How Wish built (and fumbled) an online dollar store

Consumers complained to the Better Business Bureau about Wish products that never arrived or were unrecognizable when they did. France, which has been one of Wish’s largest markets, requested search engines and mobile app stores last fall remove company From their lists on the Internet, noting the presence of dangerous devices and other products. Merchants on Wish have faced lawsuits from companies like Peanuts Worldwide, which owns characters from popular comics, alleging trademark infringement and counterfeiting.

Shoppers have complained about advertisements for products designed for the male reproductive organs. Ads that showed a moving rod appeared on apps that It can appeal to children, including a game called Crazy Cake Swap. These ads have come under scrutiny by British ad regulators, as have ads that promise unconfirmed cuts of up to 98 per cent. for sneakersIn addition to displaying advertisements Baby exposed bottom And a woman in a corset with her Partially exposed breast.

“It’s a strategy more like spam than trying to reach a target market,” Mx. Gregel said. (Wish said it tightens its controls on ads, promoting products only from the highest-rated merchants and filtering out inappropriate ads.)

However, Wish, which is run by a parent company called ContextLogic, did well early in the pandemic, as stay-at-home stifled competition from physical retailers. But in the past year, as shoppers have been venturing out more and becoming less engaged with Wish, digital ads have also become more expensive, prompting the company to cut back on its spending. (She said she plans to increase the pace this summer.)

Pressure, too, has been building internally at Wish for years.

Managers were constantly on the move — like chess pieces, one employee said — resulting in high turnover of workers tired of the turmoil. Several employees complained that the company was not equipped to handle the orders that poured in early in the pandemic, and that colleagues are exhausted under heavy pressure and long hours.

Employees said their peers were often ignored or forced to wait after raising concerns about quality control issues, such as a lack of standardized product metrics for merchants. Often, they said, listings of weapons and other illegal products were not removed. There were also not many misleading listings, such as the one that seemed to offer a fridge for $1 but was selling the magnets shown in the appliance photo.