How to navigate the Merchant Promotions Platform

In order to expand promotion offerings that could empower merchants in their efforts to improve sales, user experience, buyer retention, and Wish Standards' ratings, Wish has built a Merchant Promotions Platform (Merchant Dashboard > Promotions > Merchant Promotions). This platform will offer a series of promotion tools to be released throughout 2022 and beyond.

There are merchant and product eligibility requirements to participate in the Merchant Promotions Platform. (Eligible merchants will see the “Promotions” option in the left side bar of the Merchant Dashboard.) 

What follows is a walkthrough to guide merchants through navigating and understanding the Merchant Promotions Platform on the Merchant Dashboard.

For questions about the Merchant Promotions Platform program, tool, and available promotions, please visit the Help Center article, “Merchant Promotions Platform FAQs.”

It is the merchant’s responsibility to ensure all promotions comply with Wish’s terms, policies, and applicable law, consistent with section 6 of the Merchant Terms of Service. 

Merchants that are new to Merchant Promotions Platform are strongly advised to read this article beginning to end, so as to gain full understanding of how the program works. Otherwise, click on on a link below to be taken to that topic:

• Promotion types
• Get started
• Create a promotion
• Enter promotion details
• Select eligible product(s)
• Set % discount(s)
• Promotion status: pending, approved, cancelled, & rejected 
• Promotion Performance

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Promotion types

Promotions built in the Merchant Promotions Platform will appear in “Deals” on the Wish app. (Go to, “What will a customer see when a promotion is active?” in the Help Center article, “Merchant Promotions Platform FAQs.")

At this time, the platform offers two promotions types: Discount and Flash Sale.

• Discount offers 5-80% off (on eligible products) for 7-14 calendar days.
• Flash Sale offers 15-80% off (on eligible products) for 12 hours.

Products must meet a promotion type’s eligibility requirements (listed below) to be included in that promotion. Products that do not meet eligibility requirements will be rejected from the promotion.

Along with the specific promotion-type requirements below, merchants are strongly advised to also review the Merchant Policy, "Product Promotion," for a clear understanding of promotion changes that are allowed.

	Discount  promotion product requirements	Flash Sale promotion product requirements
Product rating	More than 3 stars	More than 4 stars
Sale history	At least 1 sale in 90 calendar days	At least 20 sales in 90 calendar days
Promotion history	The product must not have participated in the same Discount (same country/countries and at the same discount %) within the last 30 calendar days	The product must not have participated in the same Flash Sale (same country/countries and at the same discount %) within the last 60 calendar days
Inventory	Must have at least 1 in stock	Must allocate at least 10% of current inventory (i.e., inventory at the time the promotion is created) or a quantity of 1, whichever is higher
Variations	Any Discount product with variations must include at least 60% of its variations in the Discount	Any Flash Sale product with variations must include all of its variations in the Flash Sale
Discount	5 - 80%	15 - 80%
	The % discount applies to the product price (or "Product Price" as displayed in the platform). See Set % discount(s) (below) to learn more.
Other   requirements	Products may NOT be in a Restricted Category (Merchant Dashboard > Products > Product Authorizations > Restricted Product Categories)
	Prohibited products are excluded from any/all promotions
	Merchants may not exceed 4,000 SKUs (variations) per MID in promotions at any given time
	Promoted product listings may not be altered once a product is submitted for a promotion and until completion of that promotion. This includes product titles, descriptions, and images as well as adding new variations.

 

Get started

Eligible merchants (those assigned a Platinum, Gold, and Silver tier status in Wish Standards) can access the Merchant Promotions Platform to create promotions via the Merchant Dashboard > Promotions > Merchant Promotions.

Ineligible merchants do not have a "Promotions" option available in the side navigation of their Merchant Dashboard. For more information on eligibility, please visit, “Merchant Promotions Platform FAQs.”

Once the homepage opens, eligible merchants can Create a Promotion.

Note: Once a merchant has an active promotion, the homepage will reflect the active promotions as well as tabs for pending promotions, cancelled promotions, and promotion history.

Create a promotion

Merchants currently have three ways to create a promotion: Manually, CSV file, or API.

This article walks through the manual process flow. However, merchants using a CSV file or API should scroll down to “Promotion status: pending, approved, cancelled, & rejected,” and continue reading to learn more about what happens after a promotion is submitted, how to modify promotions, view performance, and more.

1. Manual input - Click the promotion type, Discount or Flash Sale, to build a promotion from a generated list of promotion-eligible products. This process allows for changing promotion details during the build process.

