ESC Wishlist vs. Presents & Gift Requests: In-Depth

Introduction

Shopify merchants face a common problem: choosing among thousands of niche apps that each promise to improve conversions, retention, or social reach. Two apps that often come up when the goal is to capture customer intent and turn interest into future sales are ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests. Both are single-purpose tools focused on saving or prompting purchases, but they approach the problem differently.

Short answer: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later is a minimal, low-cost option for stores that need a basic wishlist/save-for-later widget under the cart; Presents & Gift Requests suits merchants who want a simple gifting prompt and social sharing from the product page. For merchants seeking long-term retention and fewer integrations, a multi-feature retention platform like Growave often provides better value for money by combining wishlists with loyalty, referrals, and reviews in a single integrated stack.

This post provides a feature-by-feature comparison of ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests. The goal is to help merchants identify which app better fits specific store needs and to explain how an all-in-one retention platform can reduce tool sprawl and improve customer lifetime value.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later vs. Presents & Gift Requests: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Overview of Each App

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later (Eastside Co®)

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later positions itself as a straightforward wishlist and “save for later” solution. The app keeps saved items visible under the cart so customers can quickly add them back to checkout. It advertises unlimited wishlists, social sharing to increase reach, and a range of customization options so the widget can match store aesthetics.

Available pricing: Monthly plan at $5 per month.

Marketplace signals: 2 reviews with an average rating of 1.0 on the Shopify App Store.

Presents & Gift Requests (CartBoosters)

Presents & Gift Requests focuses on gifting behavior. The core interaction is a “Buy for me” or request flow from the product page that lets customers request that friends or family purchase an item on their behalf. The app emphasizes customization, popup/email capture, and social sharing to drive traffic and gifting conversions.

Available pricing: Standard plan $4.90/month and Complete Package $9.90/month (adds email volume and a DKIM-signed email server for delivery).

Marketplace signals: 1 review with an average rating of 1.0 on the Shopify App Store.

Feature Comparison

This section breaks down core functionality and useful edge cases for each feature area.

Wishlist and Save-for-Later Capabilities

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Unlimited wishlists, enabling customers to categorize saved items.
• Saved items are visible under the cart for quick re-add to checkout.
• Social sharing options allow customers to share wishlists externally.
• Visual customization options are available for the widget.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Not a traditional wishlist; focuses on product-level gift requests.
• Adds a “Buy for me” CTA to product pages that triggers an email/popup capture.
• Encourages social sharing of the request rather than a persistent wishlist.
• Better for prompting immediate social or email-driven outreach to potential buyers.

Assessment: For persistent intent capture and storing interest across sessions, ESC’s wishlist model is more appropriate. For triggering immediate social action and capturing a different visitor (the gift buyer), Presents & Gift Requests is better suited.

Gifting and Social Sharing

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Social sharing increases brand reach by letting customers broadcast saved lists.
• Sharing is wishlist-focused: helpful for occasion-based shopping where a person curates items to be purchased later.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Designed explicitly for gifting moments: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays.
• The flow prompts the shopper to request a purchase from another person, which can increase traffic and conversion via social referrals.
• Built-in popup/email customization and capture can convert a gift request into an email lead.

Assessment: Presents & Gift Requests is architected around gifting mechanics and social sharing loops that convert shoppers into advocates who reach out to purchase on someone else’s behalf.

Customization and Design

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Promotes a "broad range" of customization options, likely covering color, placement, and simple styling to fit a store’s look and feel.
• Widget sits under the cart, so store theme compatibility is generally straightforward.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Offers full customization of popups and CTAs and allows the “Buy for me” button to be styled inline with product pages.
• Provides options to match store branding, and the included popup/email customization increases control over customer touchpoints.

Assessment: Both apps emphasize design alignment. Presents & Gift Requests may provide more control over the customer-facing email/pop-up copy since its conversion flow depends on that messaging.

Email Capture and Communication

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Main mechanism is wishlist storage and social sharing; the product description does not explicitly state integrated email capture or automated follow-up sequences.
• Likely relies on customer accounts or local storage; limited email automation.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Built-in popups and email capture are core features in the Standard and Complete plans.
• The Complete Package includes email sending infrastructure (DKIM, 1,000 emails/month, higher delivery guarantees).

Assessment: Presents & Gift Requests provides more immediate options for capturing and using email to drive the gifting purchase. ESC lacks explicit email automation, which reduces its ability to follow up with abandoned wishlist interests via email without another app.

Integrations and Extensibility

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Offers basic theme-level integration; not marketed as an ecosystem-ready tool.
• No publicized native integrations with ESPs, customer service, or subscription systems in the public listing.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Supports custom email sending and popup triggers and can work with a merchant’s email setup. The Complete plan mentions using a DKIM-signed server for delivery.
• No broad list of native integrations published on the app listing.

