Is Dropshipping Hard Through Wish? [THE TRUTH]

As a dropshipper, it is not uncommon to look for different platforms where you can display your product. After all, you want your products to gain as much exposure as they possibly can. One platform you may consider is Wish.

But is dropshipping hard through Wish? Is it even possible?

That is what I want to find out. I did a little digging, and I will share with you my findings.

Today, you will learn the following things:

• What is Wish?
• How to get started in Wish
• What can you sell on Wish?
• Selling fees on Wish
• Payment processors accepted in Wish
• What is Merchant Standing?
• Tips to succeed in Wish

By the end of this tutorial, you should have enough information about the platform. You should also be ready to decide if the platform is one of the best places where you can offer your dropshipping products.

What is Wish? 

Wish is an online platform where buyers and sellers meet. It is not really that different from Amazon or eBay. Neither is it that different from Shopify dropshipping.

However, Wish does not have the equivalent of Amazon FBA. The company has no warehouses, and they do not ship goods.

In essence, Wish is a platform where sellers display their items, and buyers choose what they want to purchase. The buyer will process the payment through the Wish platform, and sellers get charged a fee.

Once the payment is made, it is the seller’s obligation to send the item to the buyer. The seller does not have to ship the item to Wish anymore.

So, why should you use Wish?

Here are some stats that you have to think about:

• It is the leading mobile commerce platform in Europe and North America
• It has more than 300 million customers worldwide
• There are 10 million active users daily
• Over 2 million orders are placed here per day

Although Wish is not a household name, it has been around since 2010. It started out as an app where buyers can upload a wish list. Then, the app would match that wish list with items sold online. Today, it has turned into an online marketplace.

To date, Wish now has more than nine million downloads. It has become one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world, rivalling both Amazon and eBay, including AliExpress and Alibaba. Wish allows you to reach people from more than 80 countries.

People like Wish because it is native to mobile. The way it was designed was for mobile shoppers, not those who use desktops. As such, you have more reach than if you use only browser-based shopping apps.

How to get started in Wish

Getting started in Wish is simple. All you have to do is to head on to the merchant application form. The link is https://merchant.wish.com/welcome-v2?.

Once you get there, you have to click on the sign-up for free button as shown below.

Here are the other steps you need to take:

• Register the name of your store
• Enter your email address and then click on the verification code
• Once the email is verified, click on “Create Store”
• Upload your product photos and descriptions
• Enter your payment information and then choose your payment gateway

The last step is to market your products. You can either advertise, run a blog, or post YouTube videos to drive traffic to your Wish store.

The good thing about Wish is that it has an algorithm that matches the customer’s browsing behavior with products that he or she may be interested in.

What does this mean?

If a Wish buyer searches for knives, his product feed is going to show knives. If you are a seller of knives, the app will match your products with this buyer, making it easier for you to make a sale.

Because of this algorithm, the sellers can expect that their products are shown to people who have an interest in their product, unlike other online marketplaces where random products are shown on the feed.

Another thing you may be interested in is that the average Wish buyer spends 20 minutes on the app. That is a long time spent searching for a product. What does this mean for you as a dropshipper?

It means that those who have the Wish app on their mobile devices are ready to buy. They have an intention to make a purchase, and all you need to do is to sit back and relax.

What can you sell on Wish?

Like all other platforms, there are many things that you cannot sell on Wish. Pretty much, you can sell anything that is not illegal on this platform. However, you cannot sell a service. A service is described as anything that is not tangible.

What we have to focus on in this section are materials that you cannot sell. Let us take a look at each one, so you are guided accordingly.

• Counterfeit – you cannot sell fake items here like fake Nike shoes or Louis Vuitton bags.

• Copyrighted materials – you cannot sell products based on copyrighted materials like Disney, movies, anime, manga, and books that you did not write.

• Virtual goods – you cannot sell eBooks or anything that is only transferred digitally. You can only sell tangible items or items that you can hold.

• Vices – you are not allowed to sell alcohol and tobacco products on the site, along with illegal substances like drugs. Electronic cigarettes are also not allowed. Also, you cannot sell drug paraphernalia.

• Chemicals – no dangerous chemicals are allowed. This does not mean you cannot sell chemicals for art like glue or epoxy.

• Gift cards – you cannot sell physical or digital gift cards on the platform.

• Dangerous toys – you cannot sell toy guns that can harm people, along with other toys that can inflict pain. Also, you cannot sell any kind of firearm here.

• Bike and helmets – these are deemed dangerous if the manufacturers do not comply with international standards. To prevent litigations, you are not allowed to sell any bicycle or helmet on the platform, including helmets for motorcycles.

• Pets and seeds – you are not allowed to sell live animals or produce, including plant seeds. These are considered dangerous items in many countries, and they do not allow live animals and seeds any entry to their countries. You also cannot sell any human body parts like hair or teeth or nails (that one goes without saying, right? ha ha).

• Pornography – all things related to pornography are banned, including sex toys and pornographic magazines.

• Children’s stuff – you cannot sell items that can be of danger to children like toys that have been recalled. You also cannot sell child harness’ or car seats for kids.

As you can see, many of the items here are commonly not allowed in many online marketplaces. These are things that you can only find in black or shady online markets. Also, all materials that incite hate or jokes about race, religion, ethnicity or disability and gender identification are not allowed.

