Wish.com

Wish is an American e-commerce platform that turned shopping into a scrolling experience. Launched in 2010 by former Google engineer Piotr Szulczewski and ex-Yahoo engineer Danny Zhang, the company originally built predictive ad technology before pivoting to a mobile-first marketplace in 2011. Instead of a search bar, Wish serves users a personalized feed of ultra-low-priced products, often 60 to 90 percent below typical retail, drawn from thousands of merchants, mostly based in China.

The platform peaked as the most downloaded shopping app in the United States by 2017, with a revenue run rate near $1 billion. At its height, Wish had 680 million registered users and roughly 200,000 active merchants, though it later slashed its seller base by hundreds of thousands amid a crackdown on counterfeits. Revenue hit $2.87 billion in 2021 before collapsing to $571 million in 2022, and by early 2024 the company agreed to sell to Singapore-based Qoo10 for $173 million, a fraction of the $10 billion Jeff Bezos reportedly offered in 2016.

Wish's model keeps no inventory and handles no returns, relying entirely on third-party sellers. This kept costs low but also fueled widespread complaints about product quality and shipping times, spawning a meme culture around "Wish vs. reality." Current CEO Joe Yan, who took the role in February 2024, is leading a turnaround focused on overhauling merchant networks and improving quality control. The company now operates from San Jose, California, with around 886 employees as of 2022. [edit]