Assessment: Neither app advertises a robust integration matrix. Merchants that need automated follow-ups, loyalty program connectivity, or cross-channel analytics should expect additional engineering work or extra third-party tools.

Analytics, Measurement, and ROI Tracking

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Feature list does not highlight reporting, conversion tracking, or analytics dashboards.
• Likely limited to direct observability via Shopify analytics and manual checks of wishlist use.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Emphasizes email deliverability and popup triggers but does not appear to provide deep analytics beyond capture counts and delivery metrics.
• The Complete Package's email delivery guarantees are a proxy for measurement reliability but do not replace a conversion dashboard.

Assessment: Both apps are light on advanced analytics. Merchants that expect built-in A/B testing, cohort tracking, or LTV impact measurement will need an external analytics solution or a platform that includes such features.

Pricing and Value

Both apps target stores that need low-cost, single-purpose features. Pricing structures differ in small but important ways.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Monthly plan: $5 / month.
• Simple, single plan; offers basic wishlist functionality at a low entry price.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Standard: $4.90 / month — includes unlimited popup triggers, popup/email customization, and email capture.
• Complete Package: $9.90 / month — adds 1,000 emails/month, DKIM-signed emails, and a claimed 99% delivery guarantee.

Value considerations

• Both apps present a small monthly cost, which is easy to justify for merchants testing wishlist or gifting features.
• The price alone does not account for the overhead of multiple apps: if a merchant requires wishlists, rewards, referrals, and reviews, adding several single-purpose apps multiplies subscription fees and increases integration maintenance.
• For merchants planning to scale loyalty and retention practices, comparison by cumulative cost and integration complexity is essential.

Assessment: Both apps are accessible on price. For merchants chasing the lowest possible spend for a single widget, either app offers immediate, low-cost utility. For long-term retention strategies, consolidating features into a single platform often delivers better value for money.

Install, Setup, and UX Complexity

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Designed to be simple and installed quickly.
• Widget placement under the cart reduces theme overrides and likely means few manual edits.
• Merchants should verify behavior with their theme and cart customizations.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Also designed for easy installation and customization.
• Popup and product-page integrations may require testing across product templates to ensure consistent UX.
• Email sending configuration (standard vs. complete) may require DNS updates if the merchant opts into the app’s DKIM-signed server.

Assessment: Both tools are low-friction to deploy. The main operational complexity for Presents & Gift Requests is email configuration if the merchant chooses the higher tier.

Support and Documentation

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Public app listing shows minimal social proof (2 reviews) and a 1.0 rating, which can suggest issues with support or performance in real-world use.
• Documentation depth is not highlighted in the public description; merchants should test support responsiveness before committing.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Public listing shows only 1 review with a 1.0 rating.
• Offers customizable email/popups — support quality and response times should be verified.

Assessment: Low review counts and low ratings are signals to approach both apps cautiously. For mission-critical retention features, merchants should confirm support SLAs and test responsiveness via pre-install questions.

Security, Privacy, and Compliance

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• No explicit security or privacy claims in the short listing.
• As a wishlist tool, the main risk vectors are storage of customer preferences and potential opt-in data for sharing.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Offers email sending capabilities with DKIM signing on the Complete plan, which addresses email spoofing and delivery trust.
• Merchants should verify how customer data is stored, processed, and retained, and whether the app complies with GDPR or other regional privacy standards if selling internationally.

Assessment: Merchants with strict compliance needs should request vendor data handling documentation and confirm data residency or deletion mechanisms. The presence of DKIM support in Presents & Gift Requests' higher tier is a plus for email reliability but does not replace privacy assurances.

Merchant Fit: Which Store Types Should Consider Each App?

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later Is Best For:

• Small to mid-sized stores that want a low-cost, no-friction wishlist or save-for-later widget.
• Merchants that want the widget in-cart to reduce friction at checkout.
• Brands that prioritize product discovery retention without immediate email capture.

Presents & Gift Requests Is Best For:

• Stores that see frequent gifting behavior around holidays, birthdays, or special occasions.
• Merchants that want to prompt social or email-driven gift purchases from friends and family.
• Brands that plan to use email capture and need improved email deliverability options.

Real-World Trade-Offs and Merchant Concerns

• Feature depth vs. scope: Both apps are intentionally narrow in scope. That reduces overhead but also creates gaps if merchants require loyalty programs, referrals, or review systems.
• Maintenance burden: Adding multiple single-purpose apps increases the number of vendors to manage and can create theme conflicts or duplicated efforts.
• Analytics gaps: Neither app provides sophisticated ROI tracking out of the box, making it difficult to measure impact on repeat purchase rates or lifetime value without external analytics.

