S-1 1 d82777ds1.htm FORM S-1 Form S-1
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As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 20, 2020.

Registration No. 333-                

 

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM S-1

REGISTRATION STATEMENT

UNDER

THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933

 

 

ContextLogic Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

 

 

 

Delaware   5961   27-2930953
(State or Other Jurisdiction of
Incorporation or Organization)
  (Primary Standard Industrial
Classification Code Number)
  (I.R.S. Employer
Identification Number)

One Sansome Street 40th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94104

(415) 432-7323

(Address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of registrant’s principal executive offices)

 

 

Rajat Bahri

Chief Financial Officer

ContextLogic Inc.

One Sansome Street 40th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94104

415-432-7323

(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)

 

 

Copies to:

 

Ilan Lovinsky

Jeffrey R. Vetter

Ryan J. Gunderson

Colin G. Conklin

Gunderson Dettmer Stough
Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP
One Bush Plaza, Suite 1200

San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 978-9803

 

Devang S. Shah

Renee Jackson

Jilliana Wong

ContextLogic Inc.

One Sansome Street 40th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94104

(415) 432-7323

 

Dave Peinsipp

Eric Jensen

Calise Cheng

Cooley LLP

101 California Street, 5th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94111

(415) 693-2000

 

 

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after the effective date of this Registration Statement.

If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933, check the following box.  

If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, please check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.:

 

  Large accelerated filer        Accelerated filer  
  Non-accelerated filer        Smaller reporting company  
       Emerging growth company  

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act.  

 

 

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE

 

 

 

 

Title of Each Class of
Securities to be Registered
 

Proposed
Maximum
Aggregate

Offering Price(1)(2)

 

Amount of

Registration Fee

Class A Common Stock, $0.0001 par value

  $1,000,000,000   $109,100

 

 

 

(1)

Estimated solely for the purpose of calculating the amount of the registration fee in accordance with Rule 457(o) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

(2)

Includes the aggregate offering price of additional shares that the underwriters have the option to purchase.

 

 

The Registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting pursuant to such Section 8(a), may determine.

 

 

 


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The information in this preliminary prospectus is not complete and may be changed. We may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This preliminary prospectus is not an offer to sell nor does it seek an offer to buy these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

 

Subject to Completion, Dated                , 2020

             Shares

 

 

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Class A Common Stock

 

 

This is the initial public offering of shares of Class A common stock of ContextLogic Inc. (d/b/a “Wish”). We are offering                shares of Class A common stock.

We have two classes of common stock, Class A common stock and Class B common stock. The rights of the holders of Class A common stock and Class B common stock are identical, except voting, transfer, and conversion rights. Each share of Class A common stock is entitled to one vote. Each share of Class B common stock is entitled to 20 votes and is convertible at any time into one share of Class A common stock. See the section titled “Description of Capital Stock” herein for additional information on our capital stock. The holders of our outstanding shares of Class B common stock will hold approximately         % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock immediately following this offering, and our founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairperson, Peter Szulczewski, will hold, or have the ability to control, approximately         % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock immediately following this offering. See the section titled “Risk Factors—Risks Related to this Offering and Our Class A Common Stock” herein for additional information.

Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our Class A common stock. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price will be between $                 and $                per share.

We have applied to list our Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “WISH.”

See the section titled “Risk Factors” beginning on page 21 to read about factors you should consider before deciding to invest in shares of our Class A common stock.

 

 

Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor any other regulatory body has approved or disapproved of these securities or passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

 

 

     Per Share      Total  

Initial public offering price

   $                    $                

Underwriting discounts and commissions(1)

   $        $    

Proceeds, before expenses, to Wish

   $        $    

 

(1)

See the section titled “Underwriting” on page 207 for a description of the compensation payable to the underwriters.

To the extent that the underwriters sell more than                 shares of Class A common stock, the underwriters have an option to purchase up to an additional                 shares of Class A common stock from us at the initial public offering price, less the underwriting discounts and commissions.

 

 

The underwriters expect to deliver the shares of Class A common stock against payment in New York, New York on                 , 2020.

 

 

 

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC       J.P. Morgan     BofA Securities
Citigroup    Deutsche Bank Securities      UBS Investment Bank      RBC Capital Markets
    
Credit Suisse
 
Cowen    Oppenheimer & Co.    Stifel    William Blair
Academy Securities    Loop Capital Markets      R. Seelaus & Co., LLC

 

 

Prospectus dated                 , 2020


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wish kid’s bike accessories popular brands  


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wish dog toys popular brands 2 colors available


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WishWish

Our mission

Bring an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping experience to billions of consumers around the world.

Karla

California

Women’s fashion

Makeup/ beauty

Israel mexico car accessoires tools & electronics

Trygve Norway photo / video equipment

Francesco Italy fishing equipment electronics

Tomiwa Nigeria electronics gadgets hellen brazil beauty / kids

Susanne Sweden women’s fashion home décor

South Africa beauty / accessories

Maryann australia

Our mission

Bring an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping experience to billions of consumers around the world.

Karla

California

Women’s fashion

Makeup/ beauty

Israel mexico car accessoires tools & electronics

Trygve Norway photo / video equipment

Francesco Italy fishing equipment electronics

Tomiwa Nigeria electronics gadgets hellen brazil beauty / kids

Susanne Sweden women’s fashion home décor

South Africa beauty / accessories

Maryann australia


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LOGO

 

wish100+ countries more reach, more sales for merchants 100m+MAU#1most downloaded shoping appmore seclections,more valubele for users 680m+itemsshipped


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Prospectus Summary

     1  

Summary Consolidated Financial and Other Data

     17  

Risk Factors

     21  

Letter from Peter Szulczewski, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairperson

     62  

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

     64  

Industry Data and User Metrics

     65  

Use Of Proceeds

     67  

Dividend Policy

     68  

Capitalization

     69  

Dilution

     72  

Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data

     75  

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

     81  

Business

     117  

Management

     157  

Executive Compensation

     166  

Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions

     184  

Principal Stockholders

     187  

Description of Capital Stock

     192  

Shares Eligible for Future Sale

     200  

Material U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for Non-U.S. Holders of Our Class A Common Stock

     203  

Underwriting

     207  

Legal Matters

     214  

Experts

     214  

Where You Can Find More Information

     214  

Index to Consolidated Financial Statements

     F-1  

 

 

Through and including                 ,          (the 25th day after the date of this prospectus), all dealers effecting transactions in these securities, whether or not participating in this offering, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This is in addition to a dealer’s obligation to deliver a prospectus when acting as an underwriter and with respect to an unsold allotment or subscription.

Neither we nor any of the underwriters have authorized anyone to provide any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus or in any free writing prospectuses prepared by us or on our behalf or to which we have referred you. Neither we nor any of the underwriters take any responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. This prospectus is an offer to sell only the shares our Class A common stock offered hereby, but only under circumstances and in jurisdictions where it is lawful to do so. The information contained in this prospectus is current only as of the date on the front cover of the prospectus. Our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects may have changed since that date.

For investors outside the United States: Neither we nor any of the underwriters have done anything that would permit this offering or possession or distribution of this prospectus in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required, other than in the United States. Persons outside the United States who come into possession of this prospectus must inform themselves about, and observe any restrictions relating to, the offering of the shares of our Class A common stock and the distribution of this prospectus outside of the United States.


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PROSPECTUS SUMMARY

This summary highlights information appearing elsewhere in this prospectus and is qualified in its entirety by the more detailed information and financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. This summary does not contain all the information you should consider before investing in our Class A common stock. You should read this entire prospectus carefully, including the sections titled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, before making any investment decision. Unless the context otherwise requires, we use the terms “Wish,” the “company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” in this prospectus to refer to ContextLogic Inc. (d/b/a “Wish”).

Overview

We launched Wish with a simple mission—to bring an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping experience to billions of consumers around the world. Since our founding in 2010, our vision has been to unlock ecommerce for consumers and merchants, by providing consumers access to a vast selection of affordable products and by providing merchants access to hundreds of millions of consumers globally. We have become one of the largest and fastest growing global ecommerce platforms, connecting more than 100 million monthly active users (“MAUs” or “monthly active users”) in over 100 countries to over 500,000 merchants offering approximately 150 million items. Our platform combines technology and data science capabilities, an innovative and discovery-based mobile shopping experience, a comprehensive suite of indispensable merchant services, and a massive scale of users, merchants, and items. This combination has allowed us to become the most downloaded global shopping app for each of the last three years according to a report from Sensor Tower.1

We are focused on democratizing mobile commerce by making it affordable and accessible to anyone. The global mobile commerce market was $2.1 trillion in 2019 and is expected to more than double to reach $4.5 trillion by 2024.2 While ecommerce grew from 3% of global commerce in 2010 to 14% in 2019, ecommerce companies have largely focused on serving affluent consumers by offering branded goods and prioritizing convenience over price. However, 44% of U.S. consumers and 85% of European consumers have a household income of less than $75,0003 and cannot afford many traditional ecommerce offerings. Additionally, in the emerging economies of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, where the average household income is approximately $18,000, affordability will be the key element for users shopping online. We believe that the next billion ecommerce customers will be these value-conscious consumers. According to a survey we conducted in 2020 across 2,850 consumers in select countries, approximately 75% of those responding prioritize the price of an item over brand and delivery time. We built Wish to serve these consumers who favor affordability over brand and convenience, and are being underserved by traditional ecommerce platforms.

We are revolutionizing mobile commerce with a user experience that is mobile-first, discovery-based, deeply-personalized, and entertaining. Over 90% of our user activity and purchases occur on our mobile app. Our data science capabilities allow us to mirror how consumers have shopped for decades in brick-and-mortar stores by offering a discovery-based shopping experience on a mobile device. Our highly-personalized product feed enables our users to discover products they want to purchase by simply scrolling through our mobile app and browsing. Over 70% of the sales on our platform do not involve a search query and instead come from personalized browsing. Wish users

 

1 

Sensor Tower, analysis of store intelligence platform data, November 2019.

2 

eMarketer, Global eCommerce 2020, June 2020.

3 

Euromonitor International Limited, Economies and Consumers, updated August 2020.

 

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engage with our app in a similar manner to how they engage with social media; scrolling through image-rich, highly-engaging, and interactive content. To enhance user engagement, we incorporate fresh gamified features, rich user-generated content including photos, videos, and reviews, and a wide range of relevant products to make shopping more entertaining. Our differentiated user experience has driven superior engagement with Wish users spending on average over nine minutes per day on our platform during the twelve months ended September 30, 2020.

We also built Wish to empower merchants around the world. Today, most of our merchants are based in China. We initially grew our platform focusing on merchants in China, the world’s largest exporter of goods for the last decade,4 due to these merchants’ strength in selling quality products at competitive prices. We continue to expand our merchant base around the world. The number of merchants on our platform in North America, Europe, and Latin America has grown approximately 234% since 2019. In particular, the number of merchants on our platform in the United States has grown approximately 268% since 2019. Through our diversified and global merchant base, we are able to offer greater depth and breadth of categories and products. For example, in 2019, four out of the top 10 selling merchants on our platform were located in the United States selling refurbished electronics, beauty products, and hobby items, which illustrates the ongoing diversification of our merchant base and product categories. We give our merchants immediate access to our global base of over 100 million monthly active users and a comprehensive suite of indispensable services, including demand generation and engagement, user-generated content creation, data intelligence, promotional and logistics capabilities, and business operations support, all in a cost-efficient manner.

Local brick-and-mortar stores worldwide are struggling to attract consumers and compete in a retail world being transformed by ecommerce and industry consolidation. We launched Wish Local in 2019 to help these merchants increase their online reach and discovery, gain foot traffic, and drive additional sales. Today, we have almost 50,000 Wish Local partners in 50 countries who have signed up to our Sell on Wish feature to upload their in-store inventory on Wish for local pick-up or delivery. Our Wish Local partners also serve as Wish Pickup locations for online Wish orders, which effectively gives us a local warehousing and fulfillment footprint around the world without owning any real estate.

Our scale, combined with our extensive data science capabilities, provides us with a unique competitive advantage and is core to our business operations. We collect, analyze, and utilize data across over 100 million monthly active users, over 500,000 merchants, and approximately 1.8 million items sold per day to improve the shopping experience for users and the selling experience for merchants. Our proprietary algorithms analyze a rich and growing data set of transactions and historical behaviors of both users and merchants to drive continuous optimization on the platform and inform key business decisions on a daily basis. Our data science enables personalization at the individual user level at a massive scale and drives significant advantages across all aspects of our business operations, including user acquisition, user experience, pricing strategies, user-generated content, merchant insights, and user and merchant support. For example, our user acquisition strategies utilize our data science capabilities to make decisions on what to show to whom, when, and through which acquisition channel, with a focus on maximizing our return on marketing investment and user conversion. We also leverage our data and unique insights to extend our platform outside of our core business and drive additional growth opportunities, including new services to merchants and new categories for users.

Our proprietary data and technology also fuel our powerful network effects. As Wish grows, we accumulate more data across user and merchant activities, we strengthen our data advantage, and we create an even better experience for everyone on our platform, which in turn attracts more users and

 

4 

The World Factbook 2020. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2020.

 

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merchants. As more users come to Wish, driven by the affordable value proposition and differentiated shopping experience, we drive more sales to our merchants. Adding more users also reinforces our user-generated feedback loop of ratings, reviews, photos, and videos, which drives greater user engagement. As more merchants succeed on Wish, more merchants join the platform to grow their businesses, broadening our product selection, which in turn improves the user experience. This flywheel effect has driven tremendous value to both users and merchants and has made Wish one of the largest ecommerce marketplaces in the world.

We have experienced substantial growth since our founding in 2010. We grew our revenue from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $1.9 billion in 2019 at a compound annual growth rate of 31% and from $1.3 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 to $1.7 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, an increase of 32%. Our revenue is diversified and global. In 2019, 93% of our revenue was from marketplace services, 84% of which was from core marketplace revenue and 16% of which was from our native advertising tool, ProductBoost, and 7% was from logistics services. We refer to our marketplace revenue, excluding revenue from ProductBoost, as our core marketplace revenue. ProductBoost is an advertising feature by which our merchants can promote their listings within user feeds. For the nine months ended September 30, 2020, 82% of our revenue was from marketplace services, 90% of which was from core marketplace revenue and 10% of which was from ProductBoost, and 18% was from logistics services. In terms of geographic diversification by users, for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, 43% of our core marketplace revenue came from Europe, 42% from North America, 5% from South America, and 10% from the rest of the world. Our growth has been highly capital efficient. We have been able to achieve this massive growth and scale by having net cumulative cash flow from operations of $16 million from January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2020, aided by our positive cash float, where we receive an upfront payment from a user, and remit payment to a merchant a number of weeks later. In 2019, we generated a net loss of $129 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(127) million, compared to a net loss of $208 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(211) million in 2018, and a net loss of $207 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(135) million in 2017. For the nine months ended September 30, 2020, we generated a net loss of $176 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(99) million, compared to a net loss of $5 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(11) million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”).

Our Market Opportunity

Global ecommerce is a massive and growing market. In 2019, global ecommerce was a $3.4 trillion market expected to nearly double to reach $6.3 trillion by 2024. Within ecommerce, mobile is the clear dominant force, comprising 63% of global ecommerce in 2019, and is expected to grow to 71% by 20245. While the market is large and rapidly growing, modern ecommerce has not evolved to fit the expectations and affordability needs of the global population.

Billions of Value-Conscious Consumers Are Underserved

Value-conscious consumers represent a large and growing portion of the global consumer population, and they have been historically underserved by traditional ecommerce. For this segment of

 

5 

eMarketer, Global eCommerce, 2020.

 

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the global population, price is often the single most important determinant when making a purchase. Forty-four percent of U.S. consumers and 85% of European consumers have a household income of less than $75,0006, and we estimate that there are over 1 billion households with income of less than $75,000 around the world, excluding China and India. Additionally, in the emerging economies of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, where the average household income is approximately $18,000, affordability will be the key element for users shopping online for the first time. We believe that the next billion ecommerce customers will be these value-conscious consumers.

Traditional Ecommerce Does Not Meet Evolving Consumer Behavior

Shopping in store allows consumers to browse and discover new products that they want, driving many consumers to purchase items beyond their planned purchases. This type of navigational browsing often creates purchase intent for new products.

The largest ecommerce companies in the world were created on desktop, and their consumer experiences are predominantly search-driven rather than discovery-based. When porting that search-driven experience to mobile, consumers can shop for what they know they need, but struggle to browse, engage, and discover new products.

Merchants Around the World Lack Access to Global Consumers

Ecommerce represents a massive opportunity for global merchants, but they often struggle to access and serve global ecommerce consumers. IDC estimates that there are approximately 348 million small- and medium-sized businesses (“SMBs”) around the world as of 2019,7 and the success of these businesses is imperative to local, national, and global economies. SMBs make up over 90% of all enterprises globally and employ over 50% of the global workforce.8 Despite their scale and economic power collectively, individual SMBs are often challenged, as evidenced by approximately 20% of U.S. SMBs failing in their first year and approximately 50% failing after five years in business, according to 2019 data.9 For merchants around the world to grow their businesses, the ability to reach and target consumers at scale is critical.