2. CSV file upload - Click to Upload via CSV to run either a Discount or Flash Sale and quickly bulk upload pre-chosen promotion products via a CSV file. This process allows merchants  to review product eligibility and promotion details, plus make changes to promotion details after uploading the CSV file to the Merchant Promotions Platform. (With this option, merchants choose a promotion type from a drop-down on the next screen.)

For CSV file upload process instructions, please see, “How to create a promotion in the Merchant Promotions Platform using a CSV file.”

3. API - Visit the Wish Marketplace API and follow instructions to create a promotion campaign.

This article walks through the manual input process. For CSV file upload process instructions, please see, “How to create a promotion in the Merchant Promotions Platform using a CSV file.” However, merchants using a CSV file should scroll down to “Promotion status: pending, approved, cancelled, & rejected,” and continue reading to learn more about what happens after a promotion is submitted, modifying promotions, performance, and more. 

Enter promotion details

Promotion name

The promotion name is for the merchant (it is not user facing) to help differentiate and keep track of each promotion. Example, “Fall Sale 2022” or “Summer Flash Sale 2022.” A brief yet clear and unique name also helps merchants identify/search for promotions when viewing Pending Promotions, Active Promotions, History, and Promotion Performance. 

Start and End date vs. Preferred week

Discount promotions span days, unlike Flash Sale promotions, which span only hours. Therefore, the options for “Enter promotion details” date and times vary between the two promotions.

Discount allows a date range to be chosen. (Note that date and time ranges are in Pacific Time.)

Flash Sale runs for 12 hours, so merchants choose a preferred week (as shown in the screenshot below), and Wish optimizes the best day and time of the merchant’s chosen week to run the Flash Sale. This aims to help ensure that a merchant’s Flash Sale runs when there is likely to be the most user traffic, and also to try to help avoid multiple Flash Sale promotions running simultaneously.

Wish provides the optimized run time of the promotion upon approval of the promotion. 

Countries

The “Countries” field defaults to all of the countries a merchant sells to, and promotions can be targeted by selecting or deselecting a country. (At least one country must be chosen to proceed with building the promotion.) This section can be edited during the promotion creation process, but countries cannot be edited once the promotion is submitted. 

Select eligible product(s)

Once a promotion is chosen, the Merchant Promotions Platform displays a list of eligible products. 

From the eligible products, merchants can choose promotion products, the product variations, and set “Quantity.” (See screenshot below.)

There are three items in this section that merchants need to interact with/configure: 

Checkbox

Check the box on the left to choose a product for inclusion in the promotion.

Chevron symbol (variations)

The chevron symbol at left of the Product ID column indicates that the product has variations. Click on the chevron to view the variations, and check the box to include variations in the promotion.

Note: Since Flash Sale requires 100% of all product variations to be included, all product variations default as “chosen,” so no checkboxes will appear.

Be sure to adhere to any variation eligibility requirements for promotions. (See “Promotion types” for details.)

Quantity field

The “Quantity” set for each product must adhere to the promotion’s eligibility requirements. (See “Promotion types” for details.)

When a product is chosen for a promotion (i.e., the box in the far left column is checked), the Quantity (at right) will default to 100% inventory. This can be adjusted, although it must adhere to eligibility guidelines for that particular promotion or the product will be rejected from the promotion.

Click Next when the above actions are complete. If there is an error on the page, the Next button is disabled until the merchant fixes the error.

Set % discount(s)

Merchants can apply a percentage discount to each eligible product or click Apply Discount to All Products to apply one discount to all eligible products. (Discounts can be individually edited after using this feature.)

The % discount applies to the product price. 

“Discount” for each product must adhere to the promotion’s eligibility requirements. (See “Promotion types” for details.)

If the promotion details look correct, click Submit Promotion.

IMPORTANT: Once a promotion is submitted, merchants may raise a Discount percentage, or lower a product price and/or shipping price of an active promotion, to offer users an even better deal. However, merchants are dissuaded from lowering the Discount percentage or raising prices of an active promotion as that may impact user perception, hurt conversion, and risk changing promotion eligibility, which open up the product and promotion to rejection. Changes to product description, title, images, and new variations are prohibited. Please continue reading to learn about rejected promotions and products. Learn more about changes to promoted products in the Merchant Policy "Product Promotion."

