To help you streamline your active product listings and improve listing quality, Wish is launching Listing Fees, effective January 1, 2024, UTC.
By focusing on product listing quality (over quantity), Listing Fees encourages you to remove excessive and/or low-quality listings so you can further invest in your top-selling and top-quality products. This has the potential to:
- Increase impressions of your new and/or best-selling products so that they stand out, attract buyers, and help you build better listings that grow your business.
- Improve the shopping experience for customers by easing their discovery, engaging their interests, and building their confidence in buying from you.
- Satisfy your customers with a positive shopping experience that may result in store loyalty, positive reviews, and possibly fewer returns.
- Improve your Wish Standards metrics, as all the above may help level up your tier for a better Listing Fees position to save you money.
Please continue to check back, as we will update this article as more details are learned and Listing Fees further enhanced over the coming months.
Click on the question to be taken to that answer:
2. What is an “active” product listing?
3. How is my Wish Standards’ tier determined for Listing Fees?
6. How can I view and manage my Listing Fees?
7. What defines an underperforming product, and how does a CSV file impact my Listing Fees?
8. How can I align my business to a lesser fee?
9. Is there an updated Merchant Policy?
10. How do Listing Fees work for a new Wish merchant?
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1. How do Listing Fees work?
Each Wish Standards’ tier has a maximum threshold of free (active) product listings. Listing Fees are incurred when a merchant exceeds that free threshold for their assigned tier. Active product listings that exceed the maximum number of free listings incur a monthly fee.
WSS Tier |
Free Listing Threshold* |
Fee Amount Per Active Product Listings Above Threshold |
Platinum |
2000 |
$0.15 USD |
Gold |
1000 |
$0.15 USD |
Silver |
500 |
$0.20 USD |
Bronze |
200 |
$0.25 USD |
“At Risk” & “Unrated” |
50 |
$0.35 USD |
Your free threshold is then based on your highest Wish Standards’ tier in the last 90 days and should encompass your top products (e.g., best sellers, new products to launch, products with positive reviews, quality listing content, low return rates).
The Listing Fees’ first monthly calculation period always starts the 1st of the month, and any fees incurred during that period (based on your highest Wish Standards’ tier in the last 90 days) are then imposed on the 1st of the following month. See the 2024 schedule:
2024 Calculation Calendar |
|
Calculation Period |
Fees incurred (if applicable) |
January 1-31 |
February 1 |
February 1-29 |
March 1 |
March 1-30 |
April 1 |
April 1-30 |
May 1 |
May 1-31 |
June 1 |
June 1-30 |
July 1 |
July 1-31 |
August 1 |
August 1-31 |
September 1 |
September 1-30 |
October 1 |
October 1-31 |
November 1 |
November 1-30 |
December 1 |
December 1-31 |
January 1, 2025 |
2. What is an “active” product listing?
If all of the following conditions are met at any given time within the calculation period, a product listing is considered “active” and subject to fees regardless of a transaction state (e.g., unsold, sold, refunded, canceled, etc.)
- Merchant account is in the “active” state (i.e. not suspended, closed, or on vacation mode) and approved to sell
- Product is in the “active” state (i.e., product listing is approved and available for sale) for any destination
- Inventory number is greater than 0 for any warehouse
- Shipping is enabled for any destination for any warehouse
3. How is my Wish Standards’ tier determined for Listing Fees?
Your highest Wish Standards’ tier within the last 90 days from a fee collection day is used for calculation; this allows you time to manage your catalog should your tier change.
For example: For the January 1-31 calculation period, if you had both Silver and Gold tiers assigned in the past 90 days (November 2, 2023, to January 31, 2024), then your highest tier (Gold) from the fee collection day (February 1) would be what is used for the January 1-31 calculation period. That means you would have a 1000 free listing threshold and incur $0.15 USD per each active product listing that exceeds 1000.
4. How are fees calculated?
The monthly fee is calculated using the maximum number of active listings a store has (that exceeds the store’s free listing threshold) for that calculation period.
The fee calculation is as follows:
(Maximum number of active products in the cycle - free threshold) * fee per listing = listing fee.
Below are examples to help explain. (Note that “active” product means they have been reviewed and approved for sale.)
Example #1
- Day 1: The active product listing quantity is 100.
- Day 2: 20 new products are listed, so the maximum number of active products is 120.
- Day 3: 20 products are removed, but another 30 products are listed. The highest number of active products on this day is 130.
If no quantity on any subsequent day in this calculation period exceeds Day 3, then 130 (the day with the largest value during this period) is used as the number of active products to determine whether to charge and how much to charge.
Example #2
- Day 1: The active product listing quantity is 100.
- Day 2: 20 new products are listed, so the maximum number of active products is 120.
- Day 3: 30 new products are listed and then another 20 are removed. The highest number of active products on this day is 150.
If in this calculation period no quantity on any subsequent day exceeds Day 3, then 150 (the day with the largest value during this period) is used as the number of active products to determine whether to charge and how much to charge.
It is important to note that:
- The system counts active products daily (there is no set/specific time).
- Product listings in review (pending approval to sell) are not considered “active”; therefore, they are not counted towards the “active” free listing threshold number.