Merchants Lack Technology-Driven Tools to Operate Their Businesses

Many merchants lack the tools to operate their businesses efficiently, including expertise and resources to acquire users, a shipping and logistics platform, payment capabilities, access to credit, effective user support, and comprehensive data insights. For example, based on an independent survey, almost half (45%) of SMBs in the United States have reported a lack of any online presence, demonstrating challenges these merchants face in running their businesses in an increasingly digital world.10

The Wish Platform

Our global ecommerce platform connects over 100 million monthly active users in over 100 countries to over 500,000 global merchants. We seek to democratize ecommerce by making the Wish

 

6 

Euromonitor - Households by Disposable Income Band in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and USA 2019-2020 and Number of Households in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and USA 2019-2020

7 

IDC, Understanding the Needs of the Global Small and Medium-Sized Business Market, US46393020, May 2020.

8 

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, The International Day of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), June 2020.

9 

Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions, 2018.

10 

CNBC Small Business Survey, 2017, updated May 2019.

 

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platform affordable, open, and accessible to all users and merchants worldwide. We do this through our relentless focus on product, technology, and data science. For our users, we are revolutionizing the mobile shopping experience by making it affordable, personalized, and entertaining. For our merchants, we offer immediate, cost-efficient access to our global user base, scaled data, and technology platform, as well as a comprehensive suite of indispensable services to help run their businesses and drive sales. To serve our global and diversified user and merchant base, we approach our platform development with a specific geographic focus, tailoring key features to solve for the needs of that locality, and enabling an authentic, localized experience.

 

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Value Proposition to Wish Users

We have democratized ecommerce by making it:

 

   

Affordable. Price is the single most important determinant when making a purchase for a substantial portion of the global population, and we aim to serve the affordability needs of these consumers. The merchants on our platform offer primarily unbranded products that can be discounted in excess of 85% as compared to branded alternatives across a number of categories11. We have a number of policies which, in combination with our robust user-generated content, promote higher quality merchants and products on our platform. This allows us to offer a vast selection of high-quality items at competitive prices, a value proposition that attracts more than 100 million monthly active users to our platform.

 

   

Accessible. Within ecommerce, mobile is the clear dominant force, comprising 63% of global ecommerce in 2019, and is expected to grow to 71% by 2024.12 We built Wish to be mobile-first so any consumer around the world can easily access our shopping platform on a mobile device. We also do not have membership fees, understanding that millions of consumers are value-conscious and/or would not be able to afford such fees.

 

   

Everywhere. To better serve our global user base, we localize various features on our online platform and tailored our experience to each respective market through, for example, making it accessible in 40 different languages and providing country-specific payment methods. This

 

11 

Based on current internal research.

12 

eMarketer, Global eCommerce, 2020.

 

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localization improves the engagement of our large, diverse user base, in addition to connecting our users with almost 50,000 local brick-and-mortar stores.

We have re-invented the online shopping experience to be:

 

   

Mobile-First. Wish was built for mobile. Our application is image-rich, with minimal search input or text-based interactions. Over 90% of our user activity and purchases occur on our mobile app.

 

   

Discovery-Based. Our platform is designed to make it easy to navigate a vast selection of products when users do not have a specific item or brand in mind. On average, between April 2020 and September 2020, our users saw over 500 distinct products across many different categories on a daily basis. Unlike other ecommerce platforms where consumers often visit with a predetermined purchase intent on specific items, our navigational and entertaining shopping experience gives us the ability to create purchase intent in our users across a diverse set of products and categories. Over 70% of the sales on our platform do not involve a search query and instead come from personalized browsing.

 

   

Personalized. No two users’ Wish interfaces and product feeds look the same. Utilizing big data technology, we enable customization on a massive scale. We deliver personalized and curated products to our users and help them discover desired products quickly. Over 65% of our users click on a product detail page from the main feed.

 

   

Entertaining. We have transformed the user experience to make shopping on Wish as engaging and entertaining as browsing social media. We utilize highly-personalized feeds with a wide range of relevant products as well as gamified, interactive, and social features to increase the length and frequency of a user’s sessions and drive increased engagement. Wish users spent on average over nine minutes per day on our platform during the twelve months ended September 30, 2020.

Value Proposition to Wish Merchants

Accessible and Cost-Efficient Ecommerce Platform. We give our merchants immediate access to our global base of over 100 million monthly active users and a comprehensive suite of indispensable services in a cost-efficient manner to help them run their businesses and grow sales. We seek to empower these highly capable merchants offering quality products at compelling values and unlock this supply of goods to consumers globally.

In addition, we give our merchants the following indispensable services:

Demand Generation and Engagement

 

   

Global Reach for Online Merchants. Wish gives merchants immediate access to over 100 million monthly active users across more than 100 countries, with a significant user footprint in the United States and Europe. We help our merchants reach these users in a highly targeted and cost-efficient manner.

 

   

Digital Presence for Brick-and-Mortar Stores. Through Wish Local, we partner with a global network of local brick-and-mortar stores and provide them with access to our global online user base and help enable online discovery of their stores and products.

 

   

Promotion. Wish merchants can amplify their reach and sales by utilizing our native advertising tool, ProductBoost. We utilize data science to optimize ad placement, target users, and maximize the merchant’s return on ad spend.

 

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User-Generated Content Creation. User-generated content, in particular, authentic, localized content, can meaningfully improve user engagement and increase the purchases of products on our platform. Our value-conscious users rely on user-generated content such as reviews, ratings, photos, and videos, rather than brand recognition, when making purchase decisions. Our data science prioritizes items with favorable reviews, higher ratings and shipping history, connecting buyers with high-quality merchants and enhancing both the user and merchant experience.

Data Intelligence

 

   

Data Insight. We provide our merchants a comprehensive data set to run their businesses through the Wish Merchant Dashboard. This dashboard helps our merchants improve their performance in terms of total impressions, overall sales, product assortment, service quality, fulfillment, shipping needs, and refunds, among others.

 

   

Revenue Impact. Our proprietary, state-of-the-art data science capabilities are designed to display products to users who are most likely to buy them, in turn driving more revenue to merchants.

Logistics

 

   

Shipping Logistics. With ongoing changes to global postal regulations and increases in cross-border sales volume, logistics has become paramount for small merchants to succeed in ecommerce. We have developed a number of logistics programs to provide a set of reliable cross-border logistics solutions at competitive costs for our merchants. We believe that ensuring a consistent delivery experience for our users increases value to our merchants by boosting sales volumes and minimizing returns.

 

   

Wish Local Pick-Up. Through our Wish Local partnerships, we enable our online merchants to send their inventory to our almost 50,000 partner pick-up locations in close proximity to users to allow for quicker, localized pickup. These Wish Local stores effectively give us a local warehousing and fulfillment footprint around the world without owning any real estate.

Business Operations

 

   

Optimization Tools, Services, and Education. We provide tools, services, and ongoing education to our merchant base to help them improve their business operations and drive greater success.

 

   

Merchant Support. Wish assists merchants with international compliance, payment processing, user support, and certain other services.

 

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Data Science

 

LOGO

Our technology and data science capabilities drive all aspects of our business. Our data advantage comes from our rich and growing data set of historical and recent user and merchant behaviors and transactions, and deep understanding of our more than 100 million monthly active users, over 500,000 merchants, and approximately 1.8 million items sold per day. All of this feeds into a proprietary data science algorithm that we continuously optimize for more intelligent insights and decision making.

Key examples of how we use data science to drive our business include:

 

   

User Acquisition: We leverage the power of our proprietary data to make decisions on what to show to whom, when, and through which acquisition channel, with a focus on maximizing our return on marketing investment and conversion.

 

   

Lifetime Value Maximization: Data science plays a critical role in maximizing lifetime value (“LTV”) of our users and optimizing the initial user acquisition investment. We use data science to determine the allocation of marketing investment across different users, marketing channels, and user acquisition and re-engagement strategies.

 

   

Dynamic Pricing: We utilize our data to dynamically vary prices across products to optimize conversion as well as our margin. This type of shopping environment is well suited to gauge user demand and conduct price discovery on a global level as well as on an individual user level. We take into account characteristics of the product and the user to estimate price sensitivity and vary pricing to achieve a margin target at the user and basket level, as opposed to on individual items.

 

   

User Personalization: Our proprietary algorithms utilize a rich and growing data set of historical and recent user behaviors that includes browsing data, past transactions, reviews, and preferences noted on Wish, to display only the most relevant and personalized content. This data-driven approach enables efficient and enjoyable navigation and discovery on a

 

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mobile screen, creates purchase intent across a diverse set of products, and increases conversion to sales. For every 100 user sessions on our platform, an average of approximately 40 items get added to cart.

 

   

User-Generated Content: Our platform offers mostly unbranded goods today. Our value-conscious users rely on user-generated content such as reviews, ratings, photos, and videos, rather than brand recognition, when making purchase decisions. This makes the user-generated content on our platform an important source of trust and quality for our largely unbranded product selection.

 

   

Merchant Insights: Our platform includes a merchant dashboard with built-in analytics to help merchants sell more products and track their performance. Our data capabilities help merchants better understand user behavior and preferences, enabling them to operate more intelligently and efficiently.

 

   

ProductBoost: ProductBoost is our native advertising tool for merchants, which helps them promote their products on our platform. We utilize data science to improve the performance of ProductBoost and help maximize the merchants’ return on their ad spend. Approximately 30% of our merchants have used ProductBoost in 2020 to date.

 

   

Logistics: We leverage data science to improve transparency and logistics operational efficiency for our merchants, while also aiming at reducing shipping time and improving delivery reliability for our buyers.

 

   

User and Merchant Support: We use data to understand what a user or merchant is likely to need help with in order to improve the quality of support and maximize cost efficiency of providing such support.

Our Growth Strategy

Grow Our Base of Users

 

   

Continue to Acquire New Users. We are focused on growing our user base around the world. We currently serve users in over 100 countries. We estimate that there are over 1 billion households with income of less than $75,000 around the world, excluding China and India.

 

   

Drive User Conversion. We have over 12 million monthly active buyers13 and over 100 million monthly active users on the platform. We will continue to drive greater user engagement and convert more active users on our platform to become active buyers by utilizing our data science and introducing more interactive and entertaining features.

 

   

Drive Profitable Lifetime Value from Existing Users. We plan to continue to improve the engagement and monetization of our users on our platform to maximize their lifetime value. We plan to achieve this goal by:

 

   

Using our data science to drive personalization of our platform;

 

   

Continuing to offer attractive discounts and value, an entertaining user experience, and robust user-generated content; and

 

   

Improving our ease of use by investing in our user support and logistics infrastructure to enable faster deliveries and localization of our platform.

 

   

Expand Geographically. We intend to continue to expand our global footprint and enter new geographies and acquire new users in those markets.

 

13 

Based on available internal data from January 2020 to September 2020.

 

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Grow Our Base of Merchants and Offerings

 

   

Diversify Our Merchant Base and Expand Product Categories. As we grow and diversify our merchant base, we partner with other merchant platforms, such as PayPal, ShipStation, and PlentyMarkets, to acquire additional merchants outside of China and expand our geographic reach and diversity across the merchant base. We will continue to expand product selection to provide more diversified products at competitive price points to our users.

 

   

Broaden Merchant Services. We intend to add additional services to help our merchants grow their businesses and sell more on Wish. These services include educational content and resources as well as tools enabling merchants to promote their products in a variety of ways both on and off the Wish platform, efficiently manage working capital, and fulfill and ship their orders.

 

   

Expand Logistics Platform. We plan to continue to expand our logistics platform and optimize our proprietary logistics programs. Through strategic partnerships with selected regional postal networks and commercial logistics partners, we aim to become an integrated part of the cross-border logistics value chain with our own logistics services and provide faster and more reliable delivery to our buyers. We are also exploring the opportunity to open up our logistics programs to merchants outside of Wish.

 

   

Grow Our Wish Local Offering. We aim to continue to expand our Wish Local program to drive both online and offline commerce. Wish Local enables local brick-and-mortar stores to digitize their storefronts by uploading their in-store inventory on our platform and selling to our global user base. These stores in turn give us access to a local warehousing and fulfillment footprint at almost 50,000 stores around the world by serving as Wish Pickup locations for online Wish orders.

Continue to Innovate and Extend Our Platform

 

   

Monetize Brick-and-Mortar Stores. As we continue to grow our Wish Local program, we plan to explore different ways in which we can further enhance our value proposition and monetize our offering, whether in the form of additional traffic or sales to the store.

 

   

Add New Product Categories. We plan to continue to diversify product categories and service offerings on Wish. These new product categories include consumer packaged goods (“CPG”) products and in-person services primarily offered through our Wish Local merchants as well as affordable brands and off-price branded inventory.

 

   

Expand to New Advertising Partners. We believe our user base presents a diverse and global audience that is attractive for advertisers across many end markets beyond ecommerce, including financial services, subscription services, and travel. We see a significant opportunity to connect these advertisers with our users to expand our advertising partners beyond our merchant base.

 

   

Grow First-Party Sales. We leverage the data across our platform to identify key selling trends and consumer preferences to source branded and unbranded inventory directly from manufacturers and sell on our platform. While this revenue is a modest amount today, we will continue to experiment with and optimize first-party sales including our private label strategy.

 

   

Open Our Commerce Platform to Additional Businesses. We plan to open the Wish commerce platform and capabilities to additional businesses not currently on our platform. For example, we intend to offer access to our logistics offering to any merchant who engages in ecommerce and wants a reliable, affordable, and global shipping solution. Similarly, we plan to

 

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offer our digital performance marketing solutions to any advertiser, regardless of their vertical or end market.

Risks Associated With Our Business

Investing in our Class A common stock involves substantial risk. These risks are described in the section titled “Risk Factors” immediately following this summary. Some of these risks include the following:

 

   

Our efforts to acquire new users and engage existing users may not be successful or may be more costly than we expect, which could prevent us from maintaining or increasing our revenue.

 

   

If we are unable to promote, maintain, and protect our brand and reputation and offer a compelling user experience, our ability to attract new users and engage with our existing base of users will be impaired.

 

   

If we lose the services of Peter Szulczewski, our founder, Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”), and Chairperson, or other members of our senior management team, we may not be able to execute our business strategy.

 

   

We rely on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to offer and promote our app. If we are unable to maintain a good relationship with such platform providers, if their terms and conditions change to our detriment, if we violate, or if a platform provider believes that we have violated, the terms and conditions of its platform, our business will suffer.

 

   

Our brand, reputation, and business may be harmed if our merchants use unethical or illegal business practices, including the sale of counterfeit or fraudulent products or if our policies and practices with respect to such sales are perceived or found to be inadequate, and we may be impacted by the unlawful activity of merchants on our platform.

 

   

We face intense competition, the market in which we operate is rapidly evolving, and if we do not compete effectively, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

 

   

The COVID-19 pandemic may adversely affect our business and results of operations.

 

   

Economic tension between the United States and China, or between other countries, may intensify and the United States, China, or other countries may adopt drastic measures in the future that impact our business.

 

   

Any significant disruption in service on our platform or in our computer systems, some of which are currently hosted by third-party providers, could damage our reputation and result in a loss of users, which would harm our business and results of operations.

 

   

The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with our founder, CEO, and Chairperson, Peter Szulczewski, and also with our employees; this will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters. The holders of our outstanding Class B common stock will hold approximately     % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering, with     % held by Mr. Szulczewski, including shares subject to proxies held by Mr. Szulczewski.

 

   

We may be involved in litigation matters or other legal proceedings that are expensive and time consuming.

 

   

Our certificate of incorporation will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forums for

 

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substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.

See “Risk Factors” immediately following this prospectus summary for a more thorough discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties we face.

Our Corporate Information

We were incorporated in the state of Delaware in June 2010 as ContextLogic Inc., d/b/a “Wish.” Our principal executive offices are located at One Sansome Street 40th Floor, San Francisco, California 94104. Our telephone number is (415) 432-7323. Our website address is www.wish.com. The information contained in, or accessible through, our website is not part of, and is not incorporated into, this prospectus, and investors should not rely on any such information in deciding whether to invest in our Class A common stock.

Trademarks

We use various trademarks, trade names, and design marks in our business, including Wish, Wish Shopping Made Fun, W, WishPost, Wish Pickup, Wish Local, ProductBoost, and ContextLogic. This prospectus also contains trademarks and trade names of other businesses that are the property of their respective holders. We do not intend our use or display of other companies’ trademarks and trade names to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, these other companies.

 

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The Offering

 

Class A common stock offered by us

  

             shares.

Option to purchase additional shares

  

             shares.

Class A common stock to be outstanding after this offering

  


             shares (or          shares if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares).