Pros and Cons Summary

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Pros:
  • Very low monthly cost.
  • Persistent wishlists and save-for-later in-cart placement.
  • Social sharing for wishlists.
• Cons:
  • Very low review count and poor rating on the app marketplace.
  • Limited integration and follow-up automation.
  • Minimal analytics or reporting.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Pros:
  • Gifting-specific flow that can convert social shares into buyers.
  • Popup/email capture and customization.
  • Email deliverability features in higher plan.
• Cons:
  • Very low review count and poor marketplace rating.
  • Limited analytics, loyalty, or referral features.
  • May require additional apps for post-capture conversion (e.g., abandoned carts, follow-up flows).

The Alternative: Solving App Fatigue with an All-in-One Platform

Single-purpose apps solve narrow problems quickly but create an operational and strategic issue commonly called "app fatigue." App fatigue occurs when merchants accumulate multiple point solutions to cover wishlists, reviews, referrals, loyalty, and UGC. Each added app multiplies subscription costs, maintenance tasks, and the risk of integration conflicts. The result can be higher total cost of ownership and fragmented customer data that makes retention strategies harder to measure and optimize.

Growave approaches this problem with a "More Growth, Less Stack" proposition: consolidate loyalty, wishlists, referrals, reviews, and VIP tiers into a single, integrated platform. That reduces vendor overhead and preserves a unified customer identity so actions from wishlists, referrals, and reviews feed the same retention programs.

Key advantages of a unified retention stack

• A unified customer profile across wishlist saves, referral invites, and review submissions, enabling more meaningful reward triggers and personalized messaging.
• Centralized analytics simplify measurement of how wishlist interactions or gift-driven referrals influence repeat purchases and lifetime value.
• Fewer apps means lower overhead in theme maintenance and fewer potential conflicts during theme or Shopify upgrades.

Growave feature highlights demonstrating the consolidated approach

• Loyalty and Rewards: Merchants can build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases with customizable point earning and redemption rules, VIP tiers, and reward actions tied to wishlist saves.
• Reviews & UGC: A built-in system lets merchants collect and showcase authentic reviews and aggregate user-generated content for social proof without adding a separate review app.
• Wishlist: The wishlist is native to the platform and integrated into loyalty triggers; wishlist saves can increment points or trigger follow-up flows without stitching together multiple apps.
• Referrals and Social Sharing: Referral programs and social sharing tools work alongside loyalty and wishlist activity to convert social signals into measurable revenue.
• Integrations and Plus Support: The platform includes integrations for popular tools and offers solutions for high-growth Plus brands that need enterprise features and dedicated onboarding.

Why consolidation matters in practice

• Data continuity: When a customer saves an item, the platform recognizes that action within the loyalty program and can automatically award points or trigger a targeted email.
• Reduced friction: Instead of managing five apps each with its own settings and billing, a merchant manages one interface and one billing relationship.
• Strategic flexibility: With wishlists, referrals, reviews, and loyalty in one place, merchants can design campaigns that span channels and behaviors (e.g., reward customers for submitting a review and giving a friend a referral discount).

Practical linkable resources and how they help

• For merchants evaluating total cost and plan fit, reviewing pricing across consolidated options helps decide whether to move from point solutions to a single platform. Merchants can explore how consolidation maps to cost and features by visiting Growave’s pricing to compare plans and thresholds for orders and support.
• For stores that want to replicate wishlist behavior while adding rewards and review capture, the integrated wishlist in a consolidated platform keeps follow-up automated and tied to loyalty tiers.
• For merchants prioritizing social proof and product reviews, the built-in reviews system simplifies collection and display without adding a separate reviews tool.

Contextual links to learn more about Growave features

• Merchants who want to increase repeat purchase rates through incentives can see how to implement loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Stores focused on social proof can learn how to collect and showcase authentic reviews with review workflows built into the platform.

Comparative cost example (conceptual)

• Two single-purpose apps at $5 each equals $10 per month, but likely still requires additional apps (e.g., a review app at $15, a referral app at $20). The combined monthly spend and maintenance quickly exceed the cost of an integrated platform.
• Consolidation provides better value for money when the merchant needs more than one retention tool. For merchants who only need a single widget forever, a $5 app can be appropriate; for merchants who plan to scale retention, an integrated platform is often the more strategic choice.

Operational benefits beyond money

• Single sign-on and unified support reduce context switching for the operations team.
• One analytics source of truth reduces mistakes in attribution and campaign measurement.
• A single vendor relationship simplifies contract, onboarding, and upgrade workflows.

How to evaluate the migration

• Inventory current single-purpose apps and map features to desired integrated features. Identify overlap and functional gaps.
• Evaluate data export capabilities and how to migrate wishlist and review data without loss.
• Consider staging the migration: enable the integrated platform in parallel, test reward triggers with a small cohort, then migrate live once behavior and analytics align.