5. How are fees deducted?
Fees are collected by account balance deduction (i.e., withdrawal/debit) on the 1st of every month, regardless of merchant’s disbursement cycle (i.e., if it falls on the same day of payment creation day, the fee is collected first before finalizing the disbursement balance). The fee is deducted from the balance regardless of a merchant’s current account balance (zero, negative, or positive) and will be logged in a merchant’s account.
Effective on/around December 5, you can see real-time fee information (and whether you have any upcoming fees) by going to the Merchant Dashboard > Products > Listing Fees for your current listing fee amount, total fees, and next deduction date.
6. How can I view and manage my Listing Fees?
There are a couple of ways to efficiently manage your Listing Fees.
Of particular use is the CSV file download feature that offers a list of your underperforming products. With the CSV file, you can quickly review and either disable or remove poor performers from your store.
IMPORTANT: Disabling all underperforming products does not guarantee you will avoid Listing Fees fees; you may need to identify and disable more listings outside of just the underperformers to ensure your store is within your free listing threshold.
And launching in the next week or so (expected December 5) is the Merchant Dashboard > Products > Listing Fees page. This offers personalized information based on your free threshold to help you assess, prepare, and manage your products listings ahead of the Listing Fee calculation period. For example you can:
- View your real-time product listing numbers against your free threshold.
- View your listing fee amount, total fees, and next deduction date (if applicable).
- View step-by-step instructions on how to download and review underperforming products."
7. What defines an underperforming product, and how does a CSV file impact my Listing Fees?
While the WSS metric “Underperforming Products” looks at the % of active products with low customer ratings and high refunds, the CSV file download of underperforming products goes deeper than that, as it includes products meeting any of this criteria:
- Listings you created more than one year ago with no impressions
- Listings you created more than 90 days with little/no impressions that are very similar (by image) to more successful products you are selling
- Listings you created more than 90 days ago with some impressions but no clicks
- Listings you created more than one year ago with no sales
For this initial introduction before December 15, 2023, UTC, underperforming products are set as “disable,” and you have the choice to leave as disabled, which can help you minimize/avoid fees, or you can “enable” products to keep them (and possibly pay fees, if applicable).
IMPORTANT: Products that remain disabled by December 15, 2023, UTC will be automatically removed on December 15. You will not be able to take action on these products after they are removed.
After December 15, you have ongoing access to download a CSV file of underperforming products. This data is updated every week, and you will be responsible for choosing what to disable or remove (i.e., the file will not auto-disable products on your behalf).
IMPORTANT: Disabling all underperforming products does not guarantee you will avoid Listing Fees fees; you may need to identify and disable more listings outside of just the underperformers to ensure your store is within your free listing threshold.
Know also that after December 15, any disabled/removed products remain visible in the Merchant Dashboard (filter via "Removed by Wish”), but you cannot edit or enable those products.
8. How can I align my business to a lesser fee?
Fees lessen as your Wish Standards’ tier improves, with Platinum being the highest level. (Learn more about leveling up tiers in the Wish Standards’ FAQs.) So it is a good idea to focus on ways to improve your Wish Standards’ metrics, like reviewing your Wish Standards dashboard to identify opportunities to improve metrics.
Another suggestion is to regularly review and assess your active listings to maintain product listing quality. This includes:
-
Writing clear and complete product descriptions
-
Assign correct categorization so customers can find your products; add category-specific attributes (this includes both required and optional attributes)
-
Posting clear, defined images; selecting “clean” images
-
Pricing products competitively
Look to reduce (or “disable”) the number of your store’s active listings by eliminating products that are not appealing to your customers or helping your store. This allows you to focus on products that do work for your store and customers. The fastest way is via a CSV file download of your underperforming products, which allows for a quick, easy way to manage underperformers in bulk.
To download the CSV of underperforming products:
- Go to the Merchant Dashboard > Products > View All Products
- Click on the “Download as CSV/XLSX” drop down (top right) and choose “CSV for underperforming products”
- Follow the CSV file download instructions.
Notes:
- It can take around 24 hours for the file to be ready
- On/after December 5, 2023, you can also access the CSV file download feature via the Merchant Dashboard > Products > Listing Fees page
Finally, you can try to enhance exposure of your product listings by creating a ProductBoost campaign or (for Silver tier and above) promote products via the Merchant Promotions Platform.
9. Is there an updated Merchant Policy?
There will be updates to both the Wish Merchant Policy (Q1 2024) and Merchant Terms of Service and Agreement (Q4 2023) to reflect new terms related to fees.
Wish merchants should familiarize themselves with Wish policies and are required to adhere to the Merchant Terms of Service and Agreement (in addition to any Additional Terms and Policies as defined within the Merchant Terms of Service and Agreement).
View the current Merchant Policy (https://merchant.wish.com/policy#home) and Terms of Service (https://merchant.wish.com/terms-of-service).
10. How do Listing Fees work for a new Wish merchant?
They are “Unrated” since a new merchant is given that assignment in Wish Standards until they meet the criteria to be assigned a tier. Learn more about Wish Standards' criteria and tiers.
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