Class B common stock to be outstanding after this offering

  


             shares.

Total Class A and Class B common stock to be outstanding after this offering

  


             shares.

Use of proceeds

  

We estimate that our net proceeds from this offering will be approximately $         million, or approximately $         million if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares, assuming an initial public offering price of $         per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

  

The principal purposes of this offering are to increase our capitalization and financial flexibility and create a public market for our Class A common stock, obtain additional working capital, and facilitate our future access to the public equity markets to allow us to implement our business plan. We currently intend to use the net proceeds received by us from this offering for working capital, operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses to fund the growth of our business, and capital expenditures. In addition, we may use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies. However, we have no current understandings, agreements or commitments for any specific material acquisitions at this time. For a more complete description of our intended use of the proceeds from this offering, see the section of this prospectus titled “Use of Proceeds.”

Voting rights

  

Each share of our Class A common stock entitles its holder to one vote on all matters to be voted on by stockholders generally. Each share of our Class B common stock entitles its holder to 20 votes on all matters to be voted on by stockholders generally.

 

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Holders of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock will generally vote together as a single class, unless otherwise required by law or our amended and restated certificate of incorporation.

 

The holders of our outstanding Class B common stock will hold approximately     % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering and will have the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of our directors and the approval of any change in control transaction. For additional information, see the sections of this prospectus titled “Principal Stockholders” and “Description of Capital Stock.”

 

All shares of Class B common stock will automatically convert, on a one-for-one basis, into shares of Class A common stock on the earliest of (i) the 7-year anniversary of the closing date of this offering, (ii) the date on which the number of outstanding shares of Class B common stock represents less than 5% of the aggregate combined number of outstanding shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock, (iii) the date specified by a vote of the holders of a majority of the then outstanding shares of Class B common stock, and (iv) a date that is between 90 and 270 days, as determined by the board of directors, after the death or permanent incapacity of Peter Szulczewski, our founder, CEO, and Chairperson.

Concentration of ownership

  

Following this offering, the holders of our outstanding Class B common stock will beneficially own     % of our outstanding shares and     % of the voting power of our outstanding shares and our directors, executive officers, greater than 5% stockholders and their respective affiliates will hold in the aggregate approximately     % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares of our Class A common stock. In addition, Peter Szulczewski, our founder, CEO, and Chairperson, will be able to exercise voting rights with respect to an aggregate of         shares of Class B common stock, which will represent approximately     % of

 

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the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering.

Risk factors

  

See the section of this prospectus titled “Risk Factors” and the other information included in this prospectus for a discussion of factors you should consider before deciding to invest in our Class A common stock.

Proposed Nasdaq Global Select Market trading symbol

  


“WISH”

The number of shares of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock that will be outstanding after this offering is based on 43,155,832 shares of our Class A common stock (including our redeemable convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) and 10,885,916 shares of our Class B common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020, and reflects the exercise of an outstanding warrant to purchase 986,640 shares of our Series B redeemable convertible preferred stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020 into 986,640 shares of our Class A common stock on a net-exercise basis for an exercise price of $0.0001 per share, which we expect to occur immediately prior to the completion of this offering (“Warrant Net Issuance”).

The number of shares of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock that will be outstanding after this offering excludes:

 

   

7,494,365 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of options outstanding as of September 30, 2020 under our 2010 Stock Plan, with a weighted-average exercise price of approximately $2.34 per share;

 

   

2,855,590 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under restricted stock units (“RSUs”) for which the service condition was satisfied as of September 30, 2020, and for which we expect the liquidity condition to be satisfied in connection with this offering;

 

   

2,167,926 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were outstanding as of September 30, 2020 for which the service condition was not satisfied as of September 30, 2020;

 

   

            shares of our Class B common stock subject to RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 to Mr. Szulczewski (the “CEO Performance Award”), and vest upon the satisfaction of a service condition and achievement of certain stock price goals. See the section of this prospectus titled “Executive Compensation—Compensation Discussion and Analysis—CEO Performance Award” for additional information;

 

   

            shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 (not including the CEO Performance Award);

 

   

55,000 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon exercise of a warrant at an exercise price of $1.49 per share; and

 

   

4,545,353 shares of our common stock reserved for issuance under our equity compensation plans, consisting of:

 

   

3,600,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan,

 

   

195,353 shares of our Class B common stock reserved for issuance under our 2010 Stock Plan as of September 30, 2020, which will become available for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan on the date of this prospectus, and

 

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750,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

On the date of this prospectus we will cease granting awards under our 2010 Stock Plan. Our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan and 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan also provide for automatic annual increases in the number of shares reserved thereunder (evergreen provisions), as more fully described in “Executive Compensation—2020 Equity Incentive Plan” and “Executive Compensation—2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.”

Except as otherwise indicated, all information in this prospectus assumes or gives effect to the following:

 

   

the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation in Delaware and the adoption of our amended and restated bylaws, each of which will occur immediately prior to the completion of this offering;

 

   

the reclassification of all outstanding shares of our common stock into an equivalent number of shares of our Class B common stock, as if such reclassification had occurred immediately prior to the completion of this offering;

 

   

the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of redeemable convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 42,169,192 shares of our Class A common stock, the conversion of which will occur immediately prior to the completion of this offering;

 

   

no exercise of the outstanding options or settlement of the RSUs described above;

 

   

the effectiveness of a                 -for-1 stock split of our capital stock to be effected on                , 2020; and

 

   

no exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase up to an additional                shares of our Class A common stock.

 

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Summary Consolidated Financial and Other Data

You should read the summary consolidated financial and other data in conjunction with the sections of this prospectus caption titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data” and the consolidated financial statements and related notes found elsewhere in this prospectus.

The summary consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2018, and 2019 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. The summary consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of September 30, 2020 are derived from our unaudited interim consolidated financial statements that are included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have prepared the unaudited interim consolidated financial statements on the same basis as the audited consolidated financial statements. We have included, in our opinion, all adjustments necessary to state fairly our financial position as of September 30, 2020 and the results of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of our results of operations to be expected for any future period and the results of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2020 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the year ending December 31, 2020 or any other future period. The following tables also show certain operational metrics and non-GAAP financial measures. Our historical results and key metrics are not necessarily indicative of future results.

 

    Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
    2017(3)     2018(3)     2019(3)     2019(3)     2020(3)  
    (in millions, except share and per share data)  

Summary Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data:

 

Revenue

  $ 1,101     $ 1,728     $ 1,901     $ 1,325     $ 1,747  

Cost of revenue(1)

    205       278       443       255       605  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Gross profit

    896       1,450       1,458       1,070       1,142  

Operating expenses:(1)

         

Sales and marketing

    989       1,576       1,463       995       1,125  

Product development

    28       45       74       52       72  

General and administrative

    26       52       65       47       65  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

    1,043       1,673       1,602       1,094       1,262  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

    (147     (223     (144     (24     (120

 

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    Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
    2017(3)         2018(3)          2019(3)     2019(3)     2020(3)  
    (in millions, except share and per share data)  

Other income (expense), net:

         

Interest and other income (expense), net

    10       15       19       16        

Remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

    (70           (3     3       (55
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss before provision for income taxes

    (207     (208     (128     (5     (175

Provision for income taxes

                1             1  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

    (207     (208     (129     (5     (176

Deemed dividend to redeemable convertible preferred stockholders

    (40           (7     (7      
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss attributable to common stockholders

  $ (247   $ (208   $ (136   $ (12   $ (176
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted(2)

  $ (24.60   $ (20.20   $ (13.07   $ (1.15   $ (16.46
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares used in computing net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted(2)

    10,038,841       10,296,604       10,404,562       10,417,444       10,693,561  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited)(2)

      $                         $                    
     

 

 

     

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares used in computing pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited)(2)

                          
     

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

(1)

Cost of revenue and operating expenses include stock-based compensation expense of $8 million, $2 million, $2 million, $2 million, and $9 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2018, and 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Following this offering, our future operating expenses, particularly in the quarter in which this offering is completed, will include substantial stock-based compensation expense with respect to our RSUs as well as any other stock-based awards we may grant in the future.

(2)

See Note 11 and Note 12 of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for a description of how we compute basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders and pro forma basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders.

(3)

On January 1, 2018, we adopted Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (“Topic 606”), on a modified retrospective basis. Accordingly, our audited consolidated financial statements for 2018 and 2019, and unaudited consolidated financial statements for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020 were reported under Topic 606. Our audited consolidated financial statements for 2017 were reported under Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 605, Revenue Recognition (“Topic 605”). See Note 2 of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

 

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     As of September 30, 2020  
     Actual     Pro
Forma(1)
     Pro  Forma
As
Adjusted(2)(3)
 
     (in millions)  

Summary Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:

       

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities

   $ 1,101     $                    $                

Working capital

     55       

Total assets

     1,342       

Redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

     182       

Redeemable convertible preferred stock

     1,536       

Total stockholders’ deficit

     (1,605     

 

(1)

Reflects, on a pro forma basis, (i) the automatic conversion of all of our outstanding shares of redeemable convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of                shares of Class A common stock as of September 30, 2020, (ii) the issuance of 986,640 shares of Class A common stock upon the cashless exercise of a warrant to purchase 986,640 shares of Series B redeemable convertible preferred stock outstanding at September 30, 2020 at an exercise price of $0.0001 per share and (iii) stock-based compensation expense of approximately $            million associated with RSUs subject to service-based and liquidity-based vesting conditions, which we will recognize upon the completion of this offering, as further described in Note 2 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus, which is reflected as an increase to additional paid-in capital and accumulated deficit.

(2)

Reflects, on a pro forma as adjusted basis as of September 30, 2020, (i) the pro forma adjustments described in footnote (1) above and (ii) the sale and issuance by us of                shares of Class A common stock in this offering at the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. A $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the offering estimated price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase or decrease, as applicable, each of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, total stockholders’ equity and total capitalization by $                million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. Each increase or decrease of 1.0 million in the number of shares offered by us would increase or decrease, as applicable, each of our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, total stockholders’ equity and total capitalization by $                million, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us.

(3)

The pro forma as adjusted summary consolidated balance sheet data above is illustrative only and will be adjusted based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of our initial public offering determined at pricing.

Other Financial Information and Data

In addition to the measures presented in our summary consolidated financial statements, we use the following key metrics and other financial information to measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, and make strategic decisions.

 

     Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
       2015         2016         2017         2018         2019           2019             2020      
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Monthly Active Users (“MAUs”)

     21       30       49       73       90       81       108  

LTM Active Buyers

     18       31       52       64       62       60       68  

Adjusted EBITDA

   $ (502   $ (132   $ (135   $ (211   $ (127   $ (11   $ (99

Adjusted EBITDA Margin

     (349 )%      (30 )%      (12 )%      (12 )%      (7 )%      (1 )%      (6 )% 

Free Cash Flow

   $ (305   $ 15     $ 134     $ (114   $ (71   $ (50   $ 23  

See the section titled “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Other Financial Information and Data” for additional information about our key business metrics.

 

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin

In this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents our net income (loss) before interest and other income (expense), net (which includes foreign exchange gain or loss, and gain or loss on one time transactions recognized), income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization, adjusted to eliminate stock-based compensation expense and remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability, and to add back certain recurring other items. Additionally, in this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA Margin, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Free Cash Flow

In this prospectus, we also provide Free Cash Flow, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents net cash provided by (used in) operating activities less purchases of property and equipment. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Free Cash Flow to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

 

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RISK FACTORS

Investing in our Class A common stock involves a high degree of risk. Before deciding whether to purchase shares of our Class A common stock, you should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, our consolidated financial statements and related notes, and all of the other information in this prospectus. If any of the following risks actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects could be adversely affected. As a result, the price of our Class A common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Our efforts to acquire new users and engage existing users may not be successful or may be more costly than we expect, which could prevent us from maintaining or increasing our revenue.

Our success depends on our ability to attract new users and engage existing users in a cost-effective manner. In order to acquire and engage users, we must, among other things, promote and sustain our platform and provide high-quality products, user experiences, and service. Our marketing efforts currently include various initiatives and consist primarily of digital marketing on a variety of social media channels, such as Facebook, search engine optimization on websites, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, various branding strategies, such as our relationship with the Los Angeles Lakers and social influencers, and mobile “push” notifications, text messaging, and email. For the year ended December 31, 2019 and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, we spent $1.5 billion and $1.1 billion on sales and marketing, representing 78% and 64% of our revenue, respectively. We anticipate that sales and marketing expenses will continue to comprise a substantial majority of our overall operating costs for the foreseeable future. We have historically acquired a significant number of our users through digital advertising on platforms and websites owned by Facebook and Google, which may terminate their agreements with us anytime. Our investments in sales and marketing may not effectively reach potential users, potential users may decide not to buy through us, or user spend on our platform may not yield the intended return on investment, any of which could negatively affect our financial results.

Many factors, some of which are beyond our control, may reduce our ability to acquire, maintain and further engage with users, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section and the following:

 

   

system updates to app stores and advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google, including adjustments to algorithms that may decrease user engagement or negatively affect our ability to target a broad audience;

 

   

changes in advertising platforms’ pricing, which could result in higher advertising costs;

 

   

changes in digital advertising platforms’’ policies, such as those of Facebook and Google, that may delay or prevent us from advertising through these channels, which could result in reduced traffic to and sales on our platform;

 

   

changes in search algorithms by search engines;

 

   

inability of our email marketing messages to reach the intended recipients’ inbox;

 

   

ineffectiveness of our marketing efforts and other spend to continue to acquire new users and maintain and increase engagement with existing users;

 

   

decline in popularity of, or governmental restrictions on, social media platforms where we advertise;

 

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the development of new search engines or social media sites that reduce traffic on existing search engines and social media sites;

 

   

consumer behavior changes as a result of COVID-19; and

 

   

products listed by merchants on our platform that are the subject of adverse media reports, regulatory investigations, or other negative publicity.

As a result of any of these factors or any additional factors that are outside of our control, if we are unable to continue acquiring new users or increasing engagement with existing users, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

If we are unable to promote, maintain, and protect our brand and reputation, and offer a compelling user experience, our ability to attract new users and engage with our existing base of users will be impaired.

We believe that maintaining our brand and reputation will be critical to attracting new users and encouraging users to transact on our platform. In addition to targeted online marketing, we spend a considerable amount of resources on promoting our brand and reputation. For example, we have recently begun to invest in additional off-line marketing activities. Our brand promotion activities may not be successful or cost effective, and to the extent that these activities yield increased revenue, the increased revenue may not offset the expenses we incur. If we do not successfully drive brand awareness, we may fail to attract new users or increase engagement with existing users and our business may not grow or may decline, all of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

Our ability to provide a high-quality user experience is also highly dependent on external factors over which we may have little or no control, including, without limitation, the reliability and performance of our merchants and third-party carriers. If our users are dissatisfied with the quality of the products sold on our platform, the customer service they receive or their overall user experience, or if our merchants or third-party carriers cannot deliver products to our users in a timely manner or at all, our users may stop purchasing products on our platform. Our users may also become dissatisfied with their user experience if they are unable to receive timely customer service, and because we rely in large part on an automated customer service system, it is possible our users could become dissatisfied with our customer service. We also rely on merchants for information, including product characteristics, descriptions, images, and availability that may be inaccurate or misleading. Our failure to provide our users with high-quality products and high-quality user experiences for any reason could substantially harm our reputation and adversely impact our efforts to develop Wish as a trusted brand, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

In addition, we may be subject to unfavorable publicity that would create a public perception that non-authentic, counterfeit, dangerous, illegal, or defective goods are sold on our platform, or that our policies and practices are insufficient to deter or respond to such conduct. Even if these claims are factually incorrect or based on isolated incidents, it could damage our reputation, diminish the value of our brand, draw governmental or regulatory scrutiny or action, undermine our trust and credibility, or have a negative impact on our ability to attract new users, or discourage our existing users from continuing to transact on our platform. We may also be subject to negative media regarding our privacy or cyber security practices, terms of service, product quality, litigation or regulatory activity, the sale of illicit or dangerous goods, other unauthorized actions by merchants on our platform, or the actions of other companies that provide similar services to ours, which may adversely affect our reputation, business, and financial results.

 

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If we are unable to offer features and attract merchants to list products that keep pace with changing consumer preferences, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

Constantly changing consumer preferences have affected and will continue to affect the ecommerce industry. We must stay ahead of emerging consumer preferences and anticipate product trends that will appeal to existing and potential users. Our users choose to purchase products due in part to the attractive prices that we offer, and they may choose to shop elsewhere if we cannot match the prices offered by other websites and platforms or by brick-and-mortar stores. If our users do not find our platform entertaining and are not shown desired products on our platform at attractive prices, they may lose interest in us, which in turn may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We rely on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to offer and promote our app. If we are unable to maintain a good relationship with such platform providers, if their terms and conditions change to our detriment, if we violate, or if a platform provider believes that we have violated, the terms and conditions of its platform, our business will suffer.

