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Wish (company)

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Wish.com
Logo of Wish.com since 2022
Type of businessE-commerce
Type of site
Public
Available inEnglish and other languages
Traded as(Nasdaq: WISH)
FoundedJuly 4, 2010; 14 years ago (2010-07-04)
Headquarters
Oakland, California
,
United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Piotr Szulczewski
Sheng Zhang
ChairmanTanzeen Syed
Key peopleJoe Yan, CEO
Ying Liu, CFO & COO
IndustryOnline shopping
RevenueDecrease US$571 million (2022)[1]
Operating incomeDecrease US$−398 million (2022)[1]
Net incomeDecrease US$−384 million (2022)[1]
Total assetsDecrease US$799 million (2022)[2]
Total equityDecrease US$477 million (2022)[2]
Employees886 (2022)
SubsidiariesWish Outlet
Wish Express
Wish Local for Partner Stores
URLwww.wish.com
plus.wish.com
AdvertisingYes
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedMay 2011
Current statusActive

Wish is an American online e-commerce platform for transactions between sellers and buyers. Wish was founded in 2010 by Piotr Szulczewski (former CEO) and Danny Zhang (former CTO).

Wish is currently operated by ContextLogic Inc. in San Francisco, United States, pending the completion of a sale to Qoo10 initiated in February 2024. The platform personalizes the shopping experience visually for each customer, rather than relying only on a search bar format. It allows sellers to list their products on Wish and sell directly to consumers. Wish works with payment service providers to handle payments and does not stock the products themselves or manage returns.

History

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Logo until 2022

Wish was started by Piotr Szulczewski, a former Google engineer, as a software company called ContextLogic. In September 2010, ContextLogic received $1.7 million in investments and involved Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.[3]

In May 2011, Szulczewski invited college friend Danny Zhang to relaunch the company as Wish.[3] It was created as an application that allowed shoppers to create wish lists of their favorite products before matching them with merchants. They also earned revenue with a Pay-per-click model by advertising on Facebook.[4]

In 2013, Szulczewski met with Hans Tung, an investor with GGV Capital in Menlo Park, California, and noted that a large number of sales were coming from Florida, Texas and the Midwest rather than New York or California.[3] Wish became an e-commerce site after asking merchants to host their products directly on the Wish application, with Wish taking a portion of each sale.[5]

The Wish marketplace is accessed by the Wish.com website or by a mobile application that is available for iOS and Android.[6]

In 2017, Wish was the most downloaded e-commerce application in the United States.[6] It signed a multi-year partnership with the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers.[7][8] Wish conducted a World Cup campaign in 2018, that featured Neymar, Paul Pogba, Tim Howard, Gareth Bale, Robin van Persie, Claudio Bravo and Gianluigi Buffon.[9]

In 2018, Wish was the most-downloaded e-commerce application worldwide[10] and the company doubled its revenue to $1.9 billion.

As of 2019, Wish was the third-biggest e-commerce marketplace in the United States by sales.[3] In August 2019, ContextLogic received a Series H funding round, led by equity firm General Atlantic, taking the company's valuation to $11.2 billion.[11] JD.com is an investor in Wish.[12] ContextLogic went public via an IPO in 2020.[13]

In January 2022, Wish appointed Vijay Talwar as the new CEO.[14] As of September 8, 2022 Joe Yan has been appointed as the current Interim CEO of Wish. He previously worked at Stripe as a managing director and Country Head, Greater China.[15] On February 23, 2023 the interim title was removed for Joe Yan and he was appointed as the permanent Chief Executive Officer.[16] In France in March 2023, Wish was relisted, allowing the online marketplace to return to app stores and search engines in the country.[17]

Wish was sold to Qoo10 in 2024 for $173 million, around 1% of its value at the time of its IPO just over three years earlier.[18][19]

Services

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More than 1 million merchants[20][21] list their products on Wish's platform to sell directly to consumers. The bulk of the merchandise available through the app in the United States comes from China and other non-U.S. distributors.[22] The products are usually smaller items that are cheaper to ship,[12] aided by an agreement between China Post and the USPS that lowers costs of shipping for goods weighing less than 2 kg (4.4 lb).[3] Wish offers express shipping in 5 days, or 6–8 days in some cases,[23] as well as standard shipping that takes 2–3 weeks, for customers who prioritize savings over speed of delivery.[10]

Wish's "Wheel of Fortune"-style game, Blitz Buy, integrates a layer of gamification to offer consumers additional discounts on top-selling items.[24]

Criticism

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Wish has been criticized for listing poor quality or counterfeit goods, a common concern among major e-commerce sites which feature independent sellers.[25][26][27] Customers have complained about lack of communication from sellers and quality. In response to the criticism, Szulczewski hired an executive from Facebook to organize a community of about 10,000 Wish users to expose unsatisfactory dealers in exchange for free goods and discounts.[3] In France in November 2021, the Wish e-commerce system, including the website and smartphone applications, were delisted from Google's search results[28] and from Google's French app store, after French authorities claimed that many items sold on the platform do not comply with European regulations.[29][30] The same authorities also accused the platform of selling counterfeit items.[31]

