In order to expand promotion offerings that could empower merchants to improve sales, user experience, buyer retention, and Wish Standards ratings, Wish has built a new Merchant Promotions Platform (Merchant Dashboard > Promotions > Merchant Promotions), which rolls out to eligible merchants, spring 2022. This platform offers a series of promotion tools to be released throughout 2022 and beyond.
NOTE: If you click on a direct link to the Merchant Promotions Platform and receive an "Internal Server Error," or if you check Merchant Dashboard and do not see a "Promotions" option in the left navigation, it means you do not have access to the Merchant Promotions Platform tool. If you are an eligible merchant (Platinum, Gold, or Silver tier), please continue checking the Merchant Dashboard for Promotions > Merchant Promotions as all eligible merchants should have access by end of May/early June 2022.
What follows are questions and answers to offer merchants a better understanding of how the Merchant Promotions Platform and program works.
For questions about navigating the Promotions platform, please visit, “How to navigate the Merchant Promotions Platform.”
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Click on the question to be taken to that particular answer:
1. When will the Merchant Promotions Platform and its promotion tools be open to merchants?
3. What is the difference between Merchant Promotions Platform and ProductBoost?
4. How does the Merchant Promotions Platform work?
5. How do promotions types differ from one another?
9. How can a merchant find out if a submitted promotion is approved or rejected?
10. Can a pending or active promotion be modified or canceled?
11. What will a user see when a promotion is active?
12. How best can merchants prepare for using the new platform and its Discount and Flash Sale tools?
13. Does the Merchant Promotions Platform increase product impressions or sales?
14. Can I use the Merchant Promotions Platform through the ERP API?
16. How might the Merchant Promotions platform help Wish Standards ratings?
18. Must a promoted product have the same discount % across every country it is sold?
20. Why is there strikethrough pricing after strikethrough pricing was discontinued?
21. Will there be a timer that indicates when a Discount or Flash Sale ends?
22. What other promotion types will be released?
25. How are merchants paid out for refunds?
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1. When will the Merchant Promotions Platform and its promotion tools be open to merchants?
As of April 2022, the platform and its two promotion tools (Discount and Flash Sale) are rolling out to a small percentage of eligible merchants. Subsequent roll outs are planned each week to a larger percentage of eligible merchants, while a limited user test is scaling slowly over coming weeks.
Please keep in mind the Merchant Promotions Platform is an ongoing project. Wish will continue to explore new ways for merchants to have flexibility and ownership so to drive sales and build brand identity. Also, a number of different promotion tools are planned for future testing and release throughout the remainder of 2022 and beyond.
Note there are merchant and product eligibility requirements to participate in the Merchant Promotions Platform. Please read the next question to learn more.
2. What are the eligibility requirements to access the Merchant Promotions Platform and participate in promotions?
Merchant eligibility: The Merchant Promotions Platform is free to use for eligible merchants, which is defined as those with Platinum, Gold, and Silver tier status. This guideline aligns with the Wish Standards’ design to reward merchants that provide outstanding product quality and service to users and to encourage Bronze merchants to use Wish Standards Performance Dashboard information that may help elevate ratings.
Product eligibility: Products must meet particular eligibility requirements to participate in a promotion and each promotion type. Please scroll down to the question, “How do promotion types differ from one another?” to learn more.
3. What is the difference between Merchant Promotions Platform and ProductBoost?
Merchant Promotions Platform is a promotion tool that is limited to eligible merchants, free to use, and offers an expanding range of promotion tools. ProductBoost, however, is an advertising tool, so there is currently a charge to use it, but it is open to all merchants.
4. How does the Merchant Promotions Platform work?
The Merchant Promotions Platform makes creating (and tracking) a promotion quick and easy. At a high level, the process looks like this:
- Choose the promotion type (e.g., Discount or Flash Sale)
- Merchants also choose how to create the promotion (options are manual input or CSV file, with plans to offer a third ERP API option soon)
- Enter promotion details (note the times are Pacific Time Zone)
- Choose promotion products (and variations)
- Enter promotion product and variation Quantity
- Set product promotion % Discount
- Discount is applied to both product and shipping price for each product
- Check and fix Rejected products (the platform prompts what to fix)
- Submit promotion for Wish approval
- Receive Approval/Rejection (within 24 hours)
During a promotion, the tool offers merchants access to promotion and product performance metrics. After a promotion ends, the history is available to merchants for reference or to restart the promotion (dependent on a promotion’s product requirement "promotion history").