A significant portion of our users download our mobile app through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and over 90% of our user activity and purchases occur on our mobile app.

We are subject to the policies and terms of service of these third-party platforms, which govern the promotion, distribution, content, and operation of our app on the platform. Each platform provider has broad discretion to change and interpret its terms of service and other policies with respect to us and other developers, and those changes may be unfavorable to us. A platform provider may also add fees associated with access to and use of its platform, alter how we are able to advertise on the platform, prevent our app from being offered on their platform, change how the personal information of its users is made available to application developers on the platform, or limit the use of personal information for advertising purposes.

If we violate, or a platform provider believes we have violated, its terms of service (or if there is any change or deterioration in our relationship with these platform providers), that platform provider could limit or discontinue our access to the platform. A platform provider may also object to content created by our merchants, such as drug paraphernalia or adult content, and our perceived distribution or advertisement of such content may cause a platform provider to view us in a negative light or take other adverse actions against us. For example, platform providers have warned application developers on their platform, including Wish, that providing content related to drug paraphernalia or adult content could cause such platform providers to remove the apps from their platforms. While we believe that we have complied with platform providers’ requirements, they may introduce additional requirements in the future. If a platform provider establishes more favorable relationships with one or more of our competitors or such platform provider determines that we are a competitor, our access to a platform may be limited or discontinued entirely. Any limit or discontinuation of our access to any platform could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

In the past, some of these platforms have been unavailable for short periods of time. This and other changes, bugs, or technical system issues could degrade the user experience on our platform. There may also be changes to mobile hardware or software technology that make it more difficult for our users to access and use our platform on their mobile devices, which could adversely affect our user growth and user engagement. If any of these events recurs on a prolonged, or even short-term basis, or other similar issues arise that impact users’ ability to access our app or use mobile devices, our business, financial condition, results of operations, or reputation may be harmed.

 

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Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate, which could cause our stock price to decline.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate for a variety of reasons, many of which are beyond our control. These reasons include those described in this “Risk Factors” section as well as the following:

 

   

the amount and timing of our sales and marketing costs;

 

   

our user acquisition strategies;

 

   

traffic on our platform;

 

   

selling prices on our platform and the percentage of revenue we retain from the sale of products;

 

   

mix of products listed on our platform;

 

   

fraud, including the sale of counterfeit goods, and refunds, including our response to these areas;

 

   

continued impact from COVID-19, including the effects of increased online activity and government stimulus programs;

 

   

the level of merchant advertising on our platform;

 

   

disruptions in supply or shipment of products listed on our platform, especially from China where most of our merchants are currently located;

 

   

the actions of app stores and advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google;

 

   

seasonality;

 

   

fluctuations in exchange rates;

 

   

the amount and timing of our other operating expenses;

 

   

the impact of competitive developments and our response to those developments;

 

   

changes in carrier policies and pricing and resulting higher logistics costs;

 

   

actual or perceived disruptions or defects in our platform, such as data security breaches or outages;

 

   

changes in laws and regulations that impact our business;

 

   

changes in tax laws in the jurisdictions in which we operate; and

 

   

general political, economic, and market conditions, particularly those affecting our industry.

Fluctuations in our quarterly and annual operating results may cause those results to fall below the expectations of analysts or investors, which could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline. Fluctuations in our results could also cause a number of other problems. For example, analysts or investors might change their models for valuing our Class A common stock, we could experience short-term liquidity issues, our ability to retain or attract key personnel may diminish, and other unanticipated issues may arise.

In addition, we believe that our quarterly and annual operating results may vary in the future and that period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful. For example, our historical growth may have overshadowed the seasonal effects on our historical operating results. These seasonal effects may become more pronounced over time, which could also cause our operating results to fluctuate. You should not rely on the results of one quarter or one year as an indication of future performance.

 

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If we lose the services of Peter Szulczewski, our founder, CEO, and Chairperson, or other members of our senior management team, we may not be able to execute our business strategy.

Our success depends in a large part upon the continued service of our founder, CEO, and Chairperson, Peter Szulczewski, who is critical to our vision, strategic direction, culture, products, and technology. The loss of our founder and CEO, even temporarily, could harm our business.

Additionally, we rely on the continued service of our senior management team, key employees, and other highly skilled personnel. The failure to properly manage succession plans, develop leadership talent, and/or the loss of services of senior management or other key employees, could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our objectives. From time to time, there may be changes in our senior management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives, which could disrupt our business. We do not have long-term employment agreements with any of our key personnel, and do not maintain any “key person” life insurance policies. The loss of the services of one or more of our senior management or other key employees for any reason could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations, and require significant amounts of time, training and resources to find suitable replacements and integrate them within our business, and could affect our corporate culture.

We rely on our merchants to provide a good experience to our users.

Negative publicity or sentiment as a result of complaints about merchants selling on our platform could reduce our ability to attract users, discourage users from making additional purchases on our platform, or otherwise damage our reputation. A perception that our levels of responsiveness and support for our users are inadequate could have similar results. In some situations, we may choose to reimburse users for their purchases to help avoid harm to our reputation, but we may not be able to recover the funds we expend for those reimbursements.

Disruptions in the operations of a substantial number of our merchants, to the extent they are caused by events that are beyond their control, such as interruptions in order or payment processing, transportation disruptions, natural disasters, pandemics, inclement weather, terrorism, public health crises, or political unrest, could result in negative experiences for a substantial number of our users, which could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business. For example, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, our merchants based in China experienced supply interruptions and delivery delays. If there are subsequent or further increases in the number of COVID-19 outbreaks in China or elsewhere, our merchants may experience additional disruptions to their supply and restrictions on their ability to deliver products to our users in a timely manner, which could harm our business.

Our brand, reputation, and business may be harmed if merchants on our platform use unethical or illegal business practices, including the sale of hazardous, counterfeit, fraudulent, or illegal products, or if our policies and practices with respect to such sales are perceived or found to be inadequate, and we may be impacted by the unlawful activities of merchants on our platform.

It is important that both merchants and users have confidence in the transactions they are completing on our platform. Merchants on our platform have in the past, and may in the future, engage in illegal or unethical business practices. Allegations or findings of such illegal or unethical business practices by merchants on our platform could harm our brand, reputation, and business. Our policies promote legal and ethical business practices, such as prohibiting false or misleading selling information and the sale of hazardous, counterfeit, fraudulent, or illegal products. For example, our merchant terms explicitly prohibit any illegal activity by merchants including the listing or sale of illegal items and require

 

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compliance with our policies. We maintain a suite of policies that educate merchants regarding items and practices that are explicitly prohibited from the platform, as well as the penalties for violations of our policies. We enforce these policies through the use of human and machine reviews as well as penalties for merchants if a violation of the policies is discovered. However, we do not control merchants or their business practices and cannot ensure their compliance with our policies. If merchants on our platform engage in illegal or unethical business practices or are perceived to do so, we may receive negative publicity and our brand and reputation may be harmed. If our policies are violated by merchants, or if our policies and practices or responses to such conduct are perceived as or found to be inadequate by regulators or law-enforcement agencies, it could harm our brand, reputation, and business, including by subjecting us to government inquiries, investigations, or enforcement actions, as well as potential civil or criminal liabilities, or requiring changes to our policies and practices with respect to illegal or unethical business practices that could lower our revenue, increase our costs, make our platform less user-friendly, or otherwise adversely impact our business. For example, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, a small number of merchants created listings of personal protective equipment and other health-related products that regulators deemed to violate consumer protections related to pricing and advertising. Though these listings were posted by merchants in violation of our policies, Wish has received and expects to continue to receive inquiries and demands from regulators regarding these listings. We believe that we have responded to and resolved these particular inquiries and demands, but we frequently receive and respond to inquiries and demands from regulators and law-enforcement agencies, and we expect to continue to receive more inquiries and demands in the future.

Merchants on our platform have in the past, and may in the future, engage in fictitious transactions or collaborate with third parties in order to artificially inflate their sales records and search results rankings. Such activity may frustrate other merchants by enabling the perpetrating merchants to be favored over legitimate merchants, and may harm users by misleading them to believe that a merchant is more reliable or trustworthy than the merchant actually is. This activity may also result in inflated MAUs and other key metrics by which we measure our performance. Although we have implemented policies and practices to detect and penalize merchants who engage in fraudulent activities on our platform, there can be no assurance that such policies and practices will be effective in preventing fraudulent transactions. Any of these activities may adversely affect our brand, reputation, and business. If a governmental authority determines that we have aided and abetted the infringement or sale of counterfeit goods or if legal changes result in us potentially being liable for actions by merchants on our platform, we could face regulatory, civil, or criminal penalties. Successful claims by third-party rights owners could require us to pay substantial damages or refrain from permitting any further listing of the relevant items. These types of claims could force us to modify our business practices, which could lower our revenue, increase our costs, or make our platform less user friendly. Moreover, public perception that counterfeit or other unauthorized items are common in our platform, even if factually incorrect, could result in negative publicity and damage to our reputation and brand.

Our merchants rely on third-party carriers and transportation providers as part of the fulfillment process, and these third parties may fail to adequately serve our users.

We rely on merchants to properly and promptly prepare products ordered by our users for shipment and our logistics program relies on third-party carriers to deliver products as well as third parties to consolidate packages for shipping. Any failure by merchants to timely prepare such products for shipment or any delay by third-party carriers to deliver the products will have an adverse effect on the fulfillment of user orders, which could negatively affect the user experience and harm our business and results of operations. Any increase in shipping costs, any significant shipping difficulties, disruptions or delays, or any failure by our merchants to deliver products in a timely manner or to otherwise adequately serve our users, could damage our reputation and brand, and may harm our business. For example, in the first quarter of 2018, PostNord, the postal service in Sweden, suspended

 

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delivery of packages coming from outside the European Union as it evaluated imposing processing fees and collection of taxes, which resulted in a decrease in sales in Sweden. In addition, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, our cross-border logistics function was severely impacted in terms of both disrupted processing capabilities and increased costs, which resulted in a decrease in sales due to higher logistics costs and higher refund rates due to poor performance. Additionally, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, our merchants based in China experienced supply interruptions and delivery delays.

Historically, our merchants in China have benefitted from lower shipping costs due to the Universal Postal Union Treaty (“UPU”). Certain expected changes to UPU postal rates that went into effect in July 2020 are likely to increase the shipping rates our merchants incur to ship products from China. The actions we have taken in our logistics program to mitigate these increased costs may not be successful over the long term. If there are increases in shipping costs, the sales price of products on our platform could increase, which could reduce the volume of transaction activity on our platform to decrease and may consequently have a negative impact on our results of operations.

If merchants on our platform experience any recalls, product liability claims, or government or user concerns about product safety with respect to products sold on our platform, our reputation and sales could be harmed.

Our merchants are subject to regulation by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and similar state and international regulatory authorities, and their products sold on our platform could be subject to involuntary recalls and other actions by these authorities. Concerns about product safety including concerns about the safety of products manufactured in developing countries, could lead to recalls of selected products sold on our platform. Recalls and government or user concerns about product safety could harm our reputation and reduce sales, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

Additionally, laws and regulations relating to platform liability, such as the EU’s Market Surveillance Regulation, have been passed or implemented or are currently being considered by policymakers and regulators, which will place additional responsibilities on marketplaces to screen and monitor certain content or products. If these laws are passed or regulations implemented, we could be subject to product liability claims for products that are listed on our platform. Additionally, we may need to implement additional screening and monitoring systems in order to assess the products listed on our platform. These laws and regulations could cause our expenses to increase and require us to respond to product liability claims, which could have a material impact on our business and results of operations. Further, we may be subject to product liability claims where merchants lack sufficient assets or are not reachable, which could be costly to defend in the aggregate.

We generate a portion of our revenue from merchant advertising on our platform. A reduction in advertising spend by merchants could harm our business.

We have implemented new features on our platform, such as ProductBoost, which allow merchants to promote their listings to our users. In addition to generating revenue from merchants, these advertisements may also result in increased purchases by users. However, not all merchants on our platform may agree with us on the value of these new features and may not use ProductBoost, and some of our merchants could react negatively to these new features. During the initial outbreak of COVID-19, merchant advertising declined due to the shutdown of business activity in China. If we are unable to monetize existing and new features for merchants, it could have a significant impact on our business, financial condition, and prospects.

 

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We plan to continue our efforts to improve our logistics programs and enable faster and more reliable delivery in order to help grow our business and generate revenue, but those efforts may not be effective.

We have worked to improve our logistics programs and to streamline our processes in order to provide a more consistent and reliable experience for our users through programs such as Wish Express and Wish Local. However, we still rely on third-party carriers for delivery and we are still in the process of establishing reliable long term agreements with such carriers both in the United States and worldwide. If we are not able to negotiate acceptable pricing, service level requirements, and other terms with these carriers, or these carriers experience performance problems or other issues, it could negatively impact our results of operations and our users’ experience. For example, due to COVID-19, global logistics has experienced longer delivery times.

We have also recently developed and experimented with different logistics programs in order to monetize our logistics platform. This is a relatively new business initiative for us. If we are unable to consistently generate revenue from our logistics platform or offer logistics services that are appealing to merchants and users, or if changes in carrier policies and pricing result in higher logistics costs, it could have a material impact on our business, financial condition, and prospects.

Building out our Wish Local program may be costly and time intensive and we may not receive the expected benefits.

In 2019, we introduced Wish Local, a program that develops partnerships with local brick-and-mortar stores that can serve as local pickup and delivery locations for users’ orders. In addition, Wish Local merchants can sign up to our Sell on Wish feature and upload their in-store inventory on Wish for local pick-up or delivery. The process of reaching out to and entering into relationships with these retailers can be time intensive and costly because we must evaluate and approve each retailer individually prior to them becoming part of the Wish Local program. Therefore, growing Wish Local may be more expensive and time consuming than we have estimated. Also, users may not use the Wish Local program as much as we expect, which would delay or prevent any expected benefits. For example, users may curtail their use of Wish Local due to health concerns regarding COVID-19 or stay-at-home mandates, which could slow growth of this program.

Our terms of service require Wish Local retailers to meet certain service level requirements with respect to holding and delivering Wish orders to users. If these retailers do not comply with these service level requirements, our reputation may be harmed. Additionally, we may need to implement monitoring systems to confirm that the Wish Local retailers are complying with service level requirements and to prevent fraudulent activities by these retailers. Implementing these systems may prove to be costly and time intensive.

Seasonality may cause fluctuations in our operating results.

Our operating results are seasonal in nature because our transaction volume is affected by traditional retail selling periods that impact sales on our platform. Our historical growth may have reduced or outweighed seasonal effects on our past financial results. However, seasonal effects may become more pronounced over time, which could cause fluctuations in our financial results. For example, sales on our platform have historically peaked in the fall and user activity begins to slow down in December as it may be too late to place orders for holiday delivery. Additionally, we have experienced some slowdown in merchant activity in late January or early February due to our China-based merchants celebrating the Chinese New Year holiday.

 

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We face intense competition, the market in which we operate is rapidly evolving, and if we do not compete effectively, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

Our market is highly competitive and characterized by rapid changes in technology and consumer sentiment. Competition in our industry has intensified, and we expect this trend to continue as the list of our competitors grows. This competition, among other things, affects our ability to attract new users and engage our existing users.

We compete with ecommerce platforms and other retailers for merchants on our platform and merchants can list their goods on a number of ecommerce platforms, such as Amazon.com, Alibaba, and Shopify.

There are various factors that affect how merchants engage with our platform, including:

 

   

the number and engagement of users on our platform;

 

   

our fees;

 

   

our brand awareness;

 

   

our reputation;

 

   

the quality of our services; and

 

   

the functionality of our platform.

We also compete with retailers for the attention of users. A user has the choice of shopping with any online or offline retailer, whether large marketplaces, such as Amazon.com, Alibaba, and Shopify, as well as more traditional discount retailers, such as Walmart and Target, and discount retailers that offer heavily discounted and off-season merchandise, such as Dollar General and TJ Maxx, or local stores or other venues or marketplaces. Many of these competitors offer low-cost or free shipping, fast shipping times, favorable return policies, and other features that may be difficult or impossible for our merchants to match.

There are various factors that affect how users engage with our platform, including:

 

   

our brand awareness and recognition;

 

   

our reputation;

 

   

the prices of goods sold on our platform;

 

   

the functionality of our platform;

 

   

ease of payment;

 

   

shipping terms; and

 

   

the breadth of the products sold on our platform.

Some of our competitors have, and potential competitors may have, longer operating histories, greater financial, technical, marketing, institutional and other resources, faster shipping times, lower-cost shipping, larger databases, greater name and brand recognition, or a larger base of users or merchants than we do. For example, Google or Facebook could enter the ecommerce space and they have significantly more resources and users than we do. They may devote greater resources to the development, marketing, and promotion of their services than we do, and they may offer lower pricing or free shipping to the users on their platforms. These factors may allow our competitors to derive greater revenue and profits from their existing user and merchant bases, acquire users at lower costs or respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging technologies and changes in trends and

 

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consumer shopping behavior. If we are unable to compete successfully, or if competing successfully requires us to expend greater resources, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We have a limited operating history at our current scale, which may make it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects.

