Wish, a startup that's gunning for Amazon and Alibaba, is spending a reported $100 million on Facebook ads
The five-year-old e-commerce company is challenging Amazon and Alibaba by selling directly from merchants, often in China, to consumers. The result is super cheap products, like $9 dress shirts or a $15 smartwatch, that often take weeks to deliver.
Part of its secret is spending more than $100 million on Facebook advertising per year, making it among the largest companies to sell on Facebook, according to a new report by Re/Code's Jason Del Rey. Among Facebook employees and the advertising industry, Wish has become reputable for spending big and optimizing its ads to take advantage of Facebook's advertising platform, Del Rey reported.
It has to spend big if it wants to live up to its sales projections. In an interview with its often press-shy CEO, Wish's Peter Szulczewski said the company was on track to sell $2 billion worth of goods next year.
It's that grandiose vision that made Szulczewski reportedly reject multi-billion-dollar acquisition inquiries from Amazon and Alibaba this past year, as first reported by Business Insider's Alyson Shontell. Szulczewski believes he can grow his company to become a trillion dollar business.
"If we're going to get to a trillion [gross merchandise volume], we have to be aggressive," Szulczewski told Re/Code. "And we're going to be aggressive so long as the unit economics allow it."