Wish Review (Website And App): Buyer Beware

This week we're having a peek at the shopping website and app called Wish (that is, Wish dot com, or Wish.com) for products of all sorts. This site brings heat to the feet of Amazon with a wide variety of products that appear to be extremely well priced and organized extremely well. I must note here that I'm not reviewing any of the products that come from the site and/or app, but the process of visiting the site or app itself – therein lies the rub.

Wish lists a massive amount of products they want to sell for next to no profit. Almost like Amazon. Or so it would seem. In reality, the products they have, or the products we've seen so far, are by-and-large knockoffs and/or older models of products no longer on the larger market. Occasionally there'll be a product from a bigger brand – a Verbatim microSD card, for example – but these are mostly off-brand.

At the same time, Wish works with merchants to sell products. It's not as if Wish just has a big storehouse with all of these products inside – they work with partners.

They also profess to wish to keep their listings "counterfeit-free." They do so by having companies sign up as partners before submitting takedown requests if they find their intellectual property infringed on Wish. So even when they lose a listing as a result of one of these requests, they've gained another potential brand.

The Wish brand is extremely fresh. The brand is one word, and the type logo is refined. The color blue is bright and inviting, and the simplicity of the platform compliments the identity of the company. All of this, centering in on that one extremely well-designed logo makes for an environment consumers trust implicitly.

Just as much as eBay or Amazon can be trusted, Wish can be trusted. This isn't a store like Amazon, and it's not exactly the same sort of situation as eBay – it's sort of in the middle. Each product's shipment is the responsibility of the seller, and there are hundreds of sellers (if not more) working with Wish already.

The designers responsible for the web and app design of Wish are extremely skilled. They've created an environment that's engaging, fun, and smart. They've created a place that's fun to spend time, money, and effort on.

They've created a place where you'll not only spend 30+ minutes (according to their estimates per user) browsing, you'll spend a whole lot of cash, too. Before you know it, you'll have purchased a large amount of product that you do not need for prices that seem unbelievable.

The most important part of this situation is the time-tested and always-correct rule. If it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Meanwhile, Amazon's fighting the Wish way with their own sale section eloquently called "$10 & UNDER WITH FREE SHIPPING." Subtle!