Wish is a cross-border e-commerce site that's not just cheap: what are its strengths as it competes with Amazon?

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When thinking of cross-border e-commerce platforms for the US, Amazon.com and eBay come to mind, but have you heard of the cross-border e-commerce platform "Wish" that is currently attracting attention?
Last year, in December 2020, ContextLogic, which operates "Wish," listed on the US NASDAQ and raised approximately US$1.1bil (approximately 110 billion yen) with a market capitalization of US$14bil (approximately 1.4 trillion yen).
"Wish" is now growing as the largest mobile e-commerce platform in the US and Europe.
In this article, we will introduce the strengths and features of "Wish," as well as the benefits of entering the market as a cross-border seller and how to register.


(1) What is Wish?
Wish app screen

"Wish" is the world's largest mobile shopping app, with more than 100 million monthly active users, more than 500,000 stores, and more than 2 million items sold daily.
Wish was founded in 2010 by former Google and Yahoo cyprus whatsapp data developers Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang, and initially started as an app for users to list the products they wanted.


It later evolved into a service that directly connected users and sellers, and in 2017 it grew into a shopping app that generated revenue of over 100 billion yen.
Wish is the most downloaded app among American consumers, and a wide variety of products such as clothes, accessories, and electrical appliances are listed on the app, and like Mercari, customers can enjoy shopping from the app on their smartphones or tablets.
In terms of app downloads in 2018, it was also the most downloaded shopping app in the world.
The number of monthly users in the January-September period of 2020 averaged 108 million, 1.3 times the number in the same period last year, and sales also increased 32% year-on-year to 1.747 billion dollars (approximately 191 billion yen). (Sales are expanding, but operating losses are large.)

There are almost no branded products, and most of
the products are in the low price range of less than 10,000 yen and weigh less than 2 kg. In terms of product demographics, it targets the millennial generation, and is a global EC platform that sells to consumers in over 100 countries around the world, rivaling Amazon and Alibaba, with the basic axis of "delivering products cheaper than anywhere else to users."

(2) Features of Wish’s services
The biggest feature of Wish is that it specializes in low-priced products ranging from 200 yen to 10,000 yen, as can be seen by looking at the products in the app.
Moreover, there is no service such as next-day delivery. It is said that it can take more than three weeks for products to arrive.
Nevertheless, Wish is growing its revenue and number of users because, while Amazon's strengths are its wide range of products and fast delivery, Wish has attracted middle-income earners who are willing to purchase low-priced products even if delivery takes a long time. Furthermore
, 90% of these products are listed by Chinese manufacturers, and the products are delivered directly from China, making it a cross-border e-commerce platform that connects Chinese manufacturers with users around the world.

Another distinctive feature of Wish is that it is an app specialized for mobile devices. This is due to the ease of use of shopping apps and recommendations.
Wish does not adopt the hierarchical structure for searching for products, such as "Home screen → Home appliances → Refrigerators," which is common on e-
commerce sites. Wish's main app handles fashion and cosmetics, but it also has separate apps such as "Mama," which handles products for children, and "Home," which handles interior goods.
Another major strength of the top screen is its browsing technology, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest products from over 500,000 merchants based on the user's country, age, browsing history, and other personal needs.


Another attractive feature of Wish is that it is a global e-commerce platform used by users in over 100 countries.
As we will discuss later, as a cross-border e-commerce platform, it is easy to list products and the sales system is easy to understand.
As a cross-border e-commerce platform, it also supports multiple languages ​​and has a wide range of functions for customs clearance and taxation. It is easy to use even for sellers who are not very familiar with e-commerce listings, such as manufacturers.