

Wishlist page options
Editing the wishlist page itself you can head on to the “Wishlist page options” tab. Here you can change the page that will be the “Wishlist”-page as well as set what you want to be shown on the wishlist page.
You can also enable instant redirect to cart when user clicks the add to cart button in their wishlist, activate/disable share buttons on each product, and decide which social media share options are available for users.

Style and color customizations
Style and color customizations can be found from the same page as the “Wishlist page”-options and can be easily edited. Simply choose the colors you want your social icons to be and your preferred fonts.

Why buy the premium version?
The most basic eCommerce stores might be fine with the free version of the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin, but for those who want to ensure the best user experience and to drive more sales, there is a clear reason to get the premium version of the plugin. Here are just a few of the features you get with the premium, but not with the free version of the plugin:
- Enable the wishlist feature for all users or only for registered users
- Allow users to create multiple wishlists (Ex: Christmas, Birthday, etc.)
Users can choose the wishlist from a dropdown menu when they click on “Add to wishlist” - Allow users to set visibility options for each wishlist, by making them either public (visible to everyone), private or shared (visible only to people it has been shared with)
- Choose between different layouts for the wishlist page and for the wishlist content
- Allow users to manage their wishlists: rename and delete wishlists, move a product from one wishlist to another, change order of items, quantity, etc.
- Enable an “Ask for an estimate” button to let customers send the content of their wishlist to the admin and get a custom quote
- Show a wishlist widget that lists all the products in the wishlists (available also with “mini-cart” style for the header)
- View the most popular products added to the wishlist by your customers and send promotional emails to users who have added specific products to their wishlist
- Send an automatic email to the wishlist owner whenever a product in the list is back in stock or on sale
- Regular updates, Translations and Premium Support
And so much more! Check out the rest of the features by clicking here.
Wishlist on the frontend
Here’s what the wishlist will look like after installing, activating, and editing the settings. Please note that your themes CSS and other stylings will affect the look of your wishlist links and buttons it generates, so your result may vary from ours.
Conclusion
In conclusion, adding a wishlist to your brand new WooCommerce store is easy with the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin. There are plenty of ways to customize it without touching a single piece of code and with the premium plugin, you get even more ways to customize the wishlist and contact the users. Adding a wishlist to your eCommerce store is a great way to increase sales and customer retention, by making them come back to check out their saved wishlists and making sure they remember what they were going to buy from your store.