Promotion status: pending, approved, cancelled, & rejected 

After submitting a promotion, it can take up to 24 hours for Wish approval. During that time, promotions live in the Pending Promotion tab. This tab, along with Active Promotions, Cancelled Promotions and History, can be accessed via the Merchant Promotions Platform homepage. 

In these tabs, depending on its “Status,” merchants can locate a promotion at any stage in its life cycle:

• Active Promotions: 
  • Active promotions (i.e., the promotion is actively running)
  • Approved promotions that have not yet started
• Pending Promotions: 
  • Pending (i.e., promotions submitted within the last 24 hours and pending Wish approval) 
• Cancelled Promotions
  • Cancelled promotions that a merchant chose to cancel
  • Rejected promotions
• History: 
  
  • Completed promotions (the promotion has ended)

Note: Flash Sale promotions will display the Wish optimized time and date once the promotion status is “Approved.”

If the promotion status is “Rejected,” it means that at least one product included in the promotion no longer meets the eligibility requirements. Examples of this include:

• Product detail page has changed
• Product price has changed where it is not the lowest discounted price in the last 30 calendar days
• Product rating has dropped
• Promotion does not contain valid variations

As noted earlier: Once a promotion is submitted, merchants may raise a Discount percentage or lower a product price and/or shipping price of an active promotion to offer users an even better deal. However, Discount percentage should not be lowered and prices should not be increased as that may impact user perception, hurt conversion, and risk changing eligibility, which may open up the product and promotion to rejection. Changes to product description, title, detail pages, images, and new variations are also prohibited. Learn more about changes to promoted products in the Merchant Policy, "Product Promotion."

For a list of rejection reasons that the Merchant Promotions Platform generates, please see the question, “When creating a promotion, if a product is rejected for not meeting eligibility requirements, what happens?” in the article, “Merchant Promotions Platform FAQs.”

For insight into why a promotion is rejected, click on the Promotion Name to view a product list. “Rejected products” displays the product and reason.

When a promotion is “Rejected,” merchants have the option to restart the promotion without the rejected products:

1. Click the ellipses (three dots) next to the “Rejected” status
2. Choose View promotion details, which opens “All campaign products”
3. Click Restart Promotion Without Rejected Products

View Promotion details

The “Promotion details” page offers merchants access to a number of key features and information:

• Modify promotion 
• Cancel promotion
• Restart a promotion
• Promotion performance
• Product performance

To view "Promotion details,” locate the Promotion Name (via the Active, Pending, Cancelled, or History tabs) and click on either the name (in blue text, which indicates an active link) or the ellipses (three dots) in the far right column, as shown in the screenshot below, to choose "View":

Modify or Cancel promotion

IMPORTANT: Merchants are advised against canceling or modifying an active promotion as it may impact user perception and hurt conversion.

After a promotion is submitted, merchants can raise the % discount in a pending or active promotion (the % discount cannot be lowered). No other product modifications should be made as a change could affect eligibility requirements and put the product and promotion at risk of rejection.

Discount modification to a pending promotion is done via Pending Promotions > Promotion Details. (See how to access details in the section above, “View Promotions details”)

In Promotion Details, hover the cursor over the % discount and the edit (pencil) icon appears. Click on the edit icon to change the percentage.

If the promotion has more than one variation, click on the chevron at the far left to display the variations, and follow the same instructions above.

Merchants can also cancel a promotion, though they are strongly advised against canceling an active promotion.

To cancel, go to the Promotion Details page, scroll to the top or bottom of the page and click Cancel promotion. A pop-up box appears and asks that the merchant select a reason from a drop-down box. The Comment field is optional; information provided may help Wish improve future features and tools in the Merchant Promotions Platform. 

Promotion Performance

The Merchant Promotions Platform offers a variety of metrics on promotion performance for both current and completed promotions. 

On the Promotion Performance page, merchants can find details such as how a product is performing, which product has the most orders, highest conversion rate, lowest conversion rate as well as whether products are sold out or have been rejected from the campaign.

For completed promotions, merchants have the option to “Restart Campaign.” 

If the section “Rejected products” appears, it means that at least one promotion product included in the promotion no longer meets the eligibility requirements. Examples of this include:

• Product detail page has changed
• Product price has changed where it is not the lowest discounted price in the last 30 calendar days
• Product rating has dropped
• Promotion does not contain valid variations

The “Rejection Reason” is listed so that if a merchant is able to fix the issue, they can do so to return the product back to the promotion. 

Merchants can access Promotion Performance by going to either Active Promotions or History, and clicking on a Promotion Name (or the ellipses) to “View.”