Learn more and act

• Merchants ready to compare cost, features, and plan tiers can evaluate how consolidation maps to price and business size by checking plan options to consolidate retention features.
• Merchants who prefer installing through Shopify can find the app listing and install options by choosing to install from the Shopify App Store.

Note: For merchants who truly only need a single widget and minimal upkeep, point tools like ESC Wishlist + Save for Later or Presents & Gift Requests remain valid low-cost options. However, merchants that aim to increase LTV, build loyalty, and reduce tool sprawl should evaluate an integrated retention platform.

Implementation Considerations and Migration Checklist

Transitioning from one or more point solutions to a consolidated platform requires planning. The checklist below focuses on practical steps without assuming complexity.

• Inventory data: Export wishlist, review, referral, and customer account data from existing apps.
• Map actions: Specify how wishlist saves or gift requests should translate into loyalty points, automated emails, or referral credits in the new platform.
• Test integrations: Validate connections with email service providers, customer support tools, and analytics systems in a staging environment.
• Theme compatibility: Install the integrated platform in a development theme and validate widget placements across major templates and devices.
• Phased cutover: Consider running the two systems in parallel for a short period to compare analytics and avoid data discontinuity.
• Monitor and optimize: After migration, monitor key metrics—repeat purchase rate, referral conversion rate, and review submission rate—to confirm the expected lift.

Recommendations by Merchant Type

• Small stores with limited budgets and a single need for wishlists: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later can be an economical, low-friction choice if the only goal is a persistent save-for-later widget.
• Stores with seasonal gifting peaks or product assortments that sell as gifts: Presents & Gift Requests can be valuable for capturing gift intent and prompting social sharing to drive purchase conversions.
• Growth-focused stores looking to increase retention, LTV, and simplify operations: An integrated platform that bundles wishlists with loyalty, referrals, and reviews will likely provide better long-term value for money.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests, the decision comes down to function and scale: ESC is a simple wishlist/save-for-later solution ideal for merchants who only need cart-level persistence at a very low monthly cost; Presents & Gift Requests targets gifting and social sharing with better email capture and deliverability options in its premium tier. Both apps are inexpensive and easy to install, but they have very limited review counts and marketplace ratings, and neither provides deep analytics or broad integrations out of the box.

For merchants who want to avoid tool sprawl and build lasting retention, an integrated platform that combines wishlists with loyalty, referrals, and reviews can be a better value for money. Growave offers a unified suite that links wishlist activity to rewards, captures reviews and UGC, and supports referral flows—all designed to improve repeat purchases and reduce the operational burden of managing many separate apps. Merchants can compare plan tiers and how consolidation would affect total cost and capabilities by visiting Growave’s pricing and plan pages to consolidate retention features.

To see how the platform works in practice and to evaluate whether consolidation fits the store’s roadmap, merchants can also install from the Shopify App Store for a hands-on trial. For a deeper look at how specific features map to retention goals, merchants interested in incentivizing repeat purchases should examine loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases, and those prioritizing social proof can review options to collect and showcase authentic reviews.

Start the transition to a single retention stack: begin a 14-day free trial to test how a unified approach reduces tool fatigue and accelerates growth by consolidating wishlists, loyalty, reviews, and referrals into one platform. Consolidate retention features

FAQ

What are the core differences between ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests?

• The core difference is intent capture versus gifting prompts. ESC focuses on persistent wishlists and saving items under the cart. Presents & Gift Requests focuses on immediate gifting action from product pages, including popup-based email capture and social sharing aimed at getting third-party buyers involved.

Both apps have low ratings and few reviews. Is that a red flag?

• Low review counts and poor ratings signal caution. Before committing, merchants should test app stability in a development theme, ask the developer about support SLAs and data policies, and evaluate whether app behavior matches expectations in the live store context.

How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps like these?

• An all-in-one platform reduces vendor overhead and consolidates data, making it easier to measure the business impact of retention tactics. A single platform can tie wishlist saves to loyalty rewards and trigger referral campaigns, reducing theme conflicts and the total cost of ownership for merchants who need multiple retention tools.

If a merchant only needs a wishlist, is switching to a larger platform worth it?

• Not necessarily. If the merchant truly needs only a persistent wishlist and anticipates never adding loyalty, referrals, or review capture, a simple low-cost widget could be the most cost-effective option. If the roadmap includes growth-focused retention initiatives, consolidation generally becomes a better investment.

Where can merchants learn more about integrated retention platforms and pricing?

• Merchants can review plan options to understand how consolidation impacts price and capabilities by visiting the Growave pricing pages to consolidate retention features. For feature-level comparisons, read about loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases and how to collect and showcase authentic reviews.