Wishing for more from Wish?
Ever wanted a cheaper version of amazon mixed with just a smidge of the questionability of eBay? Well I have the online shopping retailer for you: Wish.
I first heard of this online market place on YouTube while watching a Safiya Nygaard videos. Nygaard is a lifestyle vlogger who gained her internet start by working for media content producer BuzzFeed. She now has her own independent channel and brand where she does quite a bit of fashion and makeup vlogging. I especially adore her series on trying brands and products hulls so that way consumers like me can see if how scammy certain sites are. One site she has multiple reviews on is wish.
But I had to look into an important question, what exactly is wish? According to their internally written Wikipedia page, Wish is an online e-commerce company modeled after eBay, with the layout of Pinterest. It was founded in 2010 by Peter Szulczewski (CEO) and Danny Zhang (CTO), two former google employees. Part of the major success of wish has come from their knowledge and usage of the Facebook ad metric software. Something way above my paygrade, but in a slightly clickbaitesque fashion, wish is able to direct traffic to the app or website using Facebook ad algorithm, so I see products that I have interest in. These ads especially appeared after I watched the haul videos on YouTube…. Using the Facebook market is part of the reason why that Szulczewski states the company can be at a trillion-dollar margin in the near future.
Wish’s model is to take foreign merchant’s product and sell them at wholesale prices to their domestic customers. “Take your local merchant in Shenzhen, where the majority of the world’s goods are manufactured, both branded and unbranded. That merchant has no idea how to sell to people in the Netherlands, France, Brazil, the U.S., Australia. He also has no idea how to communicate with those customers, so we take care of all of that. What merchants get in return [is] suddenly, they get an additional audience of more than a billion smartphone users who don’t really cannibalize their existing market,” says Szulczewski in an interview with the Hustle.
Saf and I were not the only ones intrigued by how legit is wish. Wish hauls have 1000s of hits on YouTube and have inspired articles like this one discussing a $20 apple watch mock for the Atlantic. Another issue some people have with Wish is that because of the way their online market works products are constantly changing. You could put something in your cart at $2 but when you go to check out a while later, if you browse more, the price may change. Wish also lists certain products as free, however these items don’t always stay free.
With crazy low-cost prices, the quality seems to fit the cost with some few exceptions. Saf summarizes this in a clothing haul video “The scammed me with the pants but I scammed them with the top.” I only recently was brave enough to finally make a purchase on Wish. I bought a $4 silicone hair scrubber , a tech cable hard case for $4 and a set of 20 makeup brushes for $3. The scubber mimics a $15-$25 product I’ve seen advertised elsewhere on Facebook. This hand-held device, if it works, will be saving my manicures and supposedly be better for my scalp. $4 is a much safer coin toss on how well it works for me than $15. I believe is the true point of the wish market. There is a much lower price so I willing to gamble on how well things work. With shipping dates expected in June, its too soon to tell who got the real bargain here, Wish or myself.
