How to View and Dispute Product Categories

A product’s category (or categories) is used to calculate each order’s commission or to determine whether a product may need merchants to provide a Responsible Person to be compliant with Market Surveillance Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (learn more about EU market compliance). The category is initially determined by Wish, but if merchants believe the product is categorized incorrectly, merchants are able to submit a product category dispute once.

This article walks merchants through key information on product category, how it is determined and displayed to merchants, and the process of submitting a product category dispute.

1. What is a product category?

An order’s commission is calculated partially based on the corresponding product’s category, per Merchant Policy - Payment Amounts.

A product’s category is also used to determine whether it needs merchants to provide a Responsible Person to be compliant with Market Surveillance Regulation (EU) 2019/1020.

2. Where can I view a product’s category?

There are three ways:

1). On product-related pages on Merchant Dashboard

Merchants may first see a product’s category on the Merchant Dashboard View All Products page, specifically in the Category column of the page. (For a newly uploaded product without its first released order yet, this column will simply show "--".)

Merchants may also access the product’s category in the “Edit Listing” page > “Basic info” section, as shown below:

As seen above, these merchant-level pages may show multiple categories for a product. However, since a product’s category is also used to determine the commission for orders of that product, only the one product category that results in the lowest commission for each order is used to calculate the order’s commission (and displayed on order-related pages outlined below).

2). On order-related pages on Merchant Dashboard

Merchants may also see a product's category on the Order details page > Payment information section. Specifically, merchants may see these categorizations on the Order details page, if the product is categorized as:

• a variety of categories related to apparel, electronics, and all other products subject to the progressive commission structure (applicable to EU-bound orders starting July 6, 2022, UTC, and non-EU-bound orders when the non-EU commission structure launches, expected September 2022, per Merchant Policy - Payment Amounts), OR
• “Household Supplies” or “Sexual Wellness” (categories subject to commission rate only model, per Merchant Policy - Payment Amounts)

Here, the product’s category is displayed in the “Basis for merchant commission fees” line item:

It is worth noting that the Commission adjustment line item shown above displays any commission changes made to this order after a merchant-initiated Product Category Dispute (see details below) is successfully resolved and results in a commission adjustment.

3). Retrieve via API

Merchants may also see product category via the following Products API endpoint: GET /api/v3/products/{id}

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Once the first order of a product is released and the product category is shown to merchants in the above locations, merchants may dispute the category from here (see detailed dispute process below).

However, if merchants take no action after first seeing the product category in the above locations, Wish may further review the product’s category and make one more update to the category within approximately 5-7 business days. 

If Wish updates the product’s category upon further review, without merchant dispute, the updated product category will be displayed on the View All Products page and "Edit Listing" page; the updated category will be used to calculate the commissions of all orders released after Wish makes the update, but orders released before then will not be commission adjusted. Similarly, merchants may choose to dispute the updated category from here as well.

NOTE: Merchants can only dispute product category ONCE. See details below.

3. How do I submit a Product Category Dispute?

In order to dispute a product category for the purpose of commission adjustments, merchants can navigate to Merchant Dashboard View All Products page, locate the product in question, click “Dispute Product Category” in the “Action” dropdown menu:

Merchants may then fill out the necessary information for the dispute:

Please note the following:

• Merchants may only propose one new category, even though the product may be initially determined by Wish to fall within multiple categories.
• Each product’s category may only be disputed ONCE.

If merchants were to submit a product category dispute for the purpose of Market Surveillance Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 compliance (related to providing Responsible Person for the product), the process is similar. Simply enter the EU Product Compliance page on Merchant Dashboard, navigate to the “Relevant Products” section at the bottom of the page, view the Wish-determined product category, and click “Dispute Product Category” to initiate the dispute process (see screenshot below):

The dispute form is slightly different and requires merchants to confirm a few items before submitting. Merchants do not need to propose a new product category, but the dispute can only be submitted once still:

Once all information is filled out, merchants may click “Submit” on the upper right corner, and a pop-up box appears to confirm the submission:

Wish will respond within several business days regarding the dispute result.

4. How do I view Product Category Dispute status?

After submitting a dispute, merchants may see each dispute’s status in a centralized page on the Merchant Dashboard. Merchants may follow the pop-up box prompt shown above and click “View Product Category Disputes” to arrive at this page or navigate to Merchant Dashboard Disputes > Product Category Disputes page:

Here, merchants will see a list of product category disputes submitted and their statuses. Merchants may also click “View details” to see more information of each dispute.

5. What happens after a dispute is resolved?

Once a dispute is submitted and resolved by Wish, the disputed product category may or may not be changed.

If a dispute’s status is “Resolved - Unchanged,” it means that Wish has reviewed the dispute, and determined that the disputed category should remain unchanged. In the dispute details page, merchants will see further explanation from the Wish team in the “Reason” line item as shown below:

If a dispute’s status is “Resolved - Updated,” it means that Wish has reviewed the dispute and determined that the disputed category should be updated to a new category. Note that the new category may or may not be the one that merchants proposed in the dispute process. 

In addition, if the category update results in a commission adjustment for the product’s corresponding orders, the commission fees of all orders released to merchants within the 14-calendar-day window prior to the dispute submission date will be adjusted. Merchants may view a list of all affected orders on the dispute details page, as shown in the Commission Adjustment section below:

If the category update based on the dispute does NOT impact the commission, the Commission Adjustment section will be blank.

The updated category will be used to calculate the commission fee or amount for all applicable orders released after the dispute is resolved.