Embarking on a journey of selling on Wish is an exciting opportunity for businesses looking to tap into the vast e-commerce market. With a user base spanning over 60 countries, Wish opens doors to a diverse global audience. This guide will walk you through the process of starting your selling journey on Wish, highlighting the benefits, steps to get started, product selection and understanding the costs involved.
The Appeal of Selling on Wish
Wish’s global presence, with a significant user base in Europe (50% of the entire user base) and North America (36%), offers an unparalleled opportunity for sellers to reach a diverse audience. The platform’s international reach can open new markets and customer segments for your products.
Wide Customer Demographic
One of the primary reasons to consider Wish as your e-commerce partner is its broad and diverse user base. Here’s a snapshot of who shops on Wish:
- Age Distribution: The platform caters to a wide age range, from the tech-savvy youth (18-29: 27%) to the more experienced shoppers (50-64: 26%). This diversity shows that products across various categories have a place on Wish.
- Gender Breakdown: With 58% female and 42% male users, Wish shows a relatively balanced gender distribution.
- Engagement: Users spend an average of 11 minutes on the platform, indicating strong engagement. Additionally, with 22.6 million monthly active users, the platform’s reach is undeniable.
Understanding these demographics allows retailers to tailor their strategies effectively, ensuring that their offerings meet the varying preferences of this vast audience.
Aligning with Consumer Search Behavior
Understanding what consumers search for on Wish is vital. The platform, while discovery-based, still sees significant search activity:
- Home & Garden: Top searches include decor items like curtains, pet related items, blankets, and seasonal decorations (Halloween and Christmas). Retailers should focus on decor essentials and capitalize on seasonal trends. Additionally, you can also offer pet-friendly home products to tap into a pet-loving audience.
- Consumer Electronics: Customers focus on mobile phones (iPhones), headphones, and emerging tech like smart watches and drones. Aligning your offerings with these trends is key.
- Beauty & Healthcare: The focus is on self-care items like nails, eyelashes, makeup, and perfumes. Our top tip is to enhance your listings with attractive accessories that complement users’ beauty routines.
Simplified International Expansion with BaseLinker
Wish simplifies the process of international selling, providing tools and support to help you navigate the complexities of global e-commerce. On top of that, you can easily integrate this marketplace with BaseLinker – the best tool to manage e-commere in one place from invoicing, easy shipping management, document printing to full process automation that speeds up shipments even sevenfold.
The two-way integration between BaseLinker and Wish makes it easier for sellers to list offers on the marketplace and manage orders. The connection allows for a quick addition of products and creation of new offers based on them, as well as automatic download of orders.
How does BaseLinker help streamline sales on foreign marketplaces?
✓ Free one-click product translation – integration with the world’s best automatic translator DeepL will significantly speed up the work! It allows translation of descriptions, parameters as well as product names directly on the product card in the BaseLinker catalog.
✓ Generating product names and descriptions – the AI module in BaseLinker can generate original product names and descriptions in any language with a single click.
✓ Assigning price groups in multiple currencies – you can create separate prices for different sales channels, in different currencies or for different customer groups. If you are using a dropshipping wholesaler, you can create an additional price group dedicated to them. In addition, it is possible to convert prices into foreign currencies directly in the BaseLinker panel.
✓ Various invoice print templates – in the BaseLinker panel, you can not only issue bilingual invoices with currency conversion and language according to the country of delivery, but also set up different numbering series and VAT and VAT OSS rates.
✓ Improving customer contact – creating email and SMS templates for different shipping countries is a basic functionality that will improve customer service. Thanks to automatic actions, the system itself will send the appropriate message at subsequent stages of the order process, e.g., after confirming payment, the buyer will receive the message “Thank you for your purchase,” and after the package is dispatched, “Your order has been shipped”.
Why should you sell on Wish?
Starting to sell on Wish offers a plethora of benefits that can significantly enhance your online retail experience and profitability. Here’s why you should consider signing up:
✓ Reduced Commission Rate – enjoy a low commission rate of just 5% for the first 90 days, allowing you to maximize your profits during the crucial initial phase of your business.
✓ Dedicated Account Management Support – benefit from the dedicated support of a Wish Account Manager in the UK, who will assist you in navigating the platform, optimizing your account, and maximizing your sales potential.
✓ Free Marketing and Exposure – take advantage of free marketing initiatives and participate in Wish’s marketing events at no extra cost. This includes initial account boosts to help generate your first views and suggestions for account optimization.
✓ Wish Express Program – by offering expedited shipping options through the Wish Express program, you can:
- Increase product impressions and attract more customers.
- Receive payments for orders faster.
- Earn a unique orange truck badge, highlighting your fast-shipping products on the Wish platform.
- Feature your products in a dedicated “Express” section on Wish, further increasing visibility.
All merchants automatically qualify for Wish Express, without the need for a separate sign-up or application process. Eligibility is determined based on setting the “max delivery days” for your products to 5 or fewer business days for supported destinations. With the exception of the 12 countries listed in Merchant Policy; for example, merchants may set the max delivery days for France as 6 business days or fewer to be eligible for Wish Express. This flexibility allows you to adapt to various market demands while ensuring your products are eligible for the benefits of Wish Express.