5. How do promotions types differ from one another?
Currently, two promotion types are offered (with plans to release more in the future):
- Discount offers 5-80% off (on eligible products; % off applies to product prices and shipping prices) for 7-14 calendar days.
- Flash Sale offers 15-80% off (on eligible products; % off applies to product prices and shipping prices) for 12 hours, creating a sense of urgency for users.
Each promotion type also has different eligibility requirements for a product to be included in the promotion. For a detailed table of each promotion's product requirements, please go to, "Promotion type" in the article, "How to navigate the Merchant Promotions Platform."
IMPORTANT: Products that do not meet eligibility requirements will be rejected from the promotion.
6. When creating a promotion and a product is rejected for not meeting eligibility requirements, what happens?
If manually creating a promotion within the Merchant Promotion Platform, the platform provides a list of eligible products to choose from to include in that promotion. This way, merchants know whatever products are chosen are eligible for that promotion type.
If creating a promotion with a CSV file, the Merchant Promotions Platform will not provide a list of eligible products to choose from. However, once the CSV file is uploaded into the Merchant Promotion Platform, the platform will prompt error messages for any products or product details that do not meet the promotion’s product requirements. Read, "How to create a promotion in the Merchant Promotions Platform using a CSV file," to learn more.
Merchants must apply the promotion product details (i.e., % discount, applicable product variations and those % discounts, inventory (if applicable)). These details must meet the specific promotion’s product requirements (as listed in the “Promotion type” table). Otherwise, the platform prompts an error message that explains the error, and the merchant is unable to proceed with creating the promotion (i.e., "Next" is disabled) until the error is fixed or the problematic product removed.
Please also know that throughout the promotion lifecycle, the platform conducts eligibility checks, which in turn could reject a product if it is found to be ineligible.
What follows is a list of rejected reasons that the Merchant Promotions Platform generates:
- NOT_IN_STOCK: product out of stock
- LOW_RATING: product rating is low
- SALE_HISTORY: no product sale history for previous days
- PRODUCT_PRICE: product price is not the lowest during certain time period
- PRODUCT_SHIPPING_PRICE: product shipping price cannot be increased before campaign starts
- PRODUCT_CATEGORY: product categories is not eligible for the promotion type
- CAMPAIGN_LIMIT:
- Products cannot be on conflicting campaigns at the same time (e.g., marked for Discount and also Flash Sale)
- Products also have a 30-day cooldown period, which means products can only enroll in campaign of the same type 30 days after the previous one ends
- MINIMUM_VARIATION_PERCENTAGE: deal should include as many product variations.
- DEAL_QUANTITY: a certain percent of variation inventory should be included in the deal
- VARIATIONS_PRICING_GAMING: variations' discounts have steep difference, with most discounts at the lower end
7. When creating a Flash Sale, under “Enter promotion details” it says, “Wish will optimize the specific day and time range of your Flash Sale.” What does that mean?
Wish optimizes a merchant’s preferred Flash Sale week, meaning that Wish will run the Flash Sale on a specific day and during a particular time range to try 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 (usually within 24 hours of submitting the promotion).
8. If a merchant is not satisfied with the optimized time or date Wish assigns a Flash Sale, can it cancel or reschedule the Flash Sale?
At this time, there is no way to reschedule an approved Flash Sale promotion for a new time or date. However, a merchant can cancel the promotion. Please scroll down the question, “Can a pending or active promotion be modified or canceled?”
9. How can a merchant find out if a submitted promotion is approved or rejected?
After submitting a promotion, it can take up to 24 hours for Wish to approve the promotion. During that time, promotions live in the Pending Promotion tab. This tab, along with the Active Promotions tab, Cancelled Promotions tab, and History tab, can be accessed via the Merchant Promotions 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. For a list of rejected reasons, see the question, “When creating a promotion and a product is rejected for not meeting eligibility requirements, what happens?”