We began commercial operations in 2010 and have a limited history of generating revenue at our current scale. As a result of our relatively short operating history at our current scale, we have limited financial data that can be used to evaluate our business and future prospects. Any evaluation of our business and prospects must be considered in light of our limited operating history, which may not be indicative of future performance. Because of our limited operating history, we face increased risks, uncertainties, expenses, and difficulties, including the risks and uncertainties discussed in this section.

We have a history of operating losses and we may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future.

Since our inception in 2010, we have incurred net losses each year. We incurred net losses of $207 million, $208 million, and $129 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively, and a net loss of $176 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. As of September 30, 2020, we had an accumulated deficit of approximately $1.6 billion. We may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future. Our operating expenses may continue to increase in the future as we increase our efforts to expand our user base, continue to invest in the research and development of our technologies and service offerings and begin to operate as a public company. These efforts may be more costly than we expect and we may not be able to increase our revenue to offset our operating expenses. Our revenue growth slowed for the year ended December 31, 2019 and may slow again, or our revenue may decline for a number of other possible reasons, including increased competition, a decrease in the growth or reduction in size of our overall market, or if we fail for any reason to capitalize on growth opportunities.

If we fail to effectively manage our growth, our business, financial condition, and operating results could be harmed.

We have experienced rapid growth in our business, in the number of merchants and users, and the number of countries in which we have merchants and users, and we plan to continue to grow in the future, both in the United States and abroad. Our recent and historical growth should not be considered indicative of our future performance. We have encountered in the past, and will encounter in the future, risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan and operate our business, are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks adequately, our financial condition and operating results could differ materially from our expectations, our growth rates may slow, and our business would be adversely impacted.

Additionally, the growth of our business places significant demands on our management team and pressure to expand our operational and financial infrastructure. For example, we may need to continue to develop and improve our operational, financial and management controls and enhance our reporting systems and procedures. If we do not manage our growth effectively, the increases in our operating expenses could outpace any increases in our revenue and our business could be harmed.

Use of social media, emails, and text messages may adversely impact our reputation or subject us to fines or other penalties.

We use social media, emails, and text messages as part of our omnichannel approach to marketing. As laws and regulations rapidly evolve to govern the use of these channels, the failure by

 

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us, our employees or third parties acting on our behalf or at our direction to abide by applicable laws and regulations in the use of these channels could adversely affect our reputation or subject us to fines, other penalties, or lawsuits. Although we continue to update our practices as these laws change over time, we may be subject to lawsuits alleging our failure to comply with such laws. In addition, our employees or third parties acting on our behalf or at our direction may knowingly or inadvertently use social media, including through advertisements, in ways that could lead to the loss or infringement of intellectual property, as well as the public disclosure of proprietary, confidential, or sensitive personal information of our business, employees, users, merchants, or others. Any such inappropriate use of social media, emails, and text messages could also cause reputational damage.

Our users may engage with us online through social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, by providing feedback and public commentary about all aspects of our business. Information concerning us or our merchants, whether accurate or not, may be posted on social media platforms at any time and may have a disproportionately adverse impact on our brand, reputation, or business. The harm may be immediate without affording us an opportunity for redress or correction and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

We are subject to payment-related risks.

Our users can pay for purchases using a variety of methods, including through credit cards or through various third-party payment processors, and we pay our merchants through a variety of methods. If these service providers do not perform adequately or if our relationships with these service providers were to terminate, our users’ ability to place orders, and our merchants’ ability to receive orders or payment could be adversely affected and our business could be harmed. For example, in 2014, PayPal temporarily suspended processing payments on our platform as a result of concerns related to products listed on our platform. If a third-party payment processor suspends service or has significant outages in the future and we do not have alternative payment processors in place or are unable to provide our own solution, our business could be harmed. In addition, if our third-party providers increase the fees they charge us, our operating expenses could increase. If we respond by increasing the fees we charge to our merchants, some merchants may stop listing new items for sale or even close their accounts altogether.

The laws and regulations related to payments are complex, evolving, subject to change and vary across different jurisdictions in the United States and globally. Any failure or claim of our failure to comply, or any failure by our third-party payment processors to comply, could cost us substantial resources and could result in liabilities. Further, through our agreements with our third-party payment processors, we are indirectly subject to payment card association operating rules, and certification requirements, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which are subject to change. Failure to comply with these rules and certification requirements could impact our ability to meet our contractual obligations with our third-party payment processors and could result in potential fines. We are also subject to rules governing electronic funds transfers. Any change in these rules and requirements could make it difficult or impossible for us to comply. In addition, similar to a potential increase in costs from third-party providers described above, any increased costs associated with compliance with payment card association rules could lead to increased fees for our merchants, which may negatively impact our markets.

We track certain performance metrics with internal tools and do not independently verify such metrics. Certain of our performance metrics are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.

We calculate and track performance metrics with internal tools, which are not independently verified by any third-party. While we believe our metrics are reasonable estimates of our user or

 

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merchant base for the applicable period of measurement, the methodologies used to measure these metrics require significant judgment and may be susceptible to algorithm or other technical errors. For example, user accounts are based on email addresses, and a user could use multiple email addresses to establish multiple accounts, and merchants in many instances will have multiple accounts. As a result, the data we report may not be accurate. Our internal tools and processes we use to identify multiple accounts or fraudulent accounts have a number of limitations, and our methodologies for tracking key metrics may change over time, which could result in unexpected changes to our metrics, including historical metrics. Our ability to recalculate our historical metrics may be impacted by data limitations or other factors that require us to apply different methodologies for such adjustments and we generally do not intend to update previously disclosed metrics for any such changes. Though we regularly review our processes for calculating metrics and may adjust our processes for calculating metrics to improve their accuracy, limitations or errors with respect to how we measure data (or the data that we measure) may affect our understanding of certain details of our business, which could affect our longer term strategies. If our performance metrics are not accurate representations of our business, user or merchant base, or traffic levels; if we discover material inaccuracies in our metrics; or if the metrics we rely on to track our performance do not provide an accurate measurement of our business, user or merchant base or traffic levels, we may not be able to effectively implement our business strategy, our reputation may be harmed, and our operating and financial results could be adversely affected.

Our merchants, platform partners, and investors rely on our key metrics as a representation of our performance. If these third parties do not perceive our user metrics to be accurate representations of our user base or user engagement, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our user metrics, our reputation may be harmed and merchants may be less willing to sell on our platform, which could negatively affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

We must develop new offerings to respond to our users’ and merchants’ changing needs.

Our industry is characterized by rapidly changing technology, new service and product introductions, and changing user and merchant demands.

Our users and merchants may not be satisfied with our new platform offerings or perceive that the new offerings do not respond to their needs. Developing new offerings is complex, and the timetable for commercial release is difficult to predict and may vary from our historical experience. As a result, the introduction of new offerings may occur after anticipated or announced release dates. In addition, new offerings could require us to comply with additional governmental regulations. Our new offerings also may bring us more directly into competition with companies that are better established or have greater resources than we do.

If we do not continue to cost-effectively develop new offerings that satisfy our users or merchants, then our competitive position and growth prospects may be harmed. In addition, new offerings may have lower margins than existing offerings and our revenue may not grow enough as a result of the new offerings to offset the cost of developing them.

If we fail to maintain, expand, and diversify our relationships with merchants, our revenue and results of operations will be harmed.

We rely on our merchants to offer products that appeal to our existing and potential users at attractive prices. Our ability to provide popular products on our platform at attractive prices depends on our ability to develop mutually beneficial relationships with our merchants. For example, we rely on our merchants, most of whom are based in China, to make available sufficient inventory and fulfill large volumes of orders in an efficient and timely manner to ensure a positive user experience. Merchants

 

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can leave our platform at any time, so we may experience merchant attrition in the ordinary course of business resulting from several factors, such as losses to competitors, perception that marketing on our platform is ineffective, reduction in merchants’ marketing budgets, and the penalties we impose on merchants for failing to comply with our policies. We have had, and may continue to have, disputes with merchants with respect to their compliance with our delivery requirements, quality control policies and measures, and the penalties imposed by us for violation of these policies or measures from time to time, which may cause them to be dissatisfied with our platform or to legally challenge the enforceability of our terms. If we experience significant merchant attrition, or if we are unable to attract new and geographically-diverse merchants, our revenue and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected. For example, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19, many of our merchants based in China were adversely impacted, which had a negative impact on the supply of inventory on our marketplace. In addition, our agreements with merchants also typically do not restrict them from establishing or maintaining business relationships with our competitors.

Failure to deal effectively with fraudulent activities on our platform would increase our loss rate and harm our business, and could severely diminish merchant and user confidence in and use of our services.

We have in the past incurred and may in the future incur losses from various types of fraud, including stolen credit card numbers, claims that a user did not authorize a purchase, merchant fraud, and users who have closed bank accounts or have insufficient funds in open bank accounts to satisfy payments. We face risks with respect to fraudulent activities on our platform and periodically receive complaints from users who may not have received the products that they had contracted to purchase. In some European and Asian jurisdictions, users may also have the right to cancel a sale made by a merchant within a specified time period and for any reason. Although we have implemented measures to detect and reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities, combat bad user experiences, and increase user satisfaction, including evaluating merchants on the basis of their transaction history and restricting or suspending their activity, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective in combating fraudulent transactions or improving overall satisfaction among merchants, users, and other participants. Additional measures to address fraud could negatively affect the attractiveness of our services to users or merchants, resulting in a reduction in our ability to attract new users or continue to engage current users, damage to our reputation, or a diminution in the value of our brand.

Additionally, under current credit card practices, we are liable for fraudulent credit card transactions because we do not obtain a cardholder’s signature, which results in chargebacks made to our users that we are not able to collect from our merchants. We do not currently carry insurance against this risk. We face the risk of significant losses from this type of fraud as our net sales increase and as we continue to expand globally. Our failure to adequately control fraudulent credit card transactions could damage our reputation and brand and substantially harm our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

We also accept payments for many of our sales through credit and debit card transactions, which are handled through third-party payment processors. As a result, we are subject to a number of risks related to credit and debit card payments, including that we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time and could require us to either increase the prices for products or absorb an increase in our costs and expenses. In addition, as part of payment processing, our users’ credit and debit card information is transmitted to our third-party credit card payment processors. We may in the future become subject to lawsuits or other proceedings for purportedly fraudulent transactions arising out of the actual or alleged theft of our users’ credit or debit card information if the security of our third-party credit card payment processors is breached. We and our third-party credit card payment processors are also subject to payment card association operating rules, certification requirements and rules governing electronic funds transfers, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or

 

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impossible for us to comply. If we or our third-party credit card payment processors fail to comply with these rules or requirements, we may be subject to fines and higher transaction fees and lose our ability to accept credit and debit card payments from our users in addition to the consequences that could arise from such action or inaction violating applicable privacy, data protection, data security and other laws as outlined above, and there may be an adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

The COVID-19 pandemic may adversely affect our business and results of operations.

On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. In an effort to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, many countries, including the United States, have imposed unprecedented restrictions on travel and business operations, and there have been business closures and a substantial reduction in economic activity in countries that have had significant outbreaks of COVID-19.

Our operations and performance depend significantly on global and regional economic conditions, and the outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant negative effect on global and regional economies. Further, the ability of our merchants to offer products and make available sufficient inventory in an efficient manner may be adversely affected by the health impacts, travel restrictions, required social distancing, and other governmental mandates due to COVID-19, which could negatively impact our users’ experience and cause our revenue and reputation to decline. Additionally, due to the economic impacts caused by COVID-19, consumer discretionary spending has been adversely affected, which may cause the demand for the products available on our platform to be reduced and our revenue to decline.

We are conducting business with substantial restrictions, such as remote working and limited to no employee travel, among other modifications. While our business occurs over an online platform, which allows us to support our merchants and users virtually, we cannot be certain that our ability to service our merchants and users will not be adversely affected by COVID-19.

We saw increased delivery times due to COVID-19 as the supply chain was disrupted and we experienced a reduction in the number of merchants on our platform. During this time, we temporarily shifted from air to ocean transport, which increased delivery times and also led to an increase in refunds. While the number of merchants on our platform has recovered due to the reopening of the economy in China, we continue to see moderate disruption in the supply chain that is affecting delivery times.

We benefited from greater mobile usage and less competition from physical retail as a result of shelter-in-place mandates. We also benefited from increased user spending due to U.S. government stimulus programs. However, such stimulus programs have been reduced recently, which may adversely affect user spending. We cannot assure you that increased levels of mobile commerce will continue when COVID-19 has subsided or otherwise, or that the U.S. government will offer additional stimulus programs.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 continues to rapidly evolve, especially as COVID-19 cases and corresponding government actions responsive to COVID-19 have recently increased again in certain parts of the world. The extent to which COVID-19 may impact our business will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, the duration of the pandemic, travel restrictions, social distancing requirements, changes to consumer ecommerce activity in response to evolving governmental mandates that impact brick-and-mortar stores such as business closures or other governmental or business disruptions, global unemployment rates, and the effectiveness of actions taken in the United States and other countries to prevent, contain, and treat

the disease. See the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic” for a further discussion of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business.

 

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Our pricing strategies may not meet users’ price expectations or result in net income (loss), and laws and regulations could negatively impact the effectiveness of our model.

Our pricing strategies have had, and may continue to have, a significant impact on our revenue and net income (loss). In addition to offering discounted prices and shipping as a means of attracting users and encouraging repeat purchases, we use dynamic pricing, where pricing varies depending on factors such as user location and demand, which is intended to maximize volume and revenue and allows us to offer a variety of promotions and discounts. Such offers and discounts, however, may reduce our revenue and margins. In the future, laws applicable to data protection, consumer protection, and artificial intelligence may change in a manner that limits our ability to employ dynamic pricing. In addition, our competitors’ pricing and marketing strategies are beyond our control and can significantly affect the results of our pricing strategies. If our pricing strategies, which may evolve over time, fail to meet our users’ price expectations or fail to result in increased margins, or if we are unable to compete effectively with our competitors if they engage in aggressive pricing strategies or other competitive activities, it could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Our refund policies may adversely affect our results of operations.

We have adopted user-friendly refund policies that make it convenient and easy for users to receive a refund after completing purchases. These policies are designed to improve users’ shopping experience and promote user loyalty, which in turn help us acquire and engage our existing users. However, these policies also subject us to additional costs and expenses which we may not recoup through increased revenue. We may also be required by law to adopt new or amend existing refund policies from time to time. These policies also make us more susceptible to misuse and if our refund policy is misused by a significant number of users, our costs may increase significantly, and our results of operations may be materially and adversely affected. If we revise these policies to reduce our costs and expenses, our users may be dissatisfied, which may result in loss of existing users or failure to acquire new users at a desirable pace or cost, which may materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

Our ability to recruit and retain employees is important to our success.

Our future performance depends on our employees, including key engineering and product development personnel. Competition for key personnel is intense, especially in the San Francisco Bay area where our corporate headquarters are located, and we may be unable to successfully attract, integrate, or retain sufficiently qualified key personnel. In making employment decisions, particularly in the Internet and high-technology industries, job candidates often consider the value of the equity awards they would receive in connection with their employment and fluctuations in our stock price may make it more difficult to attract, retain, and motivate employees.

The forecasts of market opportunity and market growth included in this prospectus may prove to be inaccurate, and, even if these forecasts materialize, we cannot assure you our business will grow at similar rates, if at all.

Estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate, including due to the recent impacts from COVID-19. The estimates in this prospectus of the size of the markets that we may be able to address and the forecasts in this prospectus relating to the expected growth in ecommerce and other markets are subject to many assumptions and may prove to be inaccurate. These markets may not grow at the rates that we forecast. We may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many factors, including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, the estimates of market opportunity and forecasts of market growth included in this prospectus should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.

 

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We rely on consumer discretionary spending and may be adversely affected by economic downturns and other macroeconomic conditions or trends.

Macroeconomic conditions may adversely affect our business. If general economic conditions deteriorate globally or in specific markets where we operate, consumer discretionary spending may decline and demand for products available in our platform may be reduced. For example, we benefited from increased user spending due to U.S. government stimulus programs. However, such stimulus programs have been reduced recently, which may adversely affect user spending. We cannot assure you that the U.S. government will offer additional stimulus programs once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided or otherwise. A decrease in consumer discretionary spending would cause sales in our platform to decline and adversely impact our business.

We face risks relating to the inventory we purchase ourselves.

