Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wish S-1

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 153 posts

Re: Wish S-1

#131

Post by jedberg »

mbesto wrote: post #120
jedberg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

No, you'd have to be familiar with their internal practices. But let's be honest, you're just being pedantic now. It's fairly obvious from the outside which companies are "tech" companies.

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

First of all, about 25% of their revenue comes from software services, and iPhone is the only segment with more sales. More than 1/2 of their profit (because the gross margins are much higher) come from software services, so Apple is probably a bad example.

But yes, of course they are a tech company. One of the first.

Re: Wish S-1

#132

Post by solarkraft »

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…

> low customer expectations

Nope. They run ads with outrageous lies and some people fall for them.

Re: Wish S-1

#133

Post by solarkraft »

d3nj4l wrote: post #2

As expected, the threat of reputational damage from counterfeit goods features pretty heavily in the IPO. Unfortunately, that damage has already been done. At the moment, 8 of the top 10 results for "wish.com" on YouTube are people exposing scams. Not really a good look for the company.

I'm not sure how international it is, but a fairly well known german insult for something of terrible quality is "When you buy X from Wish".

Re: Wish S-1

#134

Post by solarkraft »

screye wrote: post #74

Looking at wish, I just had an idea for another startup model. "Massdrop for chinese products" If you are going to build a wrapper company around aliexpress, might as well make curation your strong point. Basically a Chi-fi model as it exists in the audiophile scene, but extended to other domains. Pair that with some 1st party support for 3rd part products and you have something really good on your hands. I would thi…

I think one of the things that come closest to this are european-style brands on Aliexpress (Blitzwolf comes to mind) that pretty certainly don't do any R&D but are building reputatíons for only putting their badge on products of decent quality.

Something I haven't yet seen provided without a very significant price increase is customer support (which could already mean just a page listing all products with specs or a community forum).

Re: Wish S-1

#135

Post by solarkraft »

totaldude87 wrote: post #46

I use wish for buying gadgets with dead beat prices, with full awareness that a) it wont last b) its just a cheap hobby.. c) never buy a product which looks sketchy as hell ( ex : a $50 quad cam, full hd , 120 hz display mobile) Some of the products that i bought like a tap faucet filter exceeded my expectations while anything that is electronics had a life span of 2 weeks to 4 months (depending upon usage).. Its a p…

But isn't Aliexpress usually a more trustworthy source (they actually have mechanisms to prevent scams and ensure quality)?

Re: Wish S-1

#136

Post by solarkraft »

earthtobishop wrote: post #66

I totally get the Wish hate but I don’t think most here realize why it’s so popular. My family in the Midwest loves wish because they purchase from there knowing the quality isn’t going to be superb. My mom buys random things from them like clothes, jewelry, and random appliances for literally $5. She’s willing to wait three weeks to get her stuff because it’s such a good deal. My dad was able to get a quality DSLR f…

> a quality DSLR for $50

I'd be interested in what he got more specifically. My guess is that it's either a cheaply produced chinese model (with which specs? mft mount, one of the brands, something chinese ... can you review it?) or an old and used name brand model.

Re: Wish S-1

#137

Post by mbesto »

jedberg wrote: post #131
mbesto wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Do you know of any publicly traded companies that split out IT in their financials? No, you'd have to be familiar with their internal practices. But let's be honest, you're just being pedantic now. It's fairly obvious from the outside which companies are "tech" companies. > Do you consider Apple, which builds consumer electronics (e.g. hardware engineering) a tech company? First of all, about 25% of their revenue c…

> It's fairly obvious from the outside which companies are "tech" companies.

It it though? You'll find a bunch of replies here with disagreements about what "tech" companies actually are, so how is that obvious?

> But let's be honest, you're just being pedantic now.

And I think you're being too obtuse. It's one thing to refer to "tech companies" as a general colloquialism (I do), but if you're going to try to start counting them, I think the distinction is important. You'll find pretty quickly that many companies started in the last 10 years will just call themselves tech companies (Nikola, WeWork, Palantir, etc. come to mind) but have slight variations on revenue generated from software services.

My bigger point here, as I've pointed out in other threads is that "tech" isn't a market - its an operating model. It's one to thing colloquially say "this is a tech company", but then when someone says "how do we count how many tech companies do X" then we start to get into a whole bunch of grey areas about how to measure something...hence my original comment.

> But yes, of course they are a tech company. One of the first.

It's a bad example, but it's still a tech company? I think you just proved my point :)

Re: Wish S-1

#138

Post by xyzzy123 »

screye wrote: post #74

Looking at wish, I just had an idea for another startup model. "Massdrop for chinese products" If you are going to build a wrapper company around aliexpress, might as well make curation your strong point. Basically a Chi-fi model as it exists in the audiophile scene, but extended to other domains. Pair that with some 1st party support for 3rd part products and you have something really good on your hands. I would thi…

Honestly this is what many of the brands you are familiar with already are.

They don't design the stuff, they look at the clones in the showrooms or catalogs, check out what the reps bring to them, pick the ones they like and have a few customisations done.

Then they support that product.

Harbour Freight, D-Link, Wal-Mart oh I dunno, almost any brand which doesn't obviously have very unique/distinctive designs works this way.

Re: Wish S-1

#139

Post by earthtobishop »

jayrot wrote: post #107
earthtobishop wrote: post #66

I totally get the Wish hate but I don’t think most here realize why it’s so popular. My family in the Midwest loves wish because they purchase from there knowing the quality isn’t going to be superb. My mom buys random things from them like clothes, jewelry, and random appliances for literally $5. She’s willing to wait three weeks to get her stuff because it’s such a good deal. My dad was able to get a quality DSLR f…

> My dad was able to get a quality DSLR for $50. No he wasn't.

Really productive comment. Thanks dude.

Re: Wish S-1

#140

Post by earthtobishop »

echelon wrote: post #82
earthtobishop wrote: post #66

I totally get the Wish hate but I don’t think most here realize why it’s so popular. My family in the Midwest loves wish because they purchase from there knowing the quality isn’t going to be superb. My mom buys random things from them like clothes, jewelry, and random appliances for literally $5. She’s willing to wait three weeks to get her stuff because it’s such a good deal. My dad was able to get a quality DSLR f…

This perspective makes it sound like the internet equivalent of Dollar Tree or Dollar General.

It is.
Post reply on HN