When a promotion is “Rejected,” a merchant can either fix the error (as noted by the Merchant Promotions Platform error message) or restart the campaign without the rejected products:
- Click on the ellipses (three dots) next to the “Rejected” status.
- Choose View promotion details, which opens to all campaign products.
- Click Restart Promotion Without Rejected Products.
10. Can a pending or active promotion be modified or canceled?
Merchants are advised against canceling or modifying an active promotion as it may impact user perception and hurt conversion.
After a promotion is submitted, only the % discount can be raised (it cannot be lowered). No other product modifications (e.g., product detail page, price, shipping price) should be made as a change affects eligibility requirements and puts the product and promotion at risk of rejection.
Discount modification to a pending promotion is done via Pending Promotions > Promotion Details. Hover the cursor over the % discount in the "Discount" column until the edit (pencil) icon appears. Click the edit icon to change the percentage.
Note: The Discount % applies to both product and shipping price.
Merchants can also cancel a promotion, though are 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.
11. What will a user see when a promotion is active?
Promotions appear in the new “Deals” section on wish.com/Wish app. Users will be able to access and interact with “Deals” in a variety of ways across the site, and personalization (suggested products based on a user’s previous purchases) will be strengthened over time.
Here are a few examples for what this may look like:
“Deals” page:
"Flash Sale" is specific to Flash Sale products, whereas “Shop daily deals” includes a mix of promotions, such as Discount and Flash Sale.
12. How best can merchants prepare for using the new platform and its Discount and Flash Sale tools?
If new to the Merchant Promotions Platform or selling on Wish:
- Read the article, "How to navigate the Merchant Promotions Platform."
- Follow all Wish Standards’ guidelines to maintain or improve ratings.
- Spend on ProductBoost to try to gain sales and reviews (if launching new products).
- Assess inventory and plan a strategy for Discount and Flash Sale tools.
- Prepare eligible products by checking, updating, and finalizing product listing details (i.e., images, descriptions, product and shipping prices, etc.)
13. Does the Merchant Promotions Platform increase product impressions or sales?
Wish cannot guarantee that the Merchant Promotions Platform will increase impressions or sales. Rather, Wish’s optimized ranking system is intended to display the personalized deal to users. (To boost product impressions, please refer to our advertising product, ProductBoost.)
The Merchant Promotions Platform is an exciting opportunity for merchants to promote their best products and try to stand out to users on the brand new and dedicated “Deals” section. (Learn about “Deals” in the question above, “What will a user see when a promotion is active?")
14. Can I use the Merchant Promotions Platform through the ERP API?
Yes, eligible merchants can visit the Wish Marketplace API and follow instructions to create a promotion campaign.
15. If an eligible merchant has a brand-new product to promote, can they use the Merchant Promotions Platform?
Discount and Flash Sale promotion types both require that a product has a product rating and sale history (see the table above in the question, “How do promotions types differ?”). The intention of these promotion types is to try to help grow existing sales; however, future promotion types will be released that may open up options for new product releases.
A great option for advertising a new product(s) on Wish is ProductBoost, which is available to all merchants. With its new cost-per-click charge method and improved data insights, ProductBoost offers merchants more opportunities to increase user traffic and engagement.
16. How might the Merchant Promotions platform help Wish Standards ratings?
Promotions offer opportunities to generate user interest, conversion, and potentially sales. With additional sales comes more opportunity to improve fulfillment and user service. If deals and service are great, users might then leave a great review and rating as well as become a loyal user. All of these factors can have an impact on Wish Standards’ ratings.
17. How can a Bronze merchant become eligible if it cannot promote products to raise its Wish Standards’ tier?
Wish Standards ratings–and tiers–are affected by many factors other than just sales. Merchants can increase ratings by improving user service, fulfillment, product detail listings, product offerings, reviews, etc. The advantages of leveling up to a Platinum, Gold or Silver tier extend beyond the use of the Merchant Promotions Platform, so it is beneficial for a merchant to look at their business from a holistic perspective, use the Wish Standards Performance Dashboard for insight and guidance, and work with its Account Manager to seek out growth opportunities.
