A complete mobile cross-border e-commerce platform refers to a cross-border e-commerce enterprise that only has a mobile APP sales platform but no web sales platform, that is, buyers can only shop on the mobile APP and generally cannot shop on its website through a computer. At present, the more famous platforms of this type include Wish and Shopee.
Wish was founded in 2011 and officially entered the field of mobile cross-border e-commerce in 2013. After rapid development, Wish is currently the largest mobile cross-border e-commerce platform in North America and the fifth Internet company in the world to achieve a GMV (Goss Merchandise Volume, website transaction amount) of US$3 billion in four years. As of August 2017, the Wish platform had 338,000 independent registered accounts (merchants), an increase of nearly 90% in 10 months. The platform has 420 million registered users, more than 10 million daily active users, 70 million monthly active users, and 150 million active SKUs (Stock Keeping Units). Consumers spend more than 45 minutes a day on the Wish APP.
Wish has multiple vertical apps, among which Wish is the main platform, providing all categories of products; Geek mainly provides high-tech equipment; Mama mainly provides maternity and baby products; Cute focuses on beauty products, cosmetics, accessories and clothes; Home provides various home accessories.
The biggest feature of Wish is that nearly 100% of its sales come from mobile terminals, and more than 95% of the transaction share comes from its core technology – “one thousand faces, one personality push”. Platforms such as Amazon and eBay are traditional e-commerce developed from the computer terminal, and they pay more attention to the sale and purchase of goods. Although Wish is essentially an e-commerce platform that provides transaction services, it focuses on “algorithm recommendation” shopping on the mobile terminal. The products presented to users are mostly what users pay attention to and like. Each user sees different product information, and the same user sees different products at different times.
Specifically, each user has different attributes, such as interest characteristics, social attributes, and some natural attributes. The attributes may overlap, there will be the same, but there will always be differences. Wish will label each buyer who registers for Wish based on these attributes. The same is true for sellers. Wish will position products, companies, and stores based on their characteristics and attributes. Then Wish uses computer algorithms to make accurate matches and push suitable products to people who need them or who may need them. “Thousands of faces for thousands of people” means taking into account various factors such as the location, consumption habits, and income level of consumers. For example, a 25-year-old young white-collar worker with a monthly income of about 10,000 yuan usually prefers clothing products. Based on these factors, the Wish platform can label this group, accurately position them, and provide them with marketable and cost-effective products.
The product information on Wish is mainly displayed in the form of pictures, so that consumers can quickly find the products they want and avoid complicated operations. To a certain extent, Wish, like shopping websites such as Amazon, provides a commodity trading platform for buyers and sellers; like social shopping guide websites, it can recommend products that users like; like social picture websites, it displays many beautiful pictures to users in a waterfall flow. Therefore, unlike cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress, Wish has more entertainment and stronger user stickiness.