There is also a geo-blocking system that is in place. What this means is that there are categories in the system where the items will not be shown to specific countries. For example, laser pointers are banned in Australia. If your product is a laser pointer, it will not be shown to Australian buyers. You can see more info about geo-blocking here.

Selling fees on Wish

The beautiful thing about Wish is that it does not charge you a “rent” for using the platform. It also does not charge you a listing fee.

Instead, it only charges you a commission. What does this mean?

It means that you only pay a commission to Wish if you have made a sale. This fee is automatically taken off your sales.

The commission fee depends on your product category. The fee can hit up to 15% of your total transaction cost. If you charged $85 for the item and then the shipping cost that you charged is $15. You will pay $15 to Wish.

Other than this, there are no other fees to pay on the platform.

Payment processors accepted in Wish

There are several payment gateways that you can use in the Wish platform as a dropshipper.

• UMPay – if you use this, you will pay 0.4% of the transaction cost. The payment from your sales will be transferred to your bank account within five to seven business days. This payment gateway works only if you are a seller from mainland China, and if you have a bank account there.  
• PayEco – the transaction fee is 1.2%. The payment to you will be made directly in CNY or Chinese Yuan. What this means is that this payment is great only for people who are in China.

There is no clear cut-off as to how long it takes to receive your payment from this method. It is going to take several business days to receive your sales funds.

Again, you can only have this payment method if you have a bank account in China. Also, the fund transfer from Wish to your bank is only done twice a month on the first and fifteenth day.

• AliPay – this is a payment processing system owned by Alibaba, the largest online marketplace in Asia. The fee is 0.8% for the transaction cost, and your money will arrive within five to seven business days from the date of transfer. Like the first two, you need a bank account in China to make it work.
• Payoneer – this is a great option if you are not from China. With Payoneer, you can request a debit card. All payments to your Payoneer are reflected in that card, and you can withdraw your sales earnings from any ATM that accepts Mastercard.

With this method, you can only transfer funds to your Payoneer account every first and fifteenth day of the month.

• PayPal – the transaction fee for PayPal payments is 0.1%. It takes between five and seven business days to get your payment to your bank account. You can only use PayPal if your selected currency in Wish is in USD.

There are two other payment methods you can use here, such as PingPong and LianLian. Both are also only available to Chinese merchants who have bank accounts in mainland China.

What is Merchant Standing?

Before you dropship on Wish, you need to know that it has a rating system called Merchant Standing. The higher you move up, the more impressions your products will get.

Merchant Standing is rated based on the following:

• Compliance – you have to follow the rules set by the platform. If you do things that hurt the customer experience or violate these rules, you will get penalties.

• Pricing – price gouging is a no-no on this platform. If you are a dropshipper, you must price your products to the point that it is not going to hurt your customers.  

• Fulfillment – this has something to do with your shipping performance. One thing that Wish measures is the time difference between the date your item was ordered and the date when you shipped it. The shorter it is, the better your performance will be.

If you are a good seller, you will receive benefits from your Merchant Standing rating. For example, a rating of Gold means that:

• You can get as much as 25 million product impressions in a month
• You can withdraw your earnings in as short as ten days after the item has been received by your buyer

There are three types of Merchant Standing—Silver, Platinum, and Gold. Currently, this program is rolled out to some stores only. Not all merchants here have a Merchant Standing score.  

Tips to succeed in Wish

Now, let us talk about some things you can do as a dropshipper to succeed in Wish.

• Transparency – you need to tell your customer where the product is, what it is, and how long the shipping will take. The problem with many dropshippers is that they are not transparent. After waiting for six weeks, the customer still does not have the item, and this is what leads to many complaints.
• Pricing – price your products competitively. Make sure you still have a profit but make sure you do not lose money after Wish has charged 15% of the sale. You must also consider the percentage of the fee that you have to pay to your payment processor.
• Policy compliance – read the company’s terms and conditions and do not attempt to game the system. Wish is a big company and they will not hesitate to ban you from the site if you are selling something that is illegal.
• Cash flow – in Wish, you do not get paid immediately. You can only transfer the money from your Wish account after the customer has received the item. What this means is that as more and more customers order, you cannot recycle the money. You have to front the money from your own pocket.

To succeed in Wish, you need to map out your entire process, from the start of the order to the date you would receive your payment in your bank account. List down all the fees, so you know how to price your product accordingly.

Also, you need to know that Wish is going to put some of your products on sale from time to time. In that case, you may lose revenue, so price your products accordingly. If your product was on sale, you are not allowed to change your inventory. You are also not allowed to change the price once the product is already on sale.

If you violate these rules, you will be charged a penalty of at least $50 per item whose details you changed.  

What you want to achieve in Wish is to become a Gold level merchant. If you reach this level, your products will be shown more often to buyers. And if your products have eyeballs, then you can certainly expect to make more sales.

Should you Dropship on Wish?

So, is dropshipping hard through Wish? Not at all. In fact, a majority of the sellers on the Wish platform are dropshippers that use the AliExpress dropshipping method.

The sad thing is that Wish reviews indicate that it has a bad reputation as a place for a scam. Many people who bought items here complained that item they got are cheap knockoffs from China. Well, that is because the people who sold the items here are dropshippers who usually source their items from AliExpress.

This should not deter you from dropshipping on the platform. It is one of the few places where dropshipping is still allowed, unlike eBay where dropshipping is much more complicated. If you want to dropship through Wish, you better get started now. And make sure you do it the right way! Don’t be one of those ‘scammers’, that is such a short sighted way to do business.