You’re thinking about shop on Wish? We have decided to analyze in detail , which is characterized by making products imported from China available to customers at very low prices: an (apparently) endless amount of items of all kinds designed to achieve impulse purchases around the world… and that he succeeds with great success.
I want to buy on Wish, what exactly is it?
Wish is an American eCommerce company founded by Y former programmers of Google and Yahoo (respectively), which occupies a privileged place in the online sales sector thanks to its original proposal. It is an intermediary platform that puts sellers and buyers in contact and that is characterized, above all, by selling insultingly cheap products.
It works like a huge where you can find anything. Fashion, accessories, technology, devices for the muscles, clothes for dogs or even cigarette paper, to name just a few examples. The idea was developed after Szulczewski and Zhang in 2013 created an app that worked like a wish list. Over time they discovered that users always went to the cheapest items in the app. From there, they decided be themselves the ones who negotiate directly with the merchants (especially Chinese sellers).
Today, after a few years, Wish has grown with pleasure. She has around 90 million active users and 1 million sellers that they make available to customers over 300 million products to buy. With a sales philosophy that is outlined in an aggressive strategy, Wish wants to aspire to become the number one e-commerce in the world
Shop on Wish: a clean design and uncomplicated interface
When entering to buy on Wish, the first thing one finds is a clean design, that is housed in a simple interface and where the white color predominates.
Rightly, it does not abuse buttons or links that can distract the buyer, but rather encourages the user to focus all their attention on the items to be sold. It is designed so that any user I can navigate smoothly since it is very easy to find almost any of the elements that compose it- we say almost because the ‘contact, terms, policies and more’ section seems to be hidden in a drop-down tab that opens at the bottom of the web-.
The distribution of the Wish website in Spanish
The home page is made up of a row menu with several tabs, the typical upper right section (for the search engine, notifications, profile and shopping cart) and just below a selection of the most popular or best-selling products at that time .
This selection is a potpourri of articles ordered without criteria where what is really valued is the offers. Specifically, what you see at first glance of the featured items is: an image of each item, the original price, the final price and how many people bought the item in question. In many of them too the % of the discounted price is shown so that it is one of the first things that users see when browsing the web (they are usually discounts of more than 50%, sometimes reaching a crazy 95%).
On the other hand, it is curious to discover that the product catalog organized by item type is not one of the first options in the row of menu tabs.
That is, if we want to buy on Wish by accessing the products by category, we have to go to the menu button located on the far right of the interface. The other tabs, however, they are more focused on customers buying without thinking too much. For example, the ‘lightning offer’ is a very fun option in which every day potential buyers can obtain – even more so – discounted prices on items (for only 10 minutes, yes) by spinning a wheel.
little product information
The truth is that Wish It does not stop too much in detailing the product sheets. If we compare with other ecommerce platforms, it could be said that the descriptions are scarce. By pressing each tab individually, a window is enlarged on the same website where we can see the full name of the product, reviews from other users, some more specifications, several photographs (which unfortunately for shopaholics cannot be enlarged) and related products.
Obviously, you can select between color and size (if any) although, attention, It is indicated that it does not include VAT. One can imagine that it is so that the buyer can intensely delight seeing the low price in his cart until the reality of paying arrives.
But a lot of variety of items
The two great advantages that we find when buying on Wish are two: low prices and variety of products. As we already said, in this marketplace there is everything to choose from. It has many categories to choose from: fashion, accessories, watches, shoes, babies and children, beauty and makeup or an outlet section with offers of up to 97%.
If you can’t find something, you can use the search engine. There is even a category called ‘hobbies’ for all those articles impossible to classify in the other sections. Although if you are not looking for any specific product, you can get carried away by the ‘popular’ section where the best-selling items on the platform are.
Wish’s Big Problems: (Eternal) Shipping Modalities and Lack of Trust
Eternal shipments
Although the web indicates that normal shipments take between 1 or 2 days, the last word is always with the trader. And this means that sometimes delivery times are scandalous and even humiliating for the payer. In some cases, a shipping margin of 1 or 2 months. This means that when you buy a 2 euro bracelet on Wish, you may have to wait that period for it without knowing what day it will arrive.
The good news of all this is that it also includes the option of fast shipments (the ‘express’ tab), the bad news is that what is understood as fast shipping is 8-10 days. Regarding prices, the platform is committed to keeping shipping costs low, although this varies depending on the size, weight and destination of the order. And not only that, since the articles come from different merchants, it must be taken into account that expenses are applied separately for each item. So if you’re thinking of buying multiple things, you’ll probably have to pay more than one shipping cost if they don’t come from the same seller.
Ease of returning items
Wish makes it easy for customers to return items within 30 days of purchase. Even so, the buyer will have to bear the return costs unless the seller has shipped the product in error or is defective. As a general rule, the refund is made to the original payment method. Returns are made in the “customer service” option in the user profile. Unfortunately, Wish doesn’t allow item exchanges, but orders can be canceled or delivery address changed within the first 8 hours.
Wish’s BIG Achilles’ Heel: A Trust Issue
Special mention deserves the (bad) reputation of Wish among many users who have used this ecommerce. His big problem is that receives countless consumer complaints about the chaos of its marketplace. Products that do not arrive, repeat orders or that have not been made, prices that do not correspond, allegedly fraudulent information (screensavers that are sold as smartphones), duplicate charges and more. You just have to take a look at the comment history of this article that we have updated with the latest eCommerce news.
In either case, it’s not entirely Wish’s fault. Do not forget that it is a platform that brings buyers and sellers into contact and that, therefore, it can work as an excellent scenario for fraud by not very reliable merchants. Although, of course, this is not always the case. There are also “verified” productsthis means that there are items that have high ratings from other users who have previously purchased them.
conclusion
In short, Wish could be compared to a Chinese bazaar where the priority is to buy bargains without worrying too much about the quality of the items. Wish does not promise luxury or high quality items. The main tabs are not organized by type of products, but, like a physical store of these characteristics, they are crowded into one place to fervently highlight their rock-bottom prices.
It is perceived that the philosophy of the platform is to sell by the bucket, that is to bill a lot, quickly and to a lot of people. Wish is fiercely focused on one type of compulsive buyer who is a fan of low prices, deals and discounts. In other words: if you are a meticulous consumer who prefers to compare options until you choose the best one, buying on Wish may not be the most recommended option.
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