Also, merchants have access to Wish advertising tools (ProductBoost, CollectionBoost) for additional product awareness. With ProductBoost’s new cost-per-click charge method and improved data insight, the advertising opportunities are better than ever on Wish.
18. Must a promoted product have the same % discount across every country it is sold?
Merchants can offer the same product at different discounts in different countries during the same period. If a discount ends, they may not be able to offer the same product at the same discount again in the same country for 30 days (dependent on a promotion’s “promotion history” eligibility requirement). However, they may offer it at a steeper discount (in the same country) after the promotion ends, or promote the product at the same discount but in a different country.
19. What is the logic for setting the Discount minimum at 7 days? Why is there no option for a weekend/48-hour Discount?
The 7-day period offers users more time to discover these deals. We are working on improving traffic (via emails and other sources) to shorten the deal time.
20. Why is there strikethrough pricing after strikethrough pricing was discontinued?
Strikethrough pricing still exists, but it is reserved only for Merchant Promotions Platform-related promotions. Merchant Promotion Platform discounts will display a strikethrough on the merchant-set original product price, and display the discounted merchant-set promotion price in orange (to note that the product is a "Deals” product).
21. Will there be a timer that indicates when a Discount or Flash Sale ends?
Yes! On the feed tile and product listing page, Wish will optimize by quantity sold or time remaining (e.g., 20% claimed, or 30 minutes remaining).
22. What other promotion types will be released?
The Merchant Promotions Platform is an ongoing project, and Wish will continue to explore new ways for merchants to have flexibility and ownership to drive sales and build brand identity.
New promotion types must first be built and successfully tested, so while a timeline cannot be provided, we can share other promotion types Wish hopes to explore:
- Spend more, save more (e.g., users who spend over $50 with a merchant receive a discount)
- Buy 1 get 1 (BOGO) (e.g., users buy one item and get another item for 50% off)
- Free Shipping (e.g., merchants offer free shipping for a limited time)
- Coupons (e.g., merchants offer redeemable coupons)
- Bundles
23. Where can a merchant go to provide feedback about the Merchant Promotions Platform and promotion tools?
Feedback is welcome! Please reach out to your Account Manager with any improvements and/or issues/bugs found.
24. What are the implications if a merchant changes from eligible (Platinum, Gold, or Silver tier) to ineligible (Bronze tier)?
If a merchant’s tier shifts from eligible to ineligible, they will immediately lose access to the Merchant Promotions Platform. This could result in the following scenarios:
- If a campaign is submitted and pending approval, the campaign will be “Rejected.”
- If a campaign is active, it will be stopped and the status reassigned as “Rejected.”
- If a campaign has ended, and a merchant wants to access performance data, it will not be able to access that campaign performance data until it has raised its tier to eligible status (i.e., Platinum, Gold, or Silver) to regain platform access.
Please note that a merchant’s promotions history will remain intact within the Merchant Promotions Platform, regardless of eligibility. Therefore, if a pending/active campaign is rejected due to a change in tier/eligibility status, the merchant (once eligibility is regained) can go into the platform and resubmit the promotion.
Wish Standard tiers update gradually, so merchants should regularly refer to their Wish Standards Performance Dashboard to review tier placement and current progress ahead of the next tier update. Also, merchants are notified when/if their tier levels up or down.
Learn more about Wish Standards tiers by visiting the Help Center article, “Wish Standards program overview.”
25. How are merchants paid out for refunds?
For refunds/returns of promoted products, there is no difference (from non-promoted products) or special handling. When a return or refund occurs, the merchant is refunded (if eligible for a refund) with the merchant payment, as shown in this example:
- Merchant product price $10
- Merchant shipping price $2
- Discount 10% or $1.2
- Original product cost: $8.5 (commission 15%)
- Original shipping cost $1.7
- Updated product cost: $8.5-$10*10% = $7.5
- Updated Shipping cost: $1.7-$2*10% = $1.5
- Normal merchant payment: merchant $7.5+$1.5 = $9
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