If you head over to Facebook you may be able to catch a glimpse of an advertising disaster occurring in real-time. Perhaps a soon to be dinosaur in its natural habitat. You'd better hurry, though- there's a good chance that Wish will delete the below sponsored post once someone from their team reads the comments.



First let's all get on the same page: what is Wish?

In a nutshell it's an Amazon competitor filled with lots of very cheap but good looking products that sell for pennies on the dollar. The product is typically shipped directly from the seller but Wish can also offer warehousing. It's the third method of distribution that's causing a ruckus: 3rd party retail partners.

They call this part of their business "Wish Local"

Well-Meaning Facebook Ad

Wish is currently running a Facebook advertisement recruiting retail store owners to become Wish distribution locations. The elevator pitch: retail store owners get free foot traffic by allowing Wish customers to pick up their shipments in their retail store.

Uhoh It's Tom Zalewski

It sounds like a win/win on paper, but don't tell that to Tom Zalewski; he's the owner of a Mobile Phone Repair Shop in Chicago called CellzRepairz. This holiday season he partnered with Wish in hopes of bringing more people into his store.



Mr. Zalewski's review condenses everything he's thinking into the first 3 words, "Wish is trash."

But he doesn't stop there. He continues for another 475 words of relentless truth hurt bombs (that's 478 total for those counting at home) and explains why no retail owner should ever partner with Wish.

Here is his full proclamation:

Ouch.
That hurt.
Bad.

What makes it worse is that Wish is paying money to promote his negative review. And it's working! Depending on how you look at it.

As retail shop owners chime in to confirm Tom's criticism:


Others are thanking the group for collectively saving their butts- they had considered partnering with Wish but stumbled upon Tom's review and decided against it.



Don't feel too bad for Wish. The company is worth $8+ Billion dollars.

The bigger question here is how will Wish fix the problem (and their image) or will they abandon the retail distribution market completely? That remains to be seen, but before Wish does anything else, I suggest they delete that sponsored post.

The idea might look good on paper but there is a reason Papyrus went out of business. (ZING!)

Have you used the Wish app as a buyer or seller? Do you like it? Let us know in the comments.

Want to start a new conversation about Wish? Head on over to the Wish for Android Forum.

[Original post on Facebook]