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Wish S-1

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Re: Wish S-1

#111

Post by xoxoy »

jiveturkey wrote: post #105
whoisjuan wrote: post #73

If there's one IPO that I'm not excited about, is this one. This is a shit model. And I want to apologize in advance to any Wish employees that may be here and that are surely doing hard work to build the logistics and consumer layers of this business. This is a business built on top of cheap Chinese goods, subsidized shipping and low customer expectations. High transaction volume with very low margins, and totally e…

> just a fancy wrapper on top of AliExpress and dropbox is just a fancy wrapper on top of ... and airbnb is just a fancy wrapper on top of ...

Aliexpress looks and feels similar to Wish though.

Not like comparing s3 to dropbox

Re: Wish S-1

#112

Post by albertshin »

jonplackett wrote: post #16

Is it just me or are there multiple S-1's on here almost every day at the moment? Is there glut of them or are they just overly represented on HN at the moment?

this is probably a "backloaded" year given what happened to the stock market earlier in the year.

why more tech IPOs these days? tech companies are likely finding their stock to be valued richly and want to issue equity now (for the same $ amount raised) to dilute themselves less.

Re: Wish S-1

#113

Post by some_random »

dumbfounder wrote: post #22
da_big_ghey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when I think of wish.com, I usually think of "fuel filters" or auto switches. Not exactly a reputation for quality.

I have no idea what you mean by this. When I think of Wish.com I think of gimmicky, low quality, chinese products. Very few sellers are actually trying to build a brand, so they aren't trying to build a quality product. Wish.com is trying to build a brand though so they need to do better at quality control.

Illegal firearms components.

Re: Wish S-1

#114

Post by chrisfrantz »

xoxoy wrote: post #111
jiveturkey wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just a fancy wrapper on top of AliExpress and dropbox is just a fancy wrapper on top of ... and airbnb is just a fancy wrapper on top of ...

Aliexpress looks and feels similar to Wish though. Not like comparing s3 to dropbox

The power of a brand name though. Wish is memorable.

Re: Wish S-1

#115

Post by carlineng »

From p153:

> Our advertising costs to acquire new users constituted 96% of our sales and marketing expenses, and sales and marketing expenses constituted 91% of our operating expenses, in 2019.

That's pretty astounding. In 2019 they spent $1.46 billion on sales and marketing, of which $1.41 billion went to new user acquisition. According to the quarterly breakdown of metrics on p108, their LTM Active Buyers went from 61m in March 2019 to 63 million in March 2020, implying they spent nearly a billion and a half to increase their purchasing base by 2 million users... even looking at their peak of June 30 2020, they still only have 70 LTM buyers, implying a CAC for "quality" users of at least $150, and very likely more. Their discussion of CAC payback and LTV / CAC only includes numbers from 2016, which looks like their best year in terms of LTM Active Buyer growth, both on a percentage basis and on an absolute basis... For me to have any faith in this business, I would need to see some kind of analysis of "organic" purchasing behavior. If they turn off the ad spend, will people continue to use the product?

Re: Wish S-1

#116

Post by xoxoy »

chrisfrantz wrote: post #114
xoxoy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aliexpress looks and feels similar to Wish though. Not like comparing s3 to dropbox

The power of a brand name though. Wish is memorable.

Wish is number 6 on Shopping App Chart and Aliexpress is at 30 or so. It’s more popular but Aliexpress barely does any marketing in the US AFAIK

Re: Wish S-1

#117

Post by moftz »

dumbfounder wrote: post #22
da_big_ghey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when I think of wish.com, I usually think of "fuel filters" or auto switches. Not exactly a reputation for quality.

I have no idea what you mean by this. When I think of Wish.com I think of gimmicky, low quality, chinese products. Very few sellers are actually trying to build a brand, so they aren't trying to build a quality product. Wish.com is trying to build a brand though so they need to do better at quality control.

The "fuel filters" mentioned are firearm suppressors that are generally illegally used. Some times the filter is something that actually resembles a filter, sometimes it doesn't look at all like it would do much as a filter. Sometimes it's just an adapter that allows you to screw a real automotive oil filter onto the end of a gun. The other name for them is "solvent traps" which is some sort of cylindrical container thing you are supposed to attach to the end of the gun to collect a cleaning solvent that you pour through the barrel. No one really cleans a gun like this, you use the solvent on a swab attached to a metal cleaning rod. The internals just so happen to look like a typical suppressor but there is no exit hole for the bullet which you are supposed to drill yourself. Some even have a punch mark where the hole should to help align the drill. The illegal act is drilling that hole without filling out the ATF paperwork and paying the tax but even just possessing the "filter" or "solvent trap" might land you in hot water with the feds if they could make the case that you would have no use for such a device other than to make an unregistered suppressor.

The auto switches are drop-in mechanical pieces for a gun to convert it into burst fire or fully automatic, skirting laws, taxes, and registration. I don't remember the incognito name they use for these but there are very specific designs used for specific guns so once you see a picture, it's obvious what it actually is. Because these things are so specific in how they are built, there's pretty much no way you could escape conviction if you owned one and it was not registered. The feds could just say it looks like an auto switch and if you can't prove that it existed before the automatic weapons ban, then you are breaking the law.

Re: Wish S-1

#118

Post by Scoundreller »

jiveturkey wrote: post #105
whoisjuan wrote: post #73

If there's one IPO that I'm not excited about, is this one. This is a shit model. And I want to apologize in advance to any Wish employees that may be here and that are surely doing hard work to build the logistics and consumer layers of this business. This is a business built on top of cheap Chinese goods, subsidized shipping and low customer expectations. High transaction volume with very low margins, and totally e…

> just a fancy wrapper on top of AliExpress and dropbox is just a fancy wrapper on top of ... and airbnb is just a fancy wrapper on top of ...

The problem with Wish (US) being a wrapper on top of AliExpress is that Wish now charges you state sales tax.

Ali does not and I doubt they ever will.

For pricier items, it can make a difference.

Re: Wish S-1

#119

Post by Chris2048 »

jiveturkey wrote: post #105
whoisjuan wrote: post #73

If there's one IPO that I'm not excited about, is this one. This is a shit model. And I want to apologize in advance to any Wish employees that may be here and that are surely doing hard work to build the logistics and consumer layers of this business. This is a business built on top of cheap Chinese goods, subsidized shipping and low customer expectations. High transaction volume with very low margins, and totally e…

> just a fancy wrapper on top of AliExpress and dropbox is just a fancy wrapper on top of ... and airbnb is just a fancy wrapper on top of ...

Care to fill out those ellipsis? There's plenty value-add on top of S1 for drobox. And what's AirBnB a wrapper for? "the market"?

Re: Wish S-1

#120

Post by mbesto »

jedberg wrote: post #85
mbesto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define a "tech IPO" for me. I'll wait.

A company where software engineering is considered part of R&D and not IT.

Do you know of any publicly traded companies that split out IT in their financials?

Do you consider Apple, which builds consumer electronics (e.g. hardware engineering) a tech company?

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