10 Wish List Websites For The Holiday Shopping Season
It's coming up to Christmas and for many of us that means buying presents for family. If you're in this situation, "what to buy?" becomes the most pressing question in your Christmas shopping expeditions. But what if you could take a quick look at the online shopping wish lists of your loved ones - it could take the decision-making right out of your hands!
Of course not everyone has an online shopping wish list, which is why in this post we present a list of 10 cool social shopping wish list sites. Why not forward onto your family and friends :-)
We started by asking the friends of ReadWriteWeb on Twitter for suggestions. Using myself as a use case, ideally I want somewhere to add stuff I want to buy - whether that's in the short or long term. I'd also like to see what others want to buy too, which could be my friends or simply people I don't know who also want to buy the same things as me.
1. Amazon Wish Lists
A few people mentioned Amazon Wish Lists, in many ways the benchmark for shopping wishlists. Joshua Porter, Interface designer and strategy consultant for social web apps, tweeted that Amazon Wish Lists let users add stuff and see what others added, however "they don't do much around exposing/aggregating wish lists publicly."
Amazon is pretty good at promoting this feature - currently they have a page describing how users can get their Wish List holiday-ready. They also recently released something called Universal Wish List, which allows users to add products from any website to their Amazon Wish List with one click.
2. Giftag
In September we blogged about Giftag, a social shopping service that uses open standards. Created by leading retailer Best Buy, Giftag is a browser plugin that lets you make online wishlists and share them with your friends. The technology will be integrated into Best Buy's web site in the coming months. Specifically, Giftag uses the microformat hProduct - an emerging data standard that is embedded in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. It's similar to the microformats hListing and hReview. There's also a Facebook app. A word of warning though: one of our commenters noted some privacy issues with Giftag.
3. Wists
Phil Bradley suggested Wists, a site that has been around for some time now. It aims to "make publishing or sharing lists of recommendations and wishlists easier and more appealing than maintaining a weblog and not tied to one particular store." Wists was founded by David Galbraith, a long-standing member of the blogging and RSS community.
4. Boxedup
Chris Osborne suggested the startup he co-founded, boxedup (also noted by @itamarw). It's a well-designed social wishlist site, where you can import your Amazon Wish List and then use a browser plug-in to add new items. There's also a Facebook app.
I found it easy to add things into my Boxedup list; I was impressed enough that I will probably continue to use this one.
5. ThisNext
Cwellhouser suggested ThisNext, a social shopping site where "where "trendsters" recommend cool products online". It's a colorful site and obviously aimed at the young and hip demographic. It's described as "a shopcasting network where you can discover great products based on our members' recommendations." It looks like a great site to find a cool present for your younger sister or brother perhaps - a Juicy Couture Charm Bracelet is currently the rave.
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
We've recently launched a new wish list site that really focuses on the list and sharing it, more so than the social shopping aspects. It's free and easy to use!
http://www.nofruitcake.com
Ah, good post - gave me something decent to read while I am bored at work. I'll have to check your site out more often :) Thanks!
Make a holiday wish list of your own style and substance with blist, then share it with family and friends or turn it into a widget and post it to your blog or website.
Here's mine as an example:
http://app.blist.com/#/blist/kmerritt/Kev-s-Christmas-2008-blist
You might want to check out www.iTrackmine.com. We just launched.
Couple cool things relative to this article (there is much more at our site):
Import your Amazon Wish Lists - you are not tied to just one store and can include items from brick-and-mortar places too (add to your list while in-store).
Amazing Gift suggestion and Gift List tools. Because we are also your collection manager, our algorithm can compute an EXTREMELY accurate list of items your friends & family would like -- AND filter out things they already have.
Access these things on your mobile device while in-store -- when you need it.
Thanks!
Good choices...I'd recommend Sortprice.com too and their Facebook Wishlist application
www.sortprice.com
Wishpot also provides a Facebook App (http://apps.facebook.com/wishpot).
We also recently added the "Chipin" functionality, so your friends can chipin money toward your items.
I've been using Stylefeeder for three years now, and I find it indispensable for online shopping and wish list creation.
I'm sonya6 if you want to check out my stuff (and feel free to buy it for me. ;-)
Now, if someone could create a good gift registry site that takes entries from any online store, I would be perfectly happy. MyRegistry's UI is too confusing and buggy.
I'd like to use the Amazon Universal Wish List (since they are the 800-lb. gorilla) but have you read their terms? Should we be concerned about the terms?? I'd love to hear opinions.
