A large number of Wish sellers were deducted and their account balances were negative overnight

In the past two years, the cross-border e-commerce industry has been changing rapidly. Some sellers have made a lot of money by relying on cross-border e-commerce dividends, while others have gone bankrupt overnight. The competition among several major cross-border e-commerce platforms has also become increasingly fierce. Wish, a once glorious cross-border platform, has gradually gone downhill and even fell into "silence" for a time.

Recently, the Wish platform began to collect the delayed warehouse fees for February to April. The three-month fee caused some sellers ’ WishPost account balances to go directly negative. This move has made the communication circle of Wish sellers active again...

A large number of Wish sellers have been fined and their account balances are negative

Recently, many Wish sellers reported that their WishPost accounts were deducted and they suddenly found that there was no money in their accounts overnight...

Some sellers said: Wish has started to settle accounts, and the previous delayed warehouse fees have started to be fined, and the balance of their WishPost accounts has been negative 10,000. Another seller said that he had just recharged 10,000 to his account in the afternoon, and the available balance was negative in the evening.

It is understood that the reason for Wish's deduction this time is to collect the delayed arrival fees of the A+ logistics plan that were not collected in the previous period . Earlier, due to a system error, Wish failed to collect the delayed arrival fees for some orders delivered to the A+ logistics plan warehouse between 0:00 am on February 3, 2022 and 11:59 pm on April 25, 2022, Beijing time.

Therefore, starting from July 5, 2022 (Beijing time), Wish will start to collect delayed warehouse fees for all relevant orders. According to sellers, if the order does not arrive at the EPC warehouse within 7 days after release, a delayed warehouse fee will be charged, and the fine amount is 50% of the shipping cost.

It is reported that if the balance of a WishPost account is negative, Wish will also charge a certain percentage of late payment fees. The amount of late payment fees is calculated as follows: overdue interest on the day = (current one-year LPR/365) * 4 * the principal of the account outstanding on the day. The annualized 30% late payment fee ratio in the email reminder received by some sellers is incorrect, and the actual amount received is lower than the displayed amount.

In addition, in order to reduce the operational pressure on sellers under the impact of the epidemic, Wish released six measures in March to deal with the epidemic. These measures include reducing or waiving the delayed warehouse fee for affected merchant orders. From March 8 to April 26, some orders that meet the conditions for the A+ logistics plan can enjoy the delayed warehouse fee reduction.

Wish said that the collection of delayed warehouse fees has been completed, and the refund of some of the reduced fees is currently in progress. Sellers who meet the refund requirements do not need to take any action, and the funds will be automatically returned to the WishPost account. Sellers have already received refunds.

Logically speaking, it is reasonable for Wish to collect the fees that were not collected in time due to system problems. However, since the money for February to April was collected in one go, some sellers were deducted a large amount, which still caused many sellers to complain.

Some sellers believe that the definition of Wish's delayed warehouse fee is rather vague. Sometimes the goods are shipped on the same day, but the collector delivers them to the EPC warehouse on the 8th day. Such orders are also charged delayed warehouse fees, and Wish does not stipulate how many days the collector needs to arrive at the EPC warehouse after the collection date.

Some sellers said that their products are in stock and can basically be shipped on the same day, but Wish's policy is that if there is a delay, money will be deducted. Even if the goods are delivered to the Wish warehouse on the same day, if there is a delay in the middle, the merchant's money will be deducted. If you want money, you have to find out which order it is and then file a complaint.

Wish staff said: "We are also worried that this refund will cause a bad experience for merchants, so we issued an announcement in advance to notify merchants, but when it comes to money, everyone will be more cautious. Wish is also quickly processing and initiating refunds to reduce the impact on merchants."

From the peak to the decline, what is the future of Wish?

In 2013, Wish officially entered the cross-border e-commerce field. In just a few years, the Wish platform continued to grow and become a dark horse in the cross-border e-commerce industry. In the same year, a large number of individual sellers began to settle in the Wish platform, and Wish successfully became one of the four major cross-border e-commerce platforms.

But now, Wish is clearly going downhill, and sellers are constantly choosing to leave. While e-commerce platforms are experiencing a period of rapid development, Wish's profitability is not ideal. From 2019 to 2021, Wish's net profit was negative US$129 million, negative US$745 million, and negative US$361 million, respectively.

The monthly active users (MAU) and number of active buyers (LTM) on the Wish platform are also falling off a cliff. At the end of 2020, Wish was still serving more than 100 million monthly active users, but as of the first quarter of 2022, there were only 27 million monthly active users on the Wish platform.

In the first quarter of 2021, the number of active buyers on the Wish platform was 61 million. As of the first quarter of 2022, the number of this group was only 28 million, which was 46% of the same period last year.

A 7-year-old seller said that he watched Wish go from hot to cold step by step. In its heyday, it could handle more than 600 packages a day, but now it only has more than 100 orders a day, and traffic has plummeted. "In the past, it was just about selling products, but now it has to use PB to grab traffic," and it feels like Wish "clearly had a good hand but played it badly."

This is also the true feeling of many Wish sellers. When talking about Wish now, there are only a lot of complaints from sellers: no orders, traffic decline, various fines... Some sellers said that they have basically given up on the Wish platform and are now completely in the stage of losing orders and clearing inventory.

Wish is obviously aware of the seriousness of the problem and is taking a series of measures to actively save itself.

Since last year, Wish has been undergoing a transformation, including forming a new executive team, launching the Wish Standards merchant incentive program, exiting 79 markets to optimize the user experience in key markets, and adopting a merchant invitation system to screen new sellers to improve the quality of sellers.

Through these measures, Wish has made some progress on its road to "self-rescue". Financial report data shows that Wish's net loss in the first quarter was US$60 million, a year-on-year reduction of 53%. Free cash flow from operating activities was negative US$148 million, a significant improvement from the negative US$354 million in the first quarter of 2021.

In addition, the Wish platform's user net promoter score (NPS) doubled in the first quarter, and the number of refunds for shipped orders also decreased. Wish said that it will increase advertising spending in the coming months to attract more new and old users to increase user consumption frequency and user retention. All signs indicate that the Wish platform seems to be on the mend.

Wish's newly appointed CEO, Vijay Talwar, is also full of confidence in Wish's future. He firmly believes that Wish will be able to make a comeback after a reorganization. Vijay Talwar said that he will actively embrace change and respond flexibly to achieve strategic breakthroughs and transform Wish.

The platform and the sellers prosper together. If the platform develops well, the sellers' traffic and income can increase. Similarly, if high-quality sellers can be retained, the platform can have the hope of better development. I hope Wish can launch more "self-help" measures that are beneficial to sellers in the future, and achieve win-win cooperation.

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Cross-border e-commerce