On August 27, 2020, Which? bought six popular products from Wish. One of the items was a child's car seat, which was found to be similar to ones from eBay, Amazon Marketplace, and AliExpress. The car seats from said retailers are dubbed "killer car seats". This kind of car seat is unsafe, and can send a 3-year-old flying through a windscreen.[32]

It is often possible to purchase items from Wish that are not legal in the purchaser's country. In January 2020, a man from Nelson, Lancashire, United Kingdom, was sentenced to 11 months in prison for purchasing a stun gun using Wish.[33]

References

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  1. ^ a b c https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WISH/financials?p=WISH. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  2. ^ a b https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WISH/balance-sheet?p=WISH. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Olson, Parmy (13 March 2019). "Meet The Billionaire Who Defied Amazon And Built Wish, The World's Most-Downloaded E-Commerce App". Forbes. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  4. ^ "Meet Wish, the $3 Billion App That Could Be the Next Walmart". Recode. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  5. ^ Del Ray, Jason (12 July 2013). "Mobile-Commerce App Wish Says It Knows What Its Users Want to Buy". All Things Digital. Dow Jones & Co. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  6. ^ a b "Wish was most downloaded US shopping app in 2017". Tamebay. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  7. ^ Melton, James (22 September 2017). "Wish.com teams up with LA Lakers to put the online marketplace's logo on jerseys". Digitalcommerce360.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  8. ^ "L.A. Lakers Partner Wish Jumps to No. 1 in Earned Social Media Value Among NBA Jersey Patch Sponsors". Martechseries.com. 7 June 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  9. ^ Ostrander, Paris (13 July 2018). "Wish Recruits Howard, Neymar For 'Time On Your Hands' Campaign". Sports Business Daily. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  10. ^ a b George-Parkin, Hilary (17 June 2019). "Wish, the super popular, ultra-cheap shopping app, explained". Vox.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  11. ^ "Wish Valuation Rises to More Than $11 Billion Following Series H Financing Led by General Atlantic". Bloomberg. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  12. ^ a b Loizos, Connie (1 March 2016). "The hot e-commerce app Wish has "hundreds of millions of users" (plus other fascinating stats)". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  13. ^ Farrell, Dave Sebastian and Maureen (2020-12-16). "Wish Parent ContextLogic Ends Debut Below IPO Price". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  14. ^ "Wish Appoints Vijay Talwar as CEO | Wish".
  15. ^ "Wish Appoints Joe Yan Interim CEO and Reiterates Third Quarter 2022 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance".
  16. ^ ""Wish Appoints Joe Yan into Permanent CEO Position"". February 23, 2023.
  17. ^ "Wish to Return to App Stores and Search Engines in France". March 14, 2023.
  18. ^ Palmer, Annie (2024-02-13). "Wish's deep discount sale to Singapore's Qoo10 ramps up competition for Temu and Shein". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  19. ^ "ContextLogic Announces Agreement to Sell Substantially All Operating Assets and Liabilities Associated with Wish to Qoo10 for $173 Million in Cash". Yahoo Finance. 2024-02-12. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  20. ^ "Step-by-Step Guide to Sell on Wish for Beginners (Products, Benefits & Comparison)". Chinabrands.com. 27 October 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  21. ^ Olson, Parmy (15 June 2018). "Wish Founder Revamps 'Culture And Operations' To Tackle Walmart, Amazon". Forbes.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  22. ^ "The Problem With Buying Cheap Stuff Online". The Atlantic. 22 May 2018. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  23. ^ "Everything you need to know about Wish Express". Cedcommerce.com. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  24. ^ Stevens, Ben (14 June 2018). "Hands On with the Wish app". Retail Gazette. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  25. ^ "Wish faces criticism over suspected counterfeits". Digital Commerce 360. Bloomberg News. 17 July 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  26. ^ Semuels, Alana (22 May 2018). "The Problem With Buying Cheap Stuff Online". The Atlantic. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  27. ^ Hays, Kali (4 April 2018). "Off-White Going After Fakes Being Sold on Wish.com With Lawsuit". WWD. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  28. ^ "Government Request Removal Complaint to Google :: Notices :: Lumen". lumendatabase.org.
  29. ^ "Product safety allegations again dog e-commerce giant Wish". Fortune.
  30. ^ Dillet, Romain (November 24, 2021). "France asks search engines and app stores to remove Wish".
  31. ^ Dillet, Romain (November 30, 2020). "French administration suspects Wish of selling counterfeit products".
  32. ^ Simmonds, Ellie (2020-08-27). "Fake, illegal and dangerous products sold on Wish.com - Which? News". Which?. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  33. ^ Quaynor, Aban (14 January 2020). "Man who bought £5 stun gun from wish.com to protect harassed girlfriend jailed". Lancashire Telegraph.
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