We directly purchase, on a very limited basis, some of the products that we sell on our platform. We assume the inventory damage, theft, and obsolescence risks, as well as product safety and price erosion risks for products that we purchase directly. These risks could become more significant in the future if we increase the amount of inventory that we purchase. These risks could also become more significant depending on the types of product we hold in our inventory, such as products that are subject to seasonality, changes in consumer preferences, rapid technological change, obsolescence, and price erosion. If we choose to carry significant levels of inventory in the future, any one of these inventory risks could adversely affect our operating results.

Unfavorable changes or failure by us to comply with evolving internet and ecommerce regulations could substantially harm our business and operating results.

We are subject to general business regulations and laws as well as regulations and laws specifically governing the internet and ecommerce. These regulations and laws may involve taxes, privacy and data security, consumer protection, the ability to collect and/or share necessary information that allows us to conduct business on the internet, marketing communications and advertising, content protection, electronic contracts, or gift cards. Furthermore, the regulatory landscape impacting internet and ecommerce businesses is constantly evolving. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with any of these laws or regulations could result in damage to our reputation, a loss in business and proceedings, or actions against us by governmental entities or others, which could impact our operating results.

Our business could suffer if we are unsuccessful in making, integrating, and maintaining any future acquisitions and investments.

We may acquire businesses or technologies in the future. Integrating an acquired business or technology is difficult and can be risky. These potential and completed transactions create risks such as:

 

   

disruption of our ongoing business, including loss of management focus on existing businesses;

 

   

the difficulty of integrating new businesses and technologies into our infrastructure; and

 

   

the risks associated with assuming liabilities related to the activities of the acquired business before and after the acquisition, including liabilities for violations of laws and regulations, commercial disputes, cyberattacks, taxes, and other matters.

Moreover, acquisitions may divert management’s time and focus from operating our business. Acquisitions also may require us to spend a substantial portion of our available cash, issue stock, incur debt or other liabilities, amortize expenses related to intangible assets, or incur write-offs of goodwill or other assets. Finally, acquisitions could be viewed negatively by analysts, investors, merchants, or our users.

 

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We may be involved in litigation matters or other legal proceedings that are expensive and time consuming.

We may become involved in litigation matters, including class action lawsuits and lawsuits relating to intellectual property and product liability, whether for our own products or those offered by merchants. Any lawsuit to which we are a party, with or without merit, may result in an unfavorable judgment. We also may decide to settle lawsuits on unfavorable terms. Any such negative outcome could result in payments of substantial damages or fines, damage to our reputation, loss of rights, or adverse changes to our offerings or business practices. Any of these results could adversely affect our business. In addition, defending claims is costly and can impose a significant burden on our management.

From time to time, we are subject to investigations, demands, litigation and other proceedings involving consumer protection and data protection authorities or other regulatory agencies, including, in particular, in Europe and Asia. These proceedings can result in orders, fines and penalties. For example, as a result of the initial outbreak of COVID-19, consumer protection authorities demanded rapid and decisive changes in the way that we screen and handle product listings that potentially violate various laws, including emergency price caps on certain items. Implementing these requests or defending against any associated fines could prove expense and time consuming and negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition.

Additionally, the market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

Risks Related to our International Operations

Economic tension between the United States and China, or between other countries, may intensify and the United States, China, or other countries may adopt drastic measures in the future that impact our business.

Our merchants source a large percentage of the products we list on our platform from China and other countries outside the United States. Additionally, most of our merchants, and some of our operations, are located in China, making the price and availability of products on our platform susceptible to international trade risks and other international economic conditions.

If the U.S. government imposes tariffs or other economic measures that directly or indirectly increase the price of products its imports and that we list on our platform, the increased prices could have a material adverse effect on our financial results and business. For example, the United States has recently threatened more restrictive trade terms with China and other countries, leading to the imposition, or announcement of future imposition, of substantially higher U.S. Section 301 tariffs on roughly $500 billion of imports from China. In response, China imposed or proposed new or higher tariffs on U.S. exports. The effects of the recently imposed and proposed tariffs are uncertain because of the dynamic nature of governmental action, relations and responses. Further escalation of trade tensions between the United States and its trading partners, especially China, could result in long-term changes to global trade, including retaliatory trade restrictions that restrict the international flow of products. We cannot predict what actions may ultimately be taken with respect to tariffs or trade relations between the United States and China or other countries, what products may be subject to such actions, or what actions may be taken by the other countries in retaliation. Any alterations to our business strategy or operations made in order to adapt to or comply with any such changes would be time-consuming and expensive, and certain of our competitors may be better suited to withstand or react to these changes.

 

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Additionally, the U.S. government has recently indicated that it may restrict the operation and access of certain China-based companies, which include TikTok and WeChat, in the United States and other countries have indicated taking similar actions. In response, government authorities in China, or elsewhere, may seek to restrict access and operation of U.S. companies. Most of our merchants and some of our operations are located in China, and if our activities were restricted in China, our platform, our business, financial condition, and results of operations would be adversely affected.

We are not able to predict future economic policy of the United States, China, or of any foreign countries in which we operate. The adoption and expansion of restrictions, including restrictions on access to apps and other platforms, cross-border data transfers, tariffs, or other governmental action related to economic policies, has the potential to adversely impact our business, operational results and financial position.

Certain aspects of our business relating to the provision of financial services are subject to government regulation and oversight.

Many jurisdictions in which we operate have laws that govern financial services activities. Regulators in certain jurisdictions may determine that certain aspects of our business are subject to these laws and could require us to obtain licenses to continue to operate in such jurisdictions. For example, if we are deemed to be a money transmitter as defined by applicable regulation, we could be subject to certain laws, rules and regulations enforced by multiple authorities and governing bodies in the United States and abroad. If we are found to be a money transmitter under any applicable regulation and we are not in compliance with such regulations, we may be subject to fines or other penalties in one or more jurisdictions levied by federal or state or local regulators, including state Attorneys General, as well as those levied by foreign regulators. In addition to fines, penalties for failing to comply with applicable rules and regulations could include criminal and civil proceedings or other enforcement actions. We could also be required to make changes to our business practices or compliance programs as a result of regulatory scrutiny.

One of our subsidiaries, ContextLogic B.V., has applied for a payments institution license with its competent authority, De Nederlandsche Bank. This license would permit ContextLogic B.V. to provide payment services (including acquiring and executing payment transactions, as referred to in the Revised Payment Services Directive (2015/2366/EU)) in the Netherlands. In addition, ContextLogic B.V., once licensed, intends to provide such services on a cross-border passport basis into other countries within the European Economic Area (the “EEA”).

We continue to evaluate our options for seeking additional licenses in several other jurisdictions to optimize our payment solutions and support the future growth of our business. We could be denied such licenses, have existing licenses revoked, or be required to make significant changes to our business operations before being granted such licenses. If we are denied licenses or such licenses are revoked, we may be forced to cease or limit business operations in certain jurisdictions, including in the EEA, and even if we are able to obtain such licenses, we could be subject to fines or other enforcement action, or stripped of such licenses, if we are found to violate the requirements of such licenses. Such regulatory actions, or the need to obtain regulatory approvals, could impose significant costs and involve substantial delay in payments we make in certain local markets, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, or operating results.

In addition, laws related to money transmission and online payments are evolving, and changes in such laws could affect our ability to provide payment processing on our platform in the same form and on the same terms as we have historically, or at all. For example, changes to the EU Payment Services Directive caused aspects of our payment operations in the EEA to fall within the scope of European payments regulation. As a result, ContextLogic B.V. is directly subject to financial services

 

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regulations (including those relating to anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctioned or prohibited persons) in the Netherlands and in other countries in the EEA where it conducts business. In addition, as we evolve our business or make changes to our business structure, we may be subject to additional laws or requirements related to money transmission, online payments and financial regulation. These laws govern, among other things, money transmission, prepaid access instruments, lending, electronic funds transfers, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, banking, systemic integrity risk assessments, cyber security of payment processes, and import and export restrictions. Our business operations may not always comply with these financial laws and regulations. Historical or future non-compliance with these laws or regulations could result in significant criminal and civil lawsuits, penalties, forfeiture of significant assets or other enforcement actions. Costs associated with fines and enforcement actions, as well as reputational harm, changes in compliance requirements or limits on our ability to expand our product offerings, could harm our business.

Further, our payment system is susceptible to illegal and improper uses, including money laundering, terrorist financing, fraudulent sales of goods or services and payments to sanctioned parties. We have invested and will need to continue to invest substantial resources to comply with applicable anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism, and sanctions laws, and in the EEA to conduct appropriate risk assessments and implement appropriate controls once licensed as a regulated payments institution. Government authorities may seek to bring legal action against us if our payment system is used for improper or illegal purposes or if our enterprise risk management or controls in the EEA are not adequately assessed, updated, or implemented, and any such action could result in financial or reputational harm to our business. Additionally, some of our merchants use applications, such as WeChat, for transmitting payments and communicating with us. If any of these payments applications were limited or banned by governmental authorities, certain payments could be delayed or our communications with merchants could be adversely impacted.

We are subject to customs and international trade laws that could require us to incur increased costs or could result in a delay in getting products to users, which may limit our growth and cause us to suffer reputational damage.

Our business is conducted worldwide, with goods imported from and exported to a substantial number of countries. The vast majority of products sold on our platform are shipped internationally. We are subject to numerous regulations, including customs and international trade laws that govern the importation, exportation, and sale of goods. In addition, we face risks associated with trade protection laws, policies and measures and other regulatory requirements affecting trade and investment, including loss or modification of exemptions for taxes and tariffs, imposition of new tariffs and duties, and import and export licensing requirements in the countries in which we operate. If these laws or regulations were to change or were violated by our management, employees or merchants, we could experience delays in shipments of our goods, be subject to fines or penalties, or suffer reputational harm, which could reduce demand for our services and negatively impact our results of operations.

Legal requirements are frequently changed and subject to interpretation, and we are unable to predict the ultimate cost of compliance with these requirements or their effects on our operations. We may be required to make significant expenditures to comply with existing or future laws and regulations, which may increase our costs and materially limit our ability to operate our business. In addition, changes to legal requirements can create delays in the introduction and sale of our products and services, or in some cases, prevent the export or import or our products and services to certain countries, governments, or persons altogether.

We rely on the free flow of goods through open and operational ports worldwide. Labor disputes or other disruptions at ports create significant risks for our business, particularly if work slowdowns, lockouts, strikes, or other disruptions occur. Any of these factors could result in reduced sales or

 

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canceled orders, which may limit our growth and damage our reputation and may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

Our international operations are subject to increased risks.

There are inherent risks in doing business internationally, including:

 

   

expenses associated with localizing our products and services and user data, including offering our users and merchants the ability to transact business in the local currency and language, and adapting our platform to local preferences;

 

   

challenges to enforceability in some foreign jurisdictions of so-called “clickwrap” contracts with our customers, merchants and Wish Local retailers;

 

   

trade barriers and changes in trade regulations;

 

   

difficulties in developing, staffing, and simultaneously managing a large number of varying foreign operations as a result of distance, language, and cultural differences;

 

   

stringent local labor laws and regulations;

 

   

credit risk and higher levels of payment fraud;

 

   

laws or regulations related to the import or export of goods alleged to violate third-party intellectual property rights;

 

   

political or social unrest, economic instability, repression, or human rights issues;

 

   

geopolitical events, including natural disasters, public health issues, acts of war, and terrorism;

 

   

compliance with U.S. laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and foreign laws prohibiting corruption, U.S. and foreign economic and trade sanctions laws, and U.S. and foreign laws designed to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities;

 

   

antitrust and competition regulations;

 

   

potentially adverse tax developments and consequences;

 

   

economic uncertainties relating to sovereign and other debt;

 

   

different, uncertain, or more stringent user protection, data protection, data collection, privacy, payments, advertising, pricing, and other laws;

 

   

limitations by governmental authorities on transmission of privacy information and other data between countries, whether from the United States or other jurisdictions;

 

   

restrictions on sales or distribution of certain products or services and uncertainty regarding liability for products, services, content, including uncertainty as a result of less internet-friendly legal systems, local laws, lack of legal precedent, and varying rules, regulations, and practices;

 

   

risks related to other government regulation or required compliance with local laws;

 

   

national or regional differences in macroeconomic growth rates; and

 

   

local licensing and reporting obligations.

Violations of the complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations that apply to our international operations may result in litigation, fines, criminal actions, or sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees; prohibitions on the conduct of our business; and damage to our reputation. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to promote compliance with these laws, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, or agents will not violate our policies. These risks inherent in our international operations and expansion increase our costs of doing business internationally and could harm our business.

 

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We face exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations.

Our sales to users are denominated in local currencies, primarily in U.S. dollars and Euros, and we pay our merchants in China for products sold on our platform in Renminbi (“RMB”), a few weeks after sales are completed, which creates exposure to currency rate fluctuations during that time. Additionally, our operating expenses are denominated in the currencies of the countries in which our operations are located, and may be subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly changes in the RMB. We do not generally hedge foreign exchange risk, and therefore, our results of operations have in the past, and will in the future, fluctuate due to movements in exchange rates. In addition, a weakening U.S. dollar will typically adversely affect the volume of goods being sold by foreign merchants to users in the United States more than it positively affects the volume of goods being sold by merchants in the United States to users in foreign countries, thereby further negatively impacting our financial results.

Any factors that reduce cross-border trade or make such trade more difficult could harm our business.

Cross-border trade is an important source of revenue for us. The shipping of goods across national borders is often more expensive and complicated than domestic shipping. Customs and duty procedures and reviews, including duty-free thresholds in various key markets, the interaction of national postal systems, and security related governmental processes at international borders, may increase costs, discourage cross-border purchases, delay transit, and create shipping uncertainties. Any factors that increase the costs of cross-border trade or restrict, delay, or make cross-border trade more difficult or impractical would lower our revenue and profits and could harm our business.

Changes in China’s economic, political or social conditions or government policies could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations.

Most of our merchants, and some of our operations, are located in China. Accordingly, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects may be influenced to a significant degree by political, economic and social conditions in China generally. The Chinese economy differs from the economies of most developed countries in many respects, including the level of government involvement, level of development, and growth rate. The Chinese government continues to play a significant role in regulating industry development by imposing industrial policies. The Chinese government also exercises significant control over China’s economic growth through allocating resources, controlling payment of foreign currency-denominated obligations, setting monetary policy, and providing preferential treatment to particular industries or companies.

Uncertainties with respect to the People’s Republic of China’s (“PRC”) legal system and changes in laws and regulations in China could adversely affect us.

Our operations in China are governed by PRC laws and regulations. Our Chinese subsidiaries are subject to laws and regulations applicable to foreign investment in China. The PRC legal system is a civil law system based on written statutes. Unlike the common law system, prior court decisions under the civil law system may be cited for reference but have limited precedential value. In addition, any new or changes in PRC laws and regulations related to foreign investment in China could affect the business environment and our ability to operate our business in China.

From time to time, we may have to resort to administrative and court proceedings to enforce our legal rights. Any administrative and court proceedings in China may be protracted, resulting in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management attention. Since PRC administrative and court authorities have significant discretion in interpreting and implementing statutory provisions and contractual terms, it may be more difficult to evaluate the outcome of administrative and court

 

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proceedings and the level of legal protection we enjoy than in more developed legal systems. These uncertainties may impede our ability to enforce the contracts we have entered into and could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Furthermore, the PRC legal system is based in part on government policies and internal rules, some of which are not published on a timely basis or at all and may have retroactive effect. As a result, we may not be aware of our violation of any of these policies and rules until sometime after the violation. Such unpredictability towards our contractual, property and procedural rights could adversely affect our business and impede our ability to continue our operations.

We may be adversely affected by the complexity, uncertainties and changes in PRC regulation of internet-related businesses and companies, and any lack of requisite approvals, licenses or permits applicable to our business may have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

The Chinese government extensively regulates the internet industry, including foreign ownership of, and the licensing and permit requirements pertaining to, companies in the internet industry. These internet-related laws and regulations are relatively new and evolving, and their interpretation and enforcement involve significant uncertainties. As a result, in certain circumstances it may be difficult to determine what actions or omissions may be deemed to be in violation of applicable laws and regulations.

Because our business may be subject to governmental supervision and regulation by the relevant Chinese governmental authorities in many aspects of the operation of online retailing, we may be required to hold a number of licenses and permits in connection with our business operation. New laws and regulations may be adopted from time to time to require additional licenses and permits other than those we currently have. As a result, substantial uncertainties exist regarding the interpretation and implementation of current and any future PRC laws and regulations applicable to online retail businesses. If the Chinese government considers that we were operating without the proper approvals, licenses or permits, or promulgates new laws and regulations that require additional approvals or licenses or impose additional restrictions on the operation of any part of our business, it has the power, among other actions, to levy fines, confiscate our income, revoke our business licenses, or require us to discontinue our relevant business or impose restrictions on the affected portion of our business. Any of these or other regulatory actions by the Chinese governmental authorities, including issuance of official notices, change of policies, promulgation of regulations and imposition of sanctions, may adversely affect our business and have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations.