Starting Your Selling Journey on Wish
Step 1: Account Setup and Verification
- Access through Invitation: Start by accepting an invitation to join Wish as a seller. Click here to join and benefit from a reduced 5% revenue share for your first three months, plus a dedicated account manager.
- Store Verification: Verify your store by submitting business registration documents (e.g., certificate of Incorporation, tax certificate, VAT registration, company annual return, registered business license, bank statements, etc.) and personal identification (e.g., government-issued ID card such as a driver’s license, passport, dowód osobisty etc.). This step is crucial for securing your account and gaining access to merchant features.
Step 2: Choose Shipping Options
- Ship to US Only – focus on the US market alone.
- Ship to Selected Countries/Regions – if you choose this option, items from your store can be purchased by customers from the countries/regions that you select only. This allows you to choose the destinations your store can ship to. If you select “Add all countries/regions”, items from your store can be purchased by customers in all destinations worldwide supported by Wish.
What Sells Best on Wish?
Focus on Leading Categories
Marketplace is known for certain key categories:
- Home and Garden
- Fashion
- Health and Beauty
- Hobbies
- Electronics
The top performing categories (Fashion and Home & Garden) command a significant portion of Wish’s Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), estimated at 35-40%. Emerging as strong contenders are the Hobbies and Consumer Electronics (CE) sectors. Notably, CE is experiencing a growth spurt, primarily driven by a surge in the refurbished electronics sector. It presents a ripe opportunity for sellers to leverage, considering the increasing consumer inclination towards sustainability and affordability.
European sellers are finding their niche in this diverse market landscape. They excel particularly in the Home & Garden category, offering unique products that might not be as accessible from other regions, like China.
It is worth noting that sexual wellness products, including erotic accessories and lingerie, are among the best-selling items on Wish.
Listing Products on Wish
How do I add products?
Gain fast exposure and traction for your store by adding products. Adding multiple, high-quality products shortly after you gain access to your store will only help increase overall exposure among Wish’s global customer base.
You can upload your products manually, via CSV feed file,via API or via BaseLinker. We recommend that new sellers first manually upload their products in order to get familiar with the process and platform.
Optimize a Product’s Main Image
Your main image is the primary photo shown to customers for each product in the Wish feed. Having an optimized main image for every listed product is crucial for any online store or marketplace – especially on Wish, where customers are presented with an endless stream of images with no titles or descriptions. Your main image is your best chance to convey everything that needs to be expressed about your product, and it needs to be done in one tiny square. Your Account Manager will provide you with photography tips and help you optimize product images.
Add Video
Once all of your main images are optimized, your next steps should be to upgrade to video! Uploading Wish Clips is another great way to potentially increase impressions and sales. Similar to optimizing your main image, we recommend starting with small batches of your most popular products.
Receive Orders
Once you’ve listed products on Wish, you’re ready to start getting orders!
- Wish will send you daily emails letting you know how many orders need to be fulfilled. These orders will show up on the Merchant Dashboard.
- Marketplace requires you to fulfill orders within 5 calendar days of the order released date, orders that are not marked as “shipped” within 5 calendar days from the order released time are refunded automatically by Wish.
- You must provide a valid tracking ID when fulfilling newly-released orders or modifying the tracking information of orders already marked “shipped” in order to get paid for fulfilling the order
- For your protection, orders that Wish’s system deems fraudulent will not show up on the Merchant Dashboard.
Promoting Your Products on Wish
The Merchant Promotions Platform expands promotion offerings that may help empower you to improve sales, customer experience, buyer retention, and Wish Standards’ ratings.
Promotion Types on Wish
- Discount offers 5-80% off (on eligible products) for 7-14 calendar days.
- Flash Sale offers 15-80% off (on eligible products) for 12 hours.
- Event offers 15% or more off (on eligible products) for a promoted Wish event.
Promotion Performance on Wish
The Merchant Promotions Platform offers a variety of promotion performance metrics for both current and completed promotions.
On the Promotion Performance page, you can find details such as how a product is performing, which product has the most orders, highest conversion rate, lowest conversion rate as well as whether products are sold out or have been rejected from the promotion.
For completed promotions, you also have the option to “Restart Campaign.”
Cost Consideration – Understanding Fees and Commissions
When sellers make a sale, Wish will generally charge a commission and pay sellers based on a progressive commission structure.
- New sellers will start with 5% commission for the first 3 months.
- Wish doesn’t charge sellers money or fees upfront and only earn money when sellers’ products sell.
- All orders are also subject to a transaction fee of US$0.30 per item.
By leveraging the tools and opportunities offered by Wish and BaseLinker, you can significantly expand your business’s reach and success. Remember, patience and continuous learning are key to thriving in the competitive world of online selling. Start your journey on Wish today and unlock the potential of a global marketplace!
