When Jet.com sold to Walmart in 2016, commentators remarked that there was no space for new ecommerce apps, in a market with Amazon and eBay.
Two years later, ecommerce platform Wish was the most downloaded shopping application worldwide and the third largest e-commerce marketplace in the United States.
Wish was originally founded as wishlist app, in which users could create lists of their favourite products. To help monetise the site, Wish added a similar products feature and began partnering with merchants to sell on the platform.
It wasn’t long before the sales from partnered merchants far outpaced the pay-per-click advertising model. In 2013, it relaunched the site as an ecommerce platform.
Even from the start, Wish was known for its cheap prices and knock-off goods. It ran a direct-to-consumer model, meaning it had limited control over the supply and quality of the items being delivered.
This has led to accusations of poor quality and counterfeit goods, which Wish has been unable to refute in the past. It has in recent years deployed some quality control systems, with other refund and cancellation protections for consumers.
Anyone that has used Wish will know deals are part of the app’s DNA. Some items are on sale for a supposed 98 percent of the original value, although it’s hard to verify if it was ever on Wish for the original price. Wish also provides a lot of freebies and coupons to users, often offering an item for free as long as the customer pays shipping. Users are entered into prize draws and daily deals. Over 300 million items are available on the Wish store, the majority of which are from China.
Amazon has for over a decade built a delivery platform so sophisticated it can reach anyone in less than two days, on Wish, customers typically wait over two weeks for their package to arrive. The app lends itself well to scrolling, like a social network, far different to Amazon where the customer usually searches for a specific item.
Wish is not close to former-CEO Piotr Szulczewski’s ambition to be the “second or third trillion dollar a year marketplace”, but it has brought a new dimension to shopping online, one that Amazon has somewhat copied with its Prime Day.
The past two years have seen Wish’s growth tumble, as it has lost millions of monthly active buyers. New competitors, such as Pinduoduo’s Temu, are also removing one of the key bit of uniqueness which Wish had in the the United States and Europe.
We have collected data and statistics on Wish. Read on below to find out more.
Wish key statistics
- Wish generated $570 million revenue in 2022, a decline of 73% year-over-year
- In 2022, Wish’s net loss increased to $384 million
- Wish has 27 million monthly active users and approximately 650 million registered users
- Over 600,000 merchants sell on the Wish platform
Wish overview
| Title | Title 2 |
|---|---|
| Launch date | 4 July 2010 |
| HQ | San Francisco, California |
| People | Piotr Szulczewski (CEO), Rajat Bahri (CFO), Danny Zhang (co-founder) |
| Business type | Public (NASDAQ: WISH) |
| Industry | Ecommerce |
Wish revenue
Wish revenue decreased to $571 million in 2022, a decline of 73% year-over-year.
Wish quarterly revenue 2019 to 2022 ($mm)
Wish annual revenue 2015 to 2022 ($bn)
| Year | Revenue ($bn) |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 0.3 |
| 2016 | 0.7 |
| 2017 | 1 |
| 2018 | 1.2 |
| 2019 | 1.9 |
| 2020 | 2.5 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 0.57 |
Sources: Company data, Forbes
Wish profit
Wish reported a net loss of $384 million in 2022, even lower than the net loss in 2021.
Wish annual net income/loss ($mm)
| Year | Net income/loss ($mm) |
|---|---|
| 2019 | -129 |
| 2020 | -745 |
| 2021 | -361 |
| 2022 | -384 |
Source: Company data
Wish users
Wish monthly active users have declined heavily in the past year, from 90 million in 2021 to 27 million in 2022.
Wish quarterly users 2019 to 2022 (mm)
Wish annual users 2017 to 2022 (mm)
| Year | MAUs (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 75 |
| 2018 | 82 |
| 2019 | 90 |
| 2020 | 107 |
| 2021 | 90 |
| 2022 | 27 |
Wish registered users
Wish has over 600 million registered users on its platform since it launched.
Wish annual registered users 2017 to 2021 (mm)
| Year | Users (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 300 |
| 2018 | 400 |
| 2019 | 500 |
| 2020 | 600 |
| 2021 | 650 |
Sources: Company data, Indigo9Digital, Forbes
Wish merchants
Wish has about 600,000 merchants that sell items on its platform. It removed a lot of merchants in 2019 due to fake or counterfeit items.
Wish annual partnered merchants 2018 to 2021
| Year | Merchants (mm) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 0.7 |
| 2019 | 0.9 |
| 2020 | 0.5 |
| 2021 | 0.6 |
Sources: Company data, Forbes
Wish valuation
Wish’s valuation peaked just before its IPO, when it was valued at $11.2 billion. Its market cap has declined significantly over the past 12 months.
Wish valuation 2015 to 2022 ($bn)
| Year | Valuation ($bn) |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 3 |
| 2017 | 8.7 |
| 2019 | 11.2 |
| 2021 | 8.9 |
| 2022 | 0.9 |
Sources: Crunchbase, Vox
Wish FAQ
- There are over 300 million items available on Wish (Indigo Digital)
- A third of Wish’s total order volume comes from the United States (Forbes)
- It is the fourth largest online marketplace in the US by sales volume
- Wish was the most downloaded shopping app in the world in 2018 (Forbes)
- Wish sells about three million items daily
- It doubled its revenue between 2018 and 2019, from $1 billion to $1.9 billion (Forbes)
- Wish main demographic is young and middle class (Cnet)
- Wish sponsorship of the Los Angeles Lakers reportedly costs between $38 and $42 million per year (Recode)
More Shopping App Data
- Shein Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- E-commerce App Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- Pinterest Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- eBay Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- Wayfair Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- Etsy Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- ASOS Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
- Depop Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)