Risks Related to Network and Infrastructure

Any significant disruption in service on our platform or in our computer systems, some of which are currently hosted by third-party providers, could damage our reputation and result in a loss of users, which would harm our business and results of operations.

Our brand, reputation and ability to deliver a positive user experience depends upon the reliability of our infrastructure. We have experienced interruptions in these systems in the past, including server failures that temporarily slowed down or interfered with the performance of our websites and apps, or particular features of our websites and apps, and we may experience interruptions in the future. For example, in June 2020, we experienced a full platform outage for more than one hour due to the release of a software update that did not follow proper internal protocols. We have since updated our processes for following such protocols. Interruptions, whether due to system failures, human errors, computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins, denial-of-service attacks, and capacity limitations, could prevent or inhibit the ability of merchants to access, or users from completing purchases on, our websites and apps. Volume of traffic and activity on our platform spikes on certain days, and any such

 

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interruption would be particularly problematic if it were to occur at such a high volume time. Problems with the reliability of our systems could prevent us from earning revenue and could harm our reputation. Damage to our reputation, any resulting loss of user confidence and the cost of remedying these problems could negatively affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

We either lease or own our servers and have service agreements with data center providers. Our systems and operations are vulnerable to damage or interruption from fire, flood, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorist attacks, acts of war, electronic and physical break-ins, computer viruses, earthquakes, and similar events. The occurrence of any of the foregoing events could result in damage to our systems and hardware or could cause them to fail completely, and our insurance may not cover such events or may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. Our systems are not completely redundant, so a system failure at one site could result in reduced platform functionality for our users, and a total failure of our systems could cause our websites or apps to be inaccessible by some or all of our users. A significant portion of our data storage, data processing and other computing services and systems is hosted by Amazon Web Services (“AWS”). AWS provides us with computing and storage capacity pursuant to an agreement that continues until terminated by either party. Problems with our third-party service providers, including AWS, or with their network providers or with the systems allocating capacity among their users, including us, could adversely affect our users’ experience. Our third-party service providers could decide to close their facilities without adequate notice. Any financial difficulties, such as bankruptcy or reorganization, faced by our third-party service providers or any of the service providers with whom they contract may have negative effects on our business, the nature and extent of which are difficult to predict. If our third-party service providers are unable to keep up with our needs for capacity, this could have an adverse effect on our business. In the event that our agreement with AWS, or other third-party service providers, is terminated, or we add additional cloud infrastructure service providers, we may experience significant costs or downtime in connection with the transfer to, or the addition of, new cloud infrastructure service providers. Any of the above circumstances or events may harm our reputation and brand, reduce the availability or usage of our platform, lead to a significant short-term loss of revenue, increase our costs, and impair our ability to attract new users or merchants, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our failure or the failure of third parties to protect our sites, networks and systems against security breaches, or otherwise to protect our confidential information, could damage our reputation and brand and substantially harm our business and operating results.

We collect, maintain, transmit, and store data about our users, merchants and others, including personally identifiable information and personal data, as well as other confidential information.

We also engage third parties that store, process, and transmit these types of information on our behalf. We rely on technology licensed from third parties in an effort to securely transmit confidential and sensitive information, including credit card numbers. Advances in computer capabilities, new technological discoveries, or other developments may result in the whole or partial failure of this technology to protect transaction data or other confidential and sensitive information from being breached or compromised. In addition, ecommerce websites are often attacked through compromised credentials, including those obtained through phishing, credential stuffing, and password spraying. Our security measures, and those of our third-party service providers, may not detect or prevent all attempts to breach our systems, viruses, malicious software, break-ins, phishing attacks, accidental actions or omissions to act that create vulnerabilities, social engineering, security breaches, or other attacks and similar disruptions that may jeopardize the security of information stored in or transmitted by our websites, networks and systems or that we or such third parties otherwise maintain, including payment card systems, which may subject us to fines or higher transaction fees or limit or terminate

 

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our access to certain payment methods. We and such third parties may not be able to anticipate or prevent all types of attacks, and we may not detect such attacks until after they have already been launched. Further, techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers. In addition, security breaches can also occur as a result of non-technical issues, including intentional or inadvertent actions by our employees or by third parties. These risks may increase over time as the complexity and number of technical systems and applications we use also increases.

Cyber security incidents or breaches of our security measures or those of our third-party service providers or cyber security incidents could result in unauthorized access to our websites, networks and systems; unauthorized access to and misappropriation of our data, including user information, personally identifiable information, or other confidential or proprietary information of ours or of third parties; viruses, worms, spyware, or other malware being served from our websites, networks, or systems; deletion or modification of content or the display of unauthorized content on our sites; interruption, disruption, or malfunction of operations; costs relating to breach remediation, deployment of additional personnel and protection technologies, response to governmental investigations and media inquiries and coverage; engagement of third-party experts and consultants; litigation, regulatory action and other potential liabilities. Social engineering, phishing, malware, and similar attacks and threats of denial-of-service attacks could have a material adverse effect on our operations. Additionally, from time to time, our merchants’ and users’ accounts have been subject to unauthorized access by third parties, including through illicit purchase of usernames and passwords by bad actors. If any of these breaches of security should occur, our reputation and brand could be damaged, our business may suffer, we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate problems caused by such breaches, and we could be exposed to a risk of loss, litigation or regulatory action and possible liability. We cannot guarantee that recovery protocols and backup systems will be sufficient to prevent data loss. Actual or anticipated attacks may cause us to incur increasing costs, including costs to deploy additional personnel and protection technologies, train employees and engage third-party experts and consultants. In addition, any party who is able to illicitly obtain a user or merchant password could access the user or merchant’s transaction data or personal information, resulting in the perception that our systems are insecure.

Any compromise or breach of our security measures, or those of our third-party service providers, could violate applicable privacy, data protection, data security, network and information systems security and other laws and cause significant legal and financial exposure (including costs for technical teams to investigate and remediate such incidents), adverse publicity and a loss of confidence in our security measures, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects. We devote significant resources to protect against security breaches and we may need to devote more resources in the future to address problems caused by breaches, including notifying affected users and responding to any resulting litigation, which in turn, diverts resources from the growth and expansion of our business.

Catastrophic events may disrupt our business.

Natural disasters or other catastrophic events may cause damage or disruption to our operations, international commerce, and the global economy, and thus could harm our business. In the event of a major earthquake, hurricane or catastrophic event such as fire, power loss, telecommunications failure, cyber-attack, war, or terrorist attack, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure reputational harm, delays in developing our platform and solutions breaches of data security and loss of critical data, all of which could harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Additionally, we rely on our network and third-party infrastructure and applications, internal technology systems, and our websites for our development, marketing, operational support, hosted

 

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services, and marketing activities. If these systems were to fail or be negatively impacted as a result of a natural disaster or other event, our ability to deliver a positive user and merchant experience would be impaired.

As we grow our business, the need for business continuity planning and disaster recovery plans will grow in significance. If we are unable to develop adequate plans to ensure that our business functions continue to operate during and after a disaster, and successfully execute on those plans in the event of a disaster or emergency, our business and reputation would be harmed.

We are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to privacy, data protection, information security, and consumer protection. If we are unable to comply with these, we may be subject to governmental enforcement actions, litigation, fines and penalties, or adverse publicity.

We collect personally identifiable information and other data from users and prospective users. We use this information to provide services and relevant products to our users, to support, expand and improve our business, and to tailor our marketing and advertising efforts. We may also share users’ personal data with certain third parties as authorized by the user or as described in our privacy policy.

As a result, we are subject to governmental regulation and other legal obligations related to the protection of confidential and sensitive data (including personally identifiable information and personal data), privacy, information security and consumer protection in certain countries where we do business and there has been and will continue to be a significant increase globally in such laws that restrict or control the use of personal data.

In Europe, where the data privacy and information security regime underwent a significant change in 2018, the legal environment related to personal data continues to evolve and companies like us that process personal data from large numbers of individuals are subject to increasing regulatory scrutiny. The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), implemented more stringent operational requirements for our use of personal data. These more stringent requirements include expanded disclosures to tell our users about how we may use their personal data, increased controls on profiling users and increased rights for users to access, control and delete their personal data. In addition, there are mandatory data breach notification requirements and significantly increased penalties of the greater of 20 million or 4% of global turnover for the preceding financial year.

Although there are legal mechanisms to allow for the transfer of personal data from the United Kingdom, EEA and Switzerland to the United States, uncertainty about compliance with such data protection laws remains and such mechanisms may not be available or applicable with respect to the personal data processing activities necessary to research, develop and market our products and services. For example, legal challenges in Europe to the mechanisms allowing companies to transfer personal data from the EEA to the United States could result in further limitations on the ability to transfer personal data across borders, particularly if governments are unable or unwilling to reach new or maintain existing agreements that support cross-border data transfers, such as the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks. Specifically, on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated Decision 2016/1250 on the adequacy of the protection provided by the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. To the extent that we or our service providers were to rely on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, we may not be able to do so in the future, which could increase our costs and limit our ability to process personal data from the European Union. The same decision also cast doubt on the ability to use one of the primary alternatives to the Privacy Shield, namely, the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, to lawfully transfer personal data from Europe to the United States and most other countries. At present, there are few if any viable alternatives to the Privacy Shield and the Standard Contractual Clauses.

 

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In recent years, U.S. and European lawmakers and regulators have expressed concern over the use of third-party cookies and similar technologies for online behavioral advertising, and laws in this area are also under reform. In the European Union, current national laws that implement the ePrivacy Directive will be replaced by an EU regulation known as the ePrivacy Regulation. The draft ePrivacy Regulation retains existing informed consent conditions and also imposes the strict opt-in marketing rules on direct marketing that is “presented” on a web page rather than sent by email, alters rules on third-party cookies and similar technology and significantly increases penalties for breach of the rules. Regulation of cookies and similar technologies may lead to broader restrictions on our marketing and personalization activities and may negatively impact the effectiveness of our marketing. Such regulations may also increase regulatory scrutiny and increase potential civil liability under data protection or consumer protection laws. The ePrivacy Regulations draft also advocates the development of browsers that block cookies by default. These developments could impair our ability to collect user information, including personal data and usage information, that helps us provide more targeted advertising to our current and prospective users, which could adversely affect our business, given our use of cookies and similar technologies to target our marketing and personalize the user experience.

Further, Brexit has created uncertainty with regard to data protection regulation in the United Kingdom. In particular, while the Data Protection Act of 2018, that “implements” and complements the GDPR achieved Royal Assent on May 23, 2018 and is now effective in the United Kingdom, it is still unclear whether transfer of data from the EEA to the United Kingdom will remain lawful under GDPR. During the period of “transition” (i.e., until December 31, 2020), EU law will continue to apply in the UK, including the GDPR, after which the GDPR will be converted into U.K. law. Beginning in 2021, the UK will be a “third country” under the GDPR. We may, however, incur liabilities, expenses, costs, and other operational losses under GDPR and applicable EU Member States and the U.K. privacy laws in connection with any measures we take to comply with them.

As interpretation of both the ePrivacy Regulation and GDPR develop, we could incur substantial costs to comply with these regulations. The changes could require significant systems changes, limit the effectiveness of our marketing activities, adversely affect our margins, increase costs and subject us to additional liabilities.

In the United States, federal and various state governments have adopted or are considering, laws, guidelines or rules for the collection, distribution, use and storage of information collected from or about users or their devices. For example, California recently passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”), which became effective on January 1, 2020 and introduced substantial changes to privacy law for businesses that collect personal information from California residents. The CCPA creates individual privacy rights for California consumers and increases the privacy and security obligations of entities handling certain personal information. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches that is expected to increase data breach litigation. Additionally, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and many state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws, to impose standards for the online collection, use and dissemination of data. Furthermore, these obligations may be interpreted and applied inconsistently from one jurisdiction to another and may conflict with other requirements or our practices.

Many data protection regimes apply based on where a user is located, and as we expand our platform and new laws are enacted or existing laws change, we may be subject to new laws, regulations or standards or new interpretations of existing laws, regulations or standards, including those in the areas of data security, data privacy and regulation of email providers and those that require localization of certain data, which could require us to incur additional costs and restrict our business operations. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with rapidly evolving privacy or security laws policies (including our own stated privacy policies), legal obligations or industry standards or any security incident that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personally identifiable

 

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information or other user data may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation (including user class actions), fines and penalties or adverse publicity and could cause our users to lose trust in us, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

A failure to comply with current laws, rules and regulations or changes to such laws, rules and regulations and other legal uncertainties may adversely affect our business, financial performance, results of operations or business growth.

Our business and financial performance could be adversely affected by unfavorable changes in or interpretations of existing laws, rules, and regulations or the promulgation of new laws, rules, and regulations applicable to us and our business, including those relating to the internet and ecommerce, internet advertising and price display, consumer protection, anti-corruption, economic and trade sanctions, tax, payments, banking, data security, network and information systems security, data protection and privacy. As a result, regulatory authorities could prevent or temporarily suspend us from carrying on some or all of our activities or otherwise penalize us if our practices were found not to comply with applicable regulatory or licensing requirements or any binding interpretation of such requirements. Unfavorable changes or interpretations could decrease demand for our services, limit marketing methods and capabilities, affect our margins, increase costs or subject us to additional liabilities. For example, as a result of the initial outbreak of COVID-19, consumer protection authorities demanded rapid and decisive changes in the way that Wish screens and handles product listings that potentially violate various laws, including emergency price caps on certain items. We believe we have legal grounds to satisfy current requests or prevail against associated fines and penalties, and we intend to vigorously defend such fines and penalties.

Additionally, there are, and will likely continue to be, an increasing number of laws and regulations pertaining to the internet and ecommerce that may relate to liability for information retrieved from or transmitted over the internet, display of certain taxes and fees, online editorial and user-generated content, user privacy, data security, network and information systems security, behavioral targeting and online advertising, taxation, liability for third-party activities, quality of services and consumer protection. For example, the European Union’s Market Surveillance Regulation, which takes effect in July 2021, places new obligations on marketplaces and is designed to reduce the availability of unsafe products in Europe when offered by sellers outside of the region. Denmark has passed a law placing new burdens on marketplaces and giving its regulators the right to request fines and shutdowns where marketplaces are consistently unsuccessful in screening products that are unsafe or unlawful. Furthermore, the growth and development of ecommerce may prompt calls for more stringent consumer protection laws and more aggressive enforcement efforts, which may impose additional burdens on online businesses generally.

Likewise, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls, the U.S. Department of State, as well as other foreign regulatory authorities continue to enforce economic and trade regulations and anti-corruption laws, across industries. U.S. trade sanctions relate to transactions with designated foreign countries and territories, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and the Crimea region of Ukraine, as well as specifically targeted individuals and entities that are identified on United States’ and other blacklists, and those owned by them or those acting on their behalf. Anti-corruption laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act, generally prohibit direct or indirect corrupt payments to government officials and, under certain laws, to private persons to obtain or retain business or an improper business advantage. Although we have policies and procedures in place designed to promote compliance with these laws and regulations, our employees, partners, or agents could take actions in contravention of our policies and procedures, or violate applicable laws or regulations. In the event our controls should fail, or we are found to be not in compliance for other

 

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reasons, we could be subject to monetary damages, civil and criminal monetary penalties, withdrawal of business licenses or permits, litigation and damage to our reputation and the value of our brand.

Additionally, the law relating to liability of online service providers is currently unsettled. Lawmakers and governmental agencies have in the past and could in the future require changes in the way our business is conducted, including with explicit obligations to inspect and screen content and products or implicit obligations that might stem from increased legal liability for online service providers. Unfavorable regulations, laws, decisions, or interpretations by government or regulatory authorities applying those laws and regulations, or inquiries, investigations, or enforcement actions threatened or initiated by them, could cause us to incur substantial costs, expose us to unanticipated civil and criminal liability or penalties (including substantial monetary fines), increase our cost of doing business, require us to change our business practices in a manner materially adverse to our business, damage our reputation, impede our growth, or otherwise have a material effect on our operations.

Risk Related to Our Intellectual Property

We may be unable to protect our intellectual property adequately.

Our intellectual property is an essential asset of our business and our success is dependent, in part, upon protecting our intellectual property. To establish and protect our intellectual property rights, we rely on a combination of trade secret, copyright, trademark and, to a lesser extent, patent laws, as well as confidentiality protection procedures and contractual provisions. The efforts we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not be sufficient or effective. We generally do not elect to register our copyrights, relying instead on the laws protecting unregistered intellectual property, which may not be sufficient. We rely on both registered and unregistered trademarks, which may not always be comprehensive in scope. In addition, our copyrights and trademarks, whether or not registered, and patents may be held invalid or unenforceable if challenged, and may be of limited territorial reach. Moreover, effective trademark, copyright, patent and trade secret protection may not be available or commercially feasible in every country in which we conduct business. Further, intellectual property law, including statutory and case law, particularly in the United States, is constantly developing, and any changes in the law could make it harder for us to enforce our rights. While we have obtained or applied for patent protection with respect to some of our intellectual property, we generally do not rely on patents as a principal means of protecting intellectual property. We make business decisions about when to seek patent protection for a particular technology and when to rely upon trade secret protection, and the approach we select may ultimately prove to be inadequate. To the extent we do seek patent protection, any U.S. or other patents issued to us may not be sufficiently broad to protect our proprietary technologies.

