The rise and fall of Wish.com: How a $10B e-commerce unicorn crashed and burned

It was the 2010s, and Wish ads were everywhere. A $1 cat mask. $10 drones. Even “USB-powered pregnancy tests.” The weirdness never stopped. But behind the viral chaos was a company obsessed with growth at all costs. Wish.com became one of the most downloaded shopping apps on the planet, racking up over 400 million users and billions in revenue.

The Collapse of Wish: Inside the $10B Startup That Vanished

They turned down a $10 billion buyout offer from both Amazon and Alibaba, believing they could become the next Walmart. Instead, they collapsed.

Wish’s story is one of massive ambition, ad-fueled growth, and decisions that ultimately backfired. They ran on negative margins, had no meaningful customer support, and even tested fake storefronts to see how far they could stretch user patience. At their peak, they were the biggest ad buyer on Facebook—yet couldn’t make money, even during the 2020 online shopping surge.

By 2024, their parent company sold them for $173 million. That’s not a typo. A once-hyped $10 billion unicorn went out for cents on the dollar.

The Dollar Store of the Internet

In its prime, Wish.com was a haven for bargain hunters. The site was filled with unbelievably cheap products—drones, watches, sneakers, tech accessories, you name it. It almost didn’t matter if the quality was questionable; users were hooked on the novelty and low prices.

But that model had a short shelf life.

Wish was founded in 2010 by Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang. Peter, who grew up in communist Poland, moved to Canada, studied at Waterloo, and later joined Google, where he worked on ad ranking systems. He left Google in 2009 to start a company called Context Logic, which eventually morphed into Wish. The idea was to combine his ad expertise with e-commerce.

It started as a wishlist app. Users would save items and get discounts, which helped grow the user base quickly. But Wish wasn’t focused on repeat customers. Instead, they poured money into ads—billions of dollars’ worth—trying to drive short-term user acquisition without long-term loyalty.

Scaling Without Control

As traffic soared, quality plummeted. The site became flooded with knockoffs, mislabeled products, and some items that were flat-out dangerous. Think of makeup that caused skin rashes or electronics that barely worked. Wish tried to moderate listings, removing millions of products each week, but the damage was already done.

Then came the pandemic. Unlike most e-commerce companies that saw a boom, Wish struggled. Ad prices shot up as more companies fought for digital space. Wish, which relied almost entirely on performance marketing, saw its margins vanish. And without a loyal customer base, they couldn’t survive the shift.

By 2021, their stock had tanked. Wish lost about 80% of its value. Users were leaving, revenue was falling, and investors were losing confidence fast.

Warning Signs

We reported on Wish in 2020 when they launched a $2 million initiative to support independent, Black-owned businesses in the U.S.—a move seen by many as a public reset. But behind the scenes, things were unraveling.

Quarter after quarter, earnings missed expectations. At one point, the stock dropped 27% in just two days. Revenue slid by nearly 30% year-over-year.

Peter Szulczewski, the company’s CEO, sent a shareholder letter that basically confirmed what most already suspected: things were worse than they seemed.

“Demand slowed due to a number of headwinds… retention declined.”

That one sentence carried more weight than the rest of the report. The next paragraph admitted that users were leaving the app faster than expected. Time spent on the platform was down. App installs were down. Their biggest markets—like the U.S., France, and Italy—were no longer showing up.

And then came the blow from Apple. iOS privacy changes made it harder for Wish to target users. Advertisers shifted budgets, and costs went up again. It was a perfect storm for a company that had always operated on a thin edge.

Then Came Temu

By late 2022, a new competitor showed up: Temu. Backed by China’s Pinduoduo, Temu offered better customer service, faster shipping, and even lower prices. It wasn’t just a rival—it was what Wish should have been.

Temu surged to the top of the app charts. Wish slid further into obscurity.

The Final Blow

Eventually, Context Logic (Wish’s parent company) gave up. They sold the platform to an Asian retailer for $173 million, a tiny fraction of the $10 billion offer they once rejected, losing 99 percent of its value.

It’s a brutal end, but also a lesson.

Wish bet everything on ads, ignoring the basics: customer retention, product quality, and trust. When the ad engine failed, they had nothing left. No loyal users. No strong brand. No second act.

Their story is now a case study in what not to do. You can’t buy loyalty. And you can’t grow forever if your product keeps disappointing the people using it.

Tech moves fast. But trust? That’s earned one user at a time.