Last month Wish, the company behind the popular shopping website and eCommerce app of the same name, was found to be raising an additional $500 million in a new round of funding.
Currently, Wish does $2 billion in sales and gets a 12 to 15 percent cut. Peter Szulczewski, CEO of Wish, said he thinks the company’s apps could eventually surpass $1 trillion in gross sales.
A past investing round raised on the order of $500 million in 2015 and included investments from DST Global, GGV Capital, Founders Fund and Chinese eCommerce giant JD.com. Wish is now valued at higher than $3.5 billion but below $5 billion.
Some of the $1 billion Wish has raised is purportedly slated to go toward speeding up delivery times for its customers. Until now, Wish has relied on longer shipping times to keep costs down, targeting customers with low-priced goods from Chinese manufacturers — which meant product delivery could take multiple weeks.
Szulczewski was quoted as saying, “The shipping times are extremely long. It has scaled and worked so far because the prices are so inexpensive …. The consumers don’t actually need the product the next day or within three days.”
This doesn’t mean there haven’t been any such efforts to ramp up delivery times by the company.
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Wish offers Wish Express, which guarantees shipments in five business days — but only for select products from merchants and manufacturers who can guarantee their goods will ship in time. On the Wish website and in the app, products that qualify for Wish Express products have a special indicating badge.
Wish has additionally been investing in warehouse space is investing in warehouse space so that it can quicken the pace of delivery. It plans to store its most popular products close to where consumers live, thereby cutting back on shipping distance.
The San Francisco–based company utilizes a Pinterest-like interface that uses algorithms and Big Data to provide users with a customized, mall window–like retail experience.