We may be subject to claims that items listed on our platform are counterfeit, infringing or illegal, which may harm our business.

We frequently receive communications alleging that items listed on our platform infringe third-party copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights. We have intellectual property complaint and take-down procedures in place to address these communications, and we believe such procedures are important to promote confidence in our platform and provide users reassurance in the products they are purchasing. We follow these procedures to review complaints and relevant facts to determine the appropriate action, which may include removal of the item from our platform and, in certain cases, prohibiting merchants from participating in our platform who repeatedly violate our policies.

Our procedures may not effectively reduce or eliminate our liability. In particular, we may be subject to civil or criminal liability for activities carried out by merchants on our platform, especially outside the United States where laws may offer less protection for intermediaries and platforms than the United States. Under current U.S. copyright law and the Communications Decency Act, we may

 

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benefit from statutory safe harbor provisions that protect us from copyright liability for content posted on our platform by our merchants and users. However, trademark and patent laws do not include similar statutory provisions, and liability for these forms of intellectual property is often determined by court decisions. These safe harbors and court rulings may change unfavorably. In that event, we may be held secondarily liable for the intellectual property infringement of merchants on our platform. We may also be directly liable for the inventory we purchase ourselves that we sell on our platform.

In addition, allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights, including but not limited to counterfeit items, have resulted in actual litigation from time to time by rights owners against merchants. These and similar suits have resulted in the freezing of merchant accounts or the shutdown of merchant storefronts on our platform, which can adversely impact revenue in the short-term, and may require us to spend substantial resources to comply with court orders. We may also incur costs responding to subpoenas from governmental authorities regarding illegal or counterfeit products listed for sale on our platform. In addition, we may receive media attention relating to the listing or sale of illegal or counterfeit goods, which could damage our reputation, diminish the value of our brand, and make users and merchants reluctant to use our platform.

Regardless of the validity of any claims made against us, we may incur significant costs and efforts to defend against or settle them.

Under our standard form agreements, we require our merchants to indemnify us for any losses we suffer or any costs that we incur due to any products sold by these merchants. However, we may not be able to successfully enforce our contractual rights and may need to initiate costly and lengthy legal proceedings to protect our rights.

We may be subject to intellectual property claims, which are extremely costly to defend, could require us to pay significant damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies in the future.

Companies in the internet and technology industries are frequently subject to litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. We periodically receive communications that claim we have infringed, misappropriated or misused others’ intellectual property rights. To the extent we gain greater public recognition, we may face a higher risk of being the subject of intellectual property claims. Third parties may have intellectual property rights that cover significant aspects of our technologies or business methods and prevent us from expanding our offerings. Any intellectual property claim against us, with or without merit, could be time consuming and expensive to settle or litigate and could divert the attention of our management. Litigation regarding intellectual property rights is inherently uncertain due to the complex issues involved, and we may not be successful in defending ourselves in such matters. In addition, some of our competitors have extensive portfolios of issued patents. In a patent infringement claim against us, we may assert, as a defense, that we do not infringe the relevant patent claims, that the patent is invalid, or both. The strength of our defenses will depend on the patents asserted, the interpretation of these patents, and our ability to invalidate the asserted patents. However, we could be unsuccessful in advancing non-infringement and/or invalidity arguments in our defense. In the United States, issued patents enjoy a presumption of validity, and the party challenging the validity of a patent claim must present clear and convincing evidence of invalidity, which is a high burden of proof. Conversely, the patent owner need only prove infringement by a preponderance of the evidence, which is a lower burden of proof. We may be unaware of the intellectual property rights that others may claim cover some or all of our technology or services. Because patent applications can take years to issue and are often afforded confidentiality for some period of time, there may currently be pending applications, unknown to us, that later result in issued patents that could cover one or more of our products. Many potential litigants, including some of our competitors and patent holding companies, have the ability to dedicate substantial resources to

 

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enforcing their intellectual property rights. Moreover, our patents may provide little or no deterrence in litigation involving patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners that have no relevant product revenue. Any claims successfully brought against us could subject us to significant liability for damages and we may be required to stop using technology or other intellectual property alleged to be in violation of a third-party’s rights in jurisdictions where we do business. We also might be required to enter into costly settlement agreements or seek a license for third-party intellectual property. Even if a license is available, we could be required to pay significant royalties or submit to unreasonable terms, which would increase our operating expenses. We may also be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology, which could require significant time and expense. If we cannot license or develop technology for any allegedly infringing aspect of our business, we would be forced to limit our service and may be unable to compete effectively. Any of these results could harm our business.

Our software is highly complex and may contain undetected errors.

The software and code underlying our platform is highly interconnected and complex and may contain undetected errors or vulnerabilities, some of which may only be discovered after the code has been released. We typically release software code daily and this practice may result in the more frequent introduction of errors or vulnerabilities into the software underlying our platform, which can impact the user and merchant experience on our platform. Additionally, due to the interconnected nature of the software underlying our platform, updates to certain parts of our code, including changes to our website or mobile app or third-party APIs on which our website and mobile app rely, could have an unintended impact on other sections of our code, which may result in errors or vulnerabilities to our platform. Any errors or vulnerabilities discovered in our code after release could result in damage to our reputation, loss of our merchants or users, loss of revenue, or liability for damages, any of which could adversely affect our growth prospects and our business.

Our use of open source software may pose particular risks to our proprietary software and systems.

We use open source software in our proprietary software and systems and will use open source software in the future. The licenses applicable to our use of open source software may require that source code that is developed using open source software be made available to the public and that any modifications or derivative works to certain open source software continue to be licensed under open source licenses. From time to time, we may face claims from third parties claiming infringement of their intellectual property rights, or demanding the release or license of the open source software or derivative works that we developed using such software (which could include our proprietary source code) or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source license. These claims could result in litigation and could require us to purchase a costly license, publicly release the affected portions of our source code, be limited in or cease using the implicated software unless and until we can re-engineer such software to avoid infringement or change the use of, or remove, the implicated open source software. Our use of open source software may also present additional security risks because the source code for open source software is publicly available, which may make it easier for hackers and other third parties to determine how to breach our website and systems that rely on open source software. Any of these risks could be difficult to eliminate or manage, and, if not addressed, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.

Risks Related to Our Taxes and Financial Position

Our business and our merchants and users may be subject to sales and other taxes.

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complex and evolving issue. Many of the statutes and regulations that govern these taxes were established before the expansion of the internet and ecommerce. In many cases, it is not clear how existing statutes apply to ecommerce. In addition, governments are increasingly looking for ways to increase revenue, which has resulted in discussions about new legislative action to increase tax revenue, including through indirect taxes.

Significant judgment and expertise is required to evaluate applicable tax obligations. As a result, amounts recorded may be subject to adjustments by the relevant tax authorities. In many cases, the ultimate tax determination is uncertain because it is not clear how new and existing statutes might apply to our business or to the businesses of our merchants. One or more states, the federal government or other countries may seek to impose additional reporting, recordkeeping or indirect tax collection obligations on businesses like ours that facilitate ecommerce.

State and local taxing authorities in the United States have identified ecommerce platforms as a means to calculate, collect and remit indirect taxes for transactions taking place over the internet. Multiple U.S. states have enacted related legislation and other states are now considering such legislation. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held in South Dakota v. Wayfair that a U.S. state may require an online retailer to collect sales taxes imposed by the state in which the buyer is located, even if the retailer has no physical presence in that state, thus permitting a wider enforcement of such sales tax collection requirements.

Outside of the United States, the application of value added tax or other indirect taxes on ecommerce providers continues to evolve. An increasing number of jurisdictions are legislating or have adopted laws that impose new taxes, including revenue-based taxes that target online commerce and the remote selling of goods. These laws include new obligations to collect sales, consumption, value added, or other taxes on online marketplaces and remote sellers, or other requirements that may result in liability for third-party obligations. Several countries, in particular the European Union, have proposed or enacted taxes on marketplace facilitators and online advertising. Our business could be adversely affected by additional taxes that focus on marketplace service revenue.

Additionally, existing and new tax laws and legislation could require us or our merchants to incur substantial costs in order to comply, including costs associated with legal advice, tax calculation, collection, remittance and audit requirements, which could make selling in such markets less attractive and could adversely affect our business. Further, these laws can be applied prospectively or retroactively. Noncompliance with new laws may result in fines or penalties. It is possible we may not have sufficient notice to create and adopt processes to properly comply with new reporting or collection obligations by the effective date.

Our results of operations and cash flows could be adversely effected by additional taxes or increasing taxes of this nature imposed on us prospectively or retroactively, or additional taxes or penalties resulting from the failure to comply with any collection obligations or failure to provide information about our users, merchants or other third parties for tax reporting purposes to various government agencies.

We may experience fluctuations in our tax obligations.

We are subject to taxation in the United States and in numerous other jurisdictions. We record tax expense based on current tax payments and our estimates of future tax payments, which may include reserves for estimates of probable settlements of tax audits. The determination of these liabilities requires estimation and significant judgment and the ultimate determination is uncertain. At any one time, multiple tax years could be subject to audit by various taxing jurisdictions. As a result, we could be subject to higher than anticipated tax liabilities as well as ongoing variability in our quarterly tax

 

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rates as audits close and exposures are re-evaluated. While we have estimated reserves that we believe are reasonable to cover potential exposures, the reserves may ultimately not be sufficient and additional cash outflows may result. Fluctuations in our tax obligations could adversely affect our business.

We may be subject to tax controversies.

We may also be subject to tax controversies in the United States and in foreign jurisdictions that can result in tax assessments against us. Developments in an audit, investigation, or other tax controversy can have a material effect on our operating results or cash flows. We regularly assess the likelihood of an adverse outcome resulting from these proceedings to determine the adequacy of our tax accruals and while we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final outcome of audits, investigations, and any other tax controversies could be materially different from our historical tax accruals.

We may not be able to utilize a significant portion of our net operation loss carryforwards, and other tax attributes, which could adversely affect our profitability.

As of December 31, 2019, we had federal net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) available to reduce future taxable income, if any, of $885 million that begin to expire in 2030 and continue to expire through 2037 and $324 million that have an unlimited carryover period. As of December 31, 2019, we had state NOLs available to reduce future taxable income, if any, of $1.4 billion that begin to expire in 2030 and continue to expire through 2039. Under legislation enacted in 2017, informally titled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”), as modified by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”), unused U.S. federal NOLs generated in tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, will not expire and may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such federal NOLs in tax years beginning after December 31, 2020, is limited to 80% of taxable income. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the Tax Act or the CARES Act. In addition, the utilization of NOLs and other tax attributes to offset future taxable income or taxes may be subject to limitations under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), and similar state statutes as a result of ownership changes that have occurred or could occur in the future. Additionally, portions of these NOLs could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. In addition, at the state level, there may be periods during which the use of net operating losses is suspended or otherwise limited. For example, California recently imposed limits on the usability of California state NOLs to offset taxable income in tax years beginning after 2019 and before 2023. As a result, even if we attain profitability, we may be unable to use a material portion of our NOLs and other tax attributes, which could adversely affect our future cash flows, which could adversely affect our profitability.

We may need additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all.

We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, together with cash generated from our operations, will be enough to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. However, we may require additional cash resources due to changes in business conditions or other developments, such as acquisitions or investments we may decide to pursue. We may seek to borrow funds under a credit facility that we decide to enter into or sell additional equity or debt securities. The sale of additional equity or convertible debt securities could result in dilution to our existing stockholders. Any debt financing that we may secure in the future could result in additional operating and financial covenants that would limit or restrict our ability to take certain actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. It is also possible that financing may not be available to us in amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all.

 

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Operating as a public company will require us to incur substantial costs and will require substantial management attention. In addition, our management team has limited experience managing a public company and the requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain additional executive management and qualified board members.

As a public company, we will incur substantial legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. For example, we will be subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended (the “Exchange Act”), the applicable requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”), the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the rules and regulations of the SEC. The rules and regulations of Nasdaq will also apply to us following this offering. As part of the new requirements, we will need to establish and maintain effective disclosure and financial controls and make changes to our corporate governance practices. We expect that compliance with these requirements will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming or costly, and increase demand on our systems and resources.

Most of our management and other key personnel have little experience managing a public company and preparing public filings. In addition, we expect that our management and other key personnel will need to divert attention from other business matters to devote substantial time to the reporting and other requirements of being a public company. In particular, we expect to incur significant expense and devote substantial management effort to complying with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We will need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge.

As a result of disclosure of information in this prospectus and in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by stockholders and competitors. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be adversely affected, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and adversely affect our business and operating results.

In addition, as a result of our disclosure obligations as a public company, we will have reduced flexibility and will be under pressure to focus on short-term results, which may adversely affect our ability to achieve long-term profitability.

Our management will be required to evaluate the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. If we are unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy of our financial reports.

As a public company, we will be required to maintain internal control over financial reporting and to report any material weaknesses in such internal control. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that we evaluate and determine the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Additionally, our auditor will be required to deliver an attestation report on the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting starting with the second annual report that we file with the SEC after the completion of this offering.

If we have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, we may not detect errors on a timely basis and our financial statements may be materially misstated. In addition, our internal control over financial reporting will not prevent or detect all errors and fraud. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud will be detected.

 

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If there are material weaknesses or failures in our ability to meet any of the requirements related to the maintenance and reporting of our internal control, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and that could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline. In addition, we could become subject to investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional management attention and which could adversely affect our business.

If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies prove to be incorrect or financial reporting standards or interpretations change, our operating results could be adversely affected.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates, judgments, and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, and equity as of the date of the financial statements, and the amount of revenue and expenses, during the periods presented, that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to the fair value of financial instruments, useful lives of long-lived assets, fair value of common stock, fair value of derivative instruments, fair value of redeemable convertible preferred stock and related redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant and equity awards and other equity issuances, incremental borrowing rate applied to lease accounting, contingent liabilities, allowances for returns and refunds and uncertain tax positions. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of industry or financial analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our Class A common stock.

Risks Related to this Offering and Our Class A Common Stock

The price of our Class A common stock could be volatile and you may not be able to resell your shares at or above our initial public offering price. Declines in the price of Class A common stock could subject us to litigation.

There has not been a public market for our Class A common stock prior to this offering and an active trading market may not develop following this offering. Even if such a market does develop, it may not be sustainable. If trading in our Class A common stock is not active, you may not be able to sell your shares quickly, at the market price or at all. The initial public offering price for the shares was determined by negotiations between us and the representative of the underwriters and may not be indicative of prices that will prevail in the trading market following this offering. In addition, the trading prices of the securities of technology companies have historically been highly volatile. Accordingly, the price of our Class A common stock could be subject to wide fluctuations for many reasons, many of which are beyond our control, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section and others such as:

 

   

variations in our operating results and other financial and operational metrics, including the key financial and operating metrics disclosed in this prospectus, as well as how those results and metrics compare to analyst and investor expectations;

 

   

speculation about our operating results in the absence of our own financial projections;

 

   

failure of analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of our company, changes in their estimates of our operating results or changes in recommendations by analysts that follow our Class A common stock;

 

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announcements of new services or enhancements, strategic alliances or significant agreements or other developments by us or our competitors;

 

   

announcements by us or our competitors of mergers or acquisitions or rumors of such transactions involving us or our competitors;

 

   

changes in our senior management or other key personnel;

 

   

disruptions in our platform due to hardware, software or network problems, security breaches or other issues;

 

   

the strength of the global economy or the economy in the jurisdictions in which we operate, and market conditions in our industry and those affecting our merchants and users;

 

   

trading activity by our principal stockholders, including upon the expiration of contractual lock-up agreements and market standoff agreements, and other market participants, in whom ownership of our Class A common stock may be concentrated following this offering;

 

   

changes in legal or regulatory requirements relating to our business;

 

   

litigation or other claims against us;

 

   

the number of shares of our Class A common stock that are available for public trading; and

 

   

any other factors discussed in this prospectus.

In addition, if the market for technology stocks or the stock market in general experiences a loss of investor confidence, the price of our Class A common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, results of operations or financial condition. The price of our Class A common stock might also decline in reaction to events that affect other companies, even if those events do not directly affect us. Some companies that have experienced volatility in the trading price of their stock have been the subject of securities class action litigation. If we are the subject of such litigation, it could result in substantial costs and could divert our management’s attention and resources, which could adversely affect our business.

We have broad discretion in the use of the net proceeds from this offering and may not use them effectively.

We currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for working capital, operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses to fund the growth of our business, and capital expenditures. In addition, we may use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies