You’ve probably heard about the e-commerce company Wish, as it’s known for its cheap prices and easy-to-use app. However, some people have doubts about whether Wish and its app is legit – so I will try to explain everything in detail.
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What is Wish App?
A Wish is San Francisco-based e-commerce platform that’s known for selling products at unbelievably low prices. It can be compared to Amazon or eBay as it’s also a marketplace for buying or selling products. However, unlike Amazon or eBay, it’s focused on cheap products only.
You wouldn’t find quite expensive brands there, like Apple or Samsung, however, you can find cheap products there, like sunglasses for $2 or a smartwatch for $10.
There is quite a wide choice of products you can buy: watches, clothes, garbage bags, and small kitchen appliances. On the Wish website or app, you can see the Popular list that features the most trending items, or you can click on Categories to see all products’ categories that are available on this e-commerce platform:
- Fashion
- Gadgets
- Accessories
- Hobbies
- Home Decor
- Shoes
- Baby & Kids
- Wallets & Bags
- Phone Upgrades
- Watches
- Tools
- Tops
- Pet Accessories
- Stationery
- Underwear
- Kitchen
- Bottoms
- Automotive
However, such low prices how their own drawbacks and we will discuss them later in this article.
Is the Wish App legit?
Yes, don’t worry, this platform is as legit as eBay or Amazon. The company is based in San Francisco and it’s legit. However, salt is the products you can buy on this platform. As Wish offers extremely low prices, almost all items you can find there are made in China and sold by companies located in the US (but there’s quite a rare thing) or in mainland China (and that’s the most common case). That means some of the products you can find there are counterfeit and it’s quite difficult to understand whether the product is genuine or counterfeit before you made an order and receive a product.
I mean, that despite Wish is 100% legit, the products on this platform may not be genuine. Hilary George-Parkin in their article for Vox has found a lot of complaints about Wish customer service like the company is sometimes failing to send purchased products, sometimes it’s failing to issue refunds, or can make unauthorized credit card charges.
Another problem, if we can say so, is that when you’re using the Wish App, you would be bombarded with endless discounts, deals, and coupons, most of which are designed as take-now-or-lose.
Insider editor Dennis Green said that Wish is using psychological tricks in order to make people feel special.
The main problem is the lack of the company’s moderation over the items that are sold through this platform, so a lot of items seem to be untested or even suspect.
To sum up, Wish itself is legit, however, some products sold via this platform may be of an inappropriate quality and you would simply waste your money.
Is the Wish App safe?
Yeah, the Wish is also safe. If we speak in terms of whether it’s legit and in terms of collecting your personal information. There are two types of information Wish can collect:
- Information that’s collected automatically: your location, IP address, social network profile data, browser type, your actions on the website or app, time spend on pages.
- Personal information that you provide: your name, e-mail, credit card info, shipping address, phone number, etc.
In general, everything is like always other services, so nothing suspicious.
Why are products on Wish so cheap?
As I said, almost all products you can find on the Wish are made in China and sold directly by Chinese manufacturers or companies that are located in mainland China.
That means you don’t pay for a middleman in the US or any other Western country, so there’s no additional fee charged by such middlemen.
There’s also no strict quality control, as sellers usually don’t have staff that’s responsible for it. So, companies are cutting their costs and part of such save goes directly into the low price.
China has a lot of policies that allow its manufacturers to make cheap goods and offer them at low prices. Moreover, there’s an agreement between China Post and US Postal Service that makes shipping from China to the US sometimes cheaper than shipping between US states. Changes to the Universal Postal Union Treaty have changed a situation slightly, but not at all.
How long you should wait for shipping from Wish
The shipping is the controversial thing when we speak about Wish. Some products may be delivered in 5-7 days, while for others you would need to wait for several months. I’ve found a lot of complaints about Wish shipping, so when buying on Wish, you should be ready to wait for a long time.
Also don’t forget that the longer the time shipment takes, the higher chance that the package would be damaged.
However, for some products there’s Wish Express delivery, so you can get your purchase in seven days.
Does it worth buying from Wish?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Low prices | Long shipping time |
| Wide variety of products | Low quality control |
| Easy-to-use app | Poor customer service |
The main thing you should understand – you get what you pay for. The average quality of products at Wish is lower than for the products of the same category offered in other stores or e-commerce platforms. I spoke to a lot of people that are constantly buying from Wish and the feedback is quite different. Some people say they’re okay with the quality of products, while others are unsatisfied.
The common rule is that you can’t know whether the item would work properly until you buy and receive it. There’s even a trend on YouTube when people are building PCs using only components found on Wish and sometimes they fail to run.
Another problem of Wish is low quality control. Sellers don’t hire quality-control staff, as that allows them to cut-off costs and, therefore, prices and Wish doesn’t make itself. That means that most products you can find on the platform are made of the cheapest materials and usually items aren’t tested before shipping, so the chance you’ll get simply non-working product is quite high.
Don’t forget about poor customer service. As most sellers are located in China and other Asian countries, that are strong concerns about customer service quality. If we take well-known companies that have a strong reputation, we know that such companies are concerned with negative feedback, as it can impact their business. However, manufacturers that sold their products on Wish simply don’t care about their reputation, as people buy their products not because of it, but because of low prices.
You should understand one thing – buying from Wish is hit or miss. You can get a product that’s okay, but you also can get a product of very low quality (or it can even doesn’t work).
However, that doesn’t mean that everything you will buy on Wish wouldn’t work. One man told me he is constantly buying from Wish and he’s satisfied with the price/quality ratio. For example, he has bought a Bluetooth wireless speaker and despite the sound quality isn’t the best, it’s working properly and he said that for $10 that was a great deal.
So if you want to save money – that may be a great way to buy cheap products and some of them would be of good quality. However, there’s a chance that the product would be of unacceptable quality, so you would need to pay twice.
But if you just want to get a product as soon as possible and want to be sure it would be of good quality – my advice is to choose another platform like eBay or Amazon. Yeah, the product will probably cost more, but you won’t get a headache.
All in all, Wish can offer interesting deals, but be careful when buying there and do some research (at least read reviews) before making an order.
This story was written by Vladislav Sheridan and was reviewed by Jane Weisenthal, a Senior Tech Editor at Splaitor, according to Splaitor’s Quality and Fact-Checking Policy.
