I’m a long-time fan of Amazon.com’s Wish List service as you can probably tell by the link to mine in the sidebar. It solved one of the ongoing problems I had as an adult of being asked what I wanted for my birthday/Krismas/whatever and not being able to recall anything that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Now I just tell people to check out my Wish List and perhaps mail them the link. The one drawback is that Amazon.com isn’t the best place to shop for, say, computer parts and there’s times when I’d like to add a couple of parts to my wishlist.
Back when Google was testing out “Froogle”—now known as Google Shopping—they had a sort of universal wish list through that, but it was never terribly useful and was yet another wish list you had to point someone to. So it’s a pleasant surprise to learn that Amazon.com has made their Wish List service universal:
Sometimes you’ll find things you want to add to your Wish List when you aren’t browsing the Amazon.com website. That’s OK, you can still add those items to your Amazon.com Wish List with the Universal Wish List Button!
The Universal Wish List Button is a browser button that will let you add items to your Wish List even if they aren’t listed on the Amazon.com website. Click here to get the button!
To get the button, all you need to do is click on the image for the button and drag it to your browser’s tool bar as instructed. It should only take a few seconds for the button be added and appear in your browser’s tool bar.
Once you see the button, it’s available for you to use immediately. When you’re browsing a website and you see something you want, just click the “Add to Wish List” button in your tool bar. You’ll see a confirmation screen, and the item will be added to your Amazon.com Wish List.
When you or your friends & family browse your Wish List, they’ll see non-Amazon items listed with a “Shop this store” button. If they decide to click the button to purchase the item, they’ll be taken to the store where the item is listed—and the transaction will take place outside of Amazon.com.
When you purchase an item from another website, the seller of the products on that site will charge your credit card, ship the product to you, and handle all customer issues. Amazon.com has no control over your experience once you leave our website, and the A-to-z Guarantee does not apply to these orders.
When you click the button it pops open a small window with the link to the page along with a picture of what it thinks is the possible product and a spot to put in price info and comments. You can even cycle through the images on the page if the product image isn’t correct until you find the right one. I added a EVGA video card I’ve been wanting from the folks at New Egg.com as a test and it works pretty well. They’ll still have to register an account with whatever online store you’re linking to and they’ll have to manually tell it your shipping address, but otherwise it keeps everything under a single Wish List. Don’t know how long this option has been available, but it’s pretty damned cool.