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

Introduction

Choosing the right app for wishlist, save-for-later, or gifting features is a common onboarding decision for Shopify merchants. Single-purpose apps can be cheap and fast to install, but they often add maintenance overhead, duplicate functionality, and a growing "stack" of tools that each require updates, troubleshooting, and integration work.

Short answer: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later is a minimal, focused wishlist and save-for-later tool that works well for merchants who need a simple way to let shoppers save items and share lists. Presents & Gift Requests is geared toward gifting behavior, adding a “buy for me” flow that nudges social sharing and direct gift requests. Both apps are lightweight and low-cost, but neither replaces broader retention needs—brands that want loyalty, referrals, reviews, VIP tiers, and wishlist functionality in one place will find better value in an integrated platform like Growave.

This article provides an in-depth, feature-by-feature comparison of ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests. The goal is to help merchants understand the strengths and trade-offs of each app and to highlight when a single-purpose solution makes sense and when an integrated retention platform offers better long-term value.

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

Deep Dive Comparison

What each app is designed to do

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later: Purpose and positioning

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later (by Eastside Co®) is a focused wishlist tool. It addresses a common shopper behavior: interest without immediate purchase. The app stores saved items and places them under the cart so returning customers see saved products at checkout, reducing friction to complete the sale. It also supports sharing wishlists via social channels and allows multiple wishlists for organizational convenience.

Key selling points:

• Unlimited wishlists
• Save-for-later visibility at cart
• Social sharing and appearance customization
• Low-cost monthly plan

ESC's positioning is straightforward: give shoppers a place to store intent and make returning to purchase frictionless.

Presents & Gift Requests: Purpose and positioning

Presents & Gift Requests (by CartBoosters) focuses specifically on gifting behavior. It adds a "Buy for me" button on product pages so shoppers can request a friend or family member to purchase an item. The app emphasizes conversion through social sharing and contains email capture and popup triggers in paid tiers, which support follow-up and message delivery to gift-givers.

Key selling points:

• Dedicated gift-request button on product pages
• Customizable email and popup flows
• Social sharing nudges to increase traffic
• Pricing tiers with varying email delivery capabilities

Presents & Gift Requests is tailored to drive purchases via social and relational signals—perfectly timed for holidays, birthdays, or occasion-driven campaigns.

Feature comparison

Core wishlist and save functionality

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Unlimited wishlists allow shoppers to categorize saved items (e.g., “Birthday,” “Home,” “Favorites”).
• Saved items are visible under the cart, presenting a clear path back to checkout.
• Basic customization options for how the wishlist looks on the storefront.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Not primarily a wishlist app; it is oriented around gift requests rather than long-term saved lists.
• No persistent wishlist interface or saved items under the cart in the same way ESC offers.
• Uses popups and email capture to deliver the request, which can temporarily substitute for a wishlist in gifting scenarios.

Analysis: For core wishlist and save-for-later behavior, ESC provides the better match. It gives persistent list management and checkout visibility that directly addresses saved intent. Presents & Gift Requests offers a complementary behavior—activating gift purchases rather than storing long-term intent.

Gift and social sharing features

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Supports social sharing of wishlists, making it easier for wishlist owners to broadcast what they want.
• Sharing is generic—link-based—without specialized gift-request flows.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Adds purpose-built sharing and messaging: a shopper can explicitly request a gift and notify the potential buyer via email or social share.
• Paid tiers include advanced email handling (DKIM, delivery guarantees) to make gift request messages more reliable.

Analysis: Presents & Gift Requests leads for gifting scenarios, offering a clearer conversion path from wish to purchased gift. ESC's sharing is useful for discovery but less transactional.

Customization and branding

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Offers a "broad range of options" to customize the app appearance within the store.
• Likely adequate for most themes, but the app’s documentation or demo configuration depth is limited by available public details.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Advertises full customization to match store design and branding, including popup and email templates.
• Paid tier includes more reliable email delivery for branded notifications.

Analysis: Both apps emphasize customization, with Presents & Gift Requests placing more emphasis on message and popup design because it uses email/popup as core delivery mechanisms.

Checkout and UX integration

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Places saved items under the cart and surfaces them at checkout, reducing steps for return purchases.
• This direct path tends to increase conversion of saved items because shoppers are reminded at point of purchase.

Presents & Gift Requests

• The "Buy for me" button sits on product pages, natively placed where gifting decisions often happen.
• The UX requires the request flow and possibly follow-up messages to convert into a purchase (more steps than direct save-to-cart behavior).

Analysis: ESC supports a more frictionless path from saved intent to purchase at checkout. Presents & Gift Requests provides a stronger social prompt at the product page but introduces additional steps and dependencies (email delivery, recipient action).

Email capture, analytics, and delivery

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Functionality centers on list saving and sharing; explicit email capture and campaign infrastructure are not a core feature.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Includes email capture and popup triggers on paid plans, and offers a DKIM-signed email server and delivery guarantees in the higher-tier plan.
• This makes Presents & Gift Requests a hybrid tool with some built-in CRM-like features.

Analysis: If a store needs built-in email triggering for gift requests, Presents & Gift Requests has a clear advantage. But merchants should assess whether they want this functionality inside a specialist app or centralized in their email provider.

Pricing & Value

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later pricing

• Monthly plan: $5 / month.

ESC is positioned as a low-cost, focused wishlist tool. At $5 per month, it is attractive to merchants who want wishlist features with minimal spend. The low price reduces adoption friction, but it also implies limited functionality beyond wishlist and save-for-later basics.

Presents & Gift Requests pricing

• Standard: $4.90 / month (includes unlimited popup triggers, email & popup customization, capture emails, use your own email server).
• Complete Package: $9.90 / month (adds 1,000 emails/month, DKIM-signed server, 99% email delivery guarantee).

Presents & Gift Requests offers a slightly tiered model that shifts responsibilities (delivery, branding) depending on the plan. The Standard tier gives baseline popup and capture functionality; the Complete Package adds more reliability and convenience for stores that need email delivery without configuring their own server.

Value for money: short analysis

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Better value for shops that only need wishlist/save-for-later at a very low monthly cost.
• Does not replace email capture, loyalty, referral, or review functions.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Good value for stores aiming to activate gifting behavior and capture email leads tied to those requests.
• The higher tier offers delivery guarantees that could be important during holiday spikes, which adds measurable operational value.

Overall, both are low-priced point solutions. Merchants should evaluate whether the monthly cost offsets the long-term maintenance of multiple single-purpose apps or whether consolidating into a platform with broader retention tools offers better ROI.

Integrations & Technical Fit

Native integrations

Both apps are primarily Shopify storefront tools. Publicly available data does not show extensive third-party integrations (e.g., Klaviyo, Recharge). That means merchants who rely on third-party marketing automation or subscription platforms may need custom integration work.

Technical considerations

• Because both apps are small, they are likely lightweight. That reduces initial performance impact but can mean less mature support for complex stores or headless architectures.
• Presents & Gift Requests' built-in email server option reduces dependencies but duplicates functionality that many stores already manage in dedicated ESPs. That duplication carries the risk of inconsistent branding and segmentation.

When integrations matter

Merchants running multi-channel campaigns, subscription products, or advanced automations should prioritize apps that either integrate directly with existing tools or avoid duplicating critical infrastructure. For many growth-stage brands, consolidating capabilities into a single platform reduces friction.

Support, Reviews, and Reliability

Public ratings and reviews

• ESC Wishlist + Save for Later: 2 reviews, rating 1.
• Presents & Gift Requests: 1 review, rating 1.

These metrics are not flattering and indicate either a small reviewer base or issues reported by early users. Low counts also mean limited social proof. Merchants should read the available reviews and contact developers with pre-installation questions to gauge responsiveness.

Developer background and support expectations

• ESC is developed by Eastside Co®; Presents & Gift Requests is by CartBoosters. Small developers often provide focused attention, but they also may have limited support bandwidth and product roadmaps.

Recommended pre-installation actions:

• Ask for a live demo or screenshots of the admin flows.
• Confirm update and compatibility policies for popular themes and Shopify updates.
• Ask about backups and data export options for wishlists or request records.

Implementation and maintenance

Installation and setup

• Both apps advertise easy installation and in-store customization.
• Presents & Gift Requests includes popup triggers and email configuration, which may require additional setup time to align with store branding and deliverability best practices.

Ongoing maintenance

• Single-purpose apps are simple to maintain but add up. Each app requires updates, monitoring of compatibility with other apps or themes, and occasionally troubleshooting with new Shopify features.
• The more apps a store uses, the higher the cumulative maintenance overhead—especially for stores with limited technical resources.

Security and Data Ownership

• Merchants should confirm where wishlist and request data are stored and whether it can be exported. Losing access to customer intent data after uninstalling an app is a common pain point.
• Presents & Gift Requests involves email capture and delivery; merchants should verify privacy, opt-in, and data retention policies.
• Always request API or data export options before committing to an app that holds customer intent or email records.

Scalability and Long-Term Fit

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Scales as a wishlist tool but does not scale into behavior-based retention activities outside list management.

Presents & Gift Requests

• Scales for gifting campaigns and short-term spikes (holidays) with its delivery options, but its scope remains niche.

For merchants planning to expand loyalty programs, referrals, reviews, or VIP tiers, a single-purpose wishlist or gifting plugin will eventually be a fragment of the feature set required for sustained growth.

Use Cases — Which App Fits Which Merchant?

• Merchant with tight budget and simple need to let shoppers save items: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later is a practical choice. Low monthly fee and straightforward feature set reduce friction to implement wishlist behavior.
• Merchant focused on gifting and seasonal campaigns: Presents & Gift Requests is more directly aligned with gift-driven revenue. The "Buy for me" CTA and built-in email/popup features can convert social sharing into purchases during holidays.
• Merchant needing enterprise-grade deliverability for gift notifications but lacking technical resources: The Complete Package of Presents & Gift Requests (with DKIM-signed email) can be attractive.
• Merchant aiming to build loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist functionality under a single strategy: Consider alternatives that consolidate retention tools and reduce tool sprawl.

Pros and Cons Summary

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Pros:
  • Low monthly cost
  • Persistent wishlists with unlimited lists
  • Save-for-later visibility at checkout
  • Simple to use and maintain
• Cons:
  • Very small review base and low rating
  • Limited marketing / email capture features
  • Little evidence of deep integrations with ESPs or CRMs

Presents & Gift Requests

• Pros:
  • Purpose-built gift-request flow
  • Popup and email capture features
  • Paid tier includes deliverability guarantees (DKIM)
  • Good for occasion-driven campaigns
• Cons:
  • Small review base with low rating
  • Adds extra steps for conversion compared to save-for-later at cart
  • Potential duplication of email infrastructure and segmentation

When to Use Both vs. Choosing One

Using both together can make sense if a merchant needs persistent wishlists plus a separate gifting flow. However, stacking multiple single-purpose apps increases the number of app updates to manage and may create overlapping or inconsistent customer signals.

Consider the following:

• If wishlist behavior accounts for recurring conversions, prioritize ESC for its cart visibility.
• If gifting is a significant revenue stream and email delivery for requests matters, prioritize Presents & Gift Requests.
• If both behaviors are strategic and the team is small, evaluate whether a consolidated platform would be more efficient long term.

Migration and Data Portability

Before installing either app, merchants should confirm:

• Can wishlist or request records be exported in CSV or via API?
• Is there a migration path out of the app without data loss?
• How are visitor accounts, persistent cookies, or customer account linkage handled?

Data portability is a frequent deal-breaker; losing intent data when uninstalling an app reduces long-term value and violates sound retention strategy.

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

What is app fatigue?

App fatigue occurs when a merchant accumulates many single-purpose tools. Each app may fulfill a specific need, but the operational cost multiplies:

• Multiple billing lines and monthly fees
• Increased risk of integration conflicts
• Fragmented customer data across vendors
• More time spent on updates, theme compatibility, and troubleshooting

When retention and lifetime value are long-term KPIs, the cumulative cost of many point solutions can exceed the price of an integrated alternative.

Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" value proposition

Growave positions itself as a unified retention platform that consolidates wishlist, loyalty, referrals, reviews, and VIP tiers into one product. That single investment reduces maintenance overhead and keeps customer activity centralized—critical for segmentation, automation, and long-term relationship building.

Growave bundles multiple capabilities merchants typically assemble through separate apps:

• Loyalty and rewards programs
• Referral campaigns
• Reviews and user-generated content
• Wishlist functionality
• VIP tiers and custom reward actions

Merchants looking to consolidate retention features can review plans and determine whether a single integrated stack reduces total cost and operational complexity by visiting a page that helps merchants consolidate retention features.

How an integrated approach improves outcomes

• Centralized customer profiles: Wishlist saves, loyalty points, referral data, and reviews live in the same system—making segmentation and personalized campaigns more accurate.
• Reduced troubleshooting: One provider means fewer compatibility issues between loyalty, wishlist, and review systems.
• Stronger LTV impact: Loyalty and referral mechanics compound over time; when combined with wishlist and review prompts, average order value and repeat purchase rates tend to rise.
• Better analytics: Unified dashboards show how wishlist behavior feeds into loyalty and referrals, which supports smarter marketing investments.

For merchants who want to see a demo of how these components work together and how they fit specific growth plans, it is possible to book a personalized demo.

Growave features that replace multiple single-purpose apps

• Loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases: Growave’s loyalty engine supports points, custom reward actions, and VIP tiers, enabling systematic increases in repeat transactions. Merchants can learn more about loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Collect and showcase authentic reviews: Growave’s reviews and UGC product encourages verified-purchase reviews and makes them easy to display across product pages and social channels. Merchants can see how to collect and showcase authentic reviews.
• Wishlist that integrates with loyalty and checkout: Wishlist items can be tied into loyalty rewards and surfaced in the checkout experience, reducing friction and increasing conversion.
• Referral and social mechanics: Built-in referral programs encourage customer advocacy, which complements gifting flows and social sharing features found in single-purpose apps.

Because Growave is an all-in-one retention platform, merchants can compare subscription tiers and expected ROI directly and consider consolidating multiple subscriptions into a single, higher-value plan. Review and compare offerings on the pricing page to determine fit and projected savings by visiting the page that helps merchants compare plans and pricing.

Practical benefits of consolidation

• Single billing and fewer subscriptions to manage
• Unified compliance and data policies
• Consistent customer experience across conversations and touchpoints
• Time savings that let teams focus on creative marketing, not app maintenance

If a merchant wants to try Growave without committing to a long-term plan, Growave provides options and trial access on pricing and installation resources. For merchants ready to add an integrated retention app to their store, one path is to install Growave on Shopify and review trial options.

Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack improves retention.
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Enterprise and Shopify Plus considerations

Growave supports Shopify Plus and offers enterprise-level features such as API access, checkout extensions, and a dedicated launch plan on higher tiers. Larger merchants should evaluate whether the platform’s scale and support fit their needs and look at information for solutions for high-growth Plus brands. For many high-volume merchants, consolidating into a platform with Plus-ready features reduces risk and delivers a cleaner roadmap for loyalty and review automation.

Pricing and migration realities

Merchants should evaluate total cost of ownership:

• Sum of single-app subscriptions vs. Growave plan cost
• Team time saved by avoiding integrations and troubleshooting
• Incremental revenue from combined features (loyalty + wishlist + reviews + referrals)

A direct comparison of long-term cost and revenue impact can be carried out by reviewing the platform’s plan options and projected benefits—start by visiting a place to consolidate retention features and assessing which plan aligns with order volume and growth goals.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests, the decision comes down to intended outcomes:

• Choose ESC Wishlist + Save for Later when the priority is a low-cost, persistent wishlist and save-for-later solution surfaced at checkout. It is a simple tool that reduces purchase friction for shoppers who want to return later.
• Choose Presents & Gift Requests when the priority is gifting activation—explicit “Buy for me” prompts, popup triggers, and email delivery guarantees make it easier to convert social and relational interest into purchases.

Both tools are low-cost and focused, but each addresses different behaviors. Neither app replaces the broader retention stack that includes loyalty, referrals, reviews, and VIP programs.

For stores that want to reduce tool sprawl and increase lifetime value through coordinated programs, consider an integrated retention platform that consolidates wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals. Growave’s approach—More Growth, Less Stack—brings those capabilities together and can reduce operational overhead while delivering stronger retention results. Merchants interested in trying an integrated platform and testing consolidation can start a trial or explore plan options and compare potential savings and benefits by visiting the page that helps merchants consolidate retention features.

Start a 14-day free trial to evaluate whether a unified retention suite reduces your app count and accelerates repeat purchases.
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FAQ

• How do ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Presents & Gift Requests differ in terms of core value?
  • ESC is a wishlist and save-for-later tool intended to keep product intent visible at checkout. Presents & Gift Requests is focused on activating gifting behavior through a "Buy for me" prompt with popup and email delivery. ESC targets persistent intent and checkout conversion; Presents targets social and gift-triggered purchases.
• Which app is better for holiday gifting campaigns?
  • Presents & Gift Requests is better suited for holiday gifting due to its dedicated request flow and email/popup triggers. However, merchants should test deliverability (and possibly use the higher tier) during high-volume periods to ensure messages reach recipients.
• Can these apps replace loyalty or review platforms?
  • No. These apps address discrete behaviors—wishlisting and gifting. Loyalty, referral, and review programs require specialized features and deeper integrations. Merchants should evaluate whether to maintain point solutions or consolidate into an integrated solution to drive lifetime value.
• How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps?
  • An all-in-one platform centralizes data, reduces billing complexity, and minimizes integration friction. It helps align wishlist behavior with loyalty and referral programs and centralizes review collection. The trade-off is that a single platform requires trust in one vendor; however, the operational simplicity and ability to run coordinated retention strategies often provide better long-term ROI for growth-focused merchants. For merchants evaluating consolidation, reviewing plan tiers and feature sets can clarify total cost of ownership and projected benefits—consider visiting a page to consolidate retention features for a quick assessment.