....You grant to Amazon a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license with the ability to sublicense to: (a) use, reproduce, perform, display and distribute on the Amazon Site and on Amazon Associated Properties, and in advertising and other marketing communications promoting the Amazon Site, any copyrightable works you provide to Amazon (the "Works") (including any trademarks that consist of text or that are embedded or incorporated into the Works, e.g., a logo in a product image, to the extent you hold rights in such trademarks); and (b) adapt, modify, re-format and create derivative works of the Works, which derivative works are also subject to the license set forth in clause (a). As used here, "Amazon Associated Properties" means those web sites or other services, features or other online points of presences through which the Amazon Site and/or products services available thereon are offered, merchandised, advertised or described.....
The quick service of USAF is very fast when compared to other countries.
sherwood park jobs
I use www.robotizeme.NET to advertise my amazon wishlist to my contacts.
In service I select Msn, then i type in my user and password, i select Amazon wishlist in 'personalities' then i enter the email I use for amazon.
The service logs into msn, and uses the personal message in a rotating fashion to display the items in my wishlist to all of your contacts
So far I've not receive, crazy emails or have my account hijacked, seems to be safe service.
They have AOL support and other IM services, didnt test them.
Since everyone else seems to be spamming here, why not one more? I've been running FamilyHolidayWishLists.com since 2005. It started as a tool I built for my family to use and then expanded it when friends wanted to use it too. Now it helps lots of other families manage their lists each year and save lots of time.
I also recommend adding Wisheo to this list.
Wisheo enables users to setup wishlists for themselves. In contrast to generic wishlist services, Wisheo enables multiple people to fund the wishlist. This allows people to put a lot of nicer items on the wishlist as all the contributors will share the cost.
Users can also create and setup group gifts and invite friends to contribute to this. All the contributions can be monitored and collected on Wisheo via paypal.
It is very easy to use and best of all, it is available on Facebook so it is easy to let everyone in the network to know about a new wishlist.
Check it out!
Another British site that allows users to add products to their favourites or wish lists is Tribesmart.
http://www.tribesmart.com also has "tribes" that allow users to chat to other similar minded shoppers.
www.giftag.com just moved over to Google AppEngine 3 weeks ago (so awesome!). Since we did, our Facebook App needs to be rewritten. So the link in the article above is a dead one (it was from an earlier story on Giftag from RWW). In the mean time, if you want to post lists to Facebook (or any other site/email), you can use the Share This feature on Giftag.
I also wanted to make a comment about the privacy concern that was mentioned. The concern that was raised is that lists made by users are public for others to see. That is the default and it was our bad for not making it more clear. It is possible in your settings to set a list to private and set permissions for your buddies to view, add or remove items.
Would love to hear thoughts- what's good, what sucks so we can make it better. Hit me at steve@giftag.com
I will be shopping for gifts on
http://changingthepresent.org -
A non-profit website offering charitable gifts that can help change the world. The gifts include donations starting from as little as $1. For instance, you can preserve an acre of the wilderness, provide a child with their first book, fund an hour of cancer research, feed a family for a week, or sponsor cataract surgery to restore a blind persons sight.
Good gifting to a good cause. My chance to give back.
Another site to look at for holiday AND all year long gifting is www.seewhatilike.com. It's free, easy to use, makes life simple, has a facebook app, and is just plain fun!
A great UK based shopping site for pick list creating is naturalbornshopper.co.uk.
The main USP of the site being that pick list creators earn a commission on items sold from their lists, as well as getting cashback on their own purchases.
This obviously only includes items picked from the participating retailers, but the site features around 3.5 million from most of the big names on the high street (500+ merchants).
You can even create a Christmas themed list.
If you're looking for something a bit more niche, members can upload items from anywhere.
and Kazowie.com.
eRegistry.com would be a good fit for your list. It's new.
One of the coolest things about eRegistry.com is the WishCard - people can give cash through the website that is immediately and securely transferred to a pre-paid Visa the wisher has and can use anywhere.
So not only can you add more than 10 million items to your wish list, you can also add cash OR (if you're feeling generous) a charity.
I find the web site http://www.buyvenue.com to be a great help when I want to shop online and find best products at best prices.
This free access site (with no advertising clutter—how refreshing!) points to the most competitive price comparison sites and retailers, helpful product reviews, pre-owned merchandise, discounts, coupons and freebies, with lots of direct links to practical time and money saving consumer information and advice.
I highly recommend this educational and informative site for saving money!
Hi All!!!
I would like to grab your attention to www.shopcorn.co.uk, One of the best upcoming social shopping site.
A great place to share your wishes because they make it more interesting by giving competitors to your wishes.
They let them fight and the result is decided by Kicks and Picks given by users themselves.
I love this place because its an complete arena of shopping, They provide me comparison shopping + Wish listings +
Community place.
I am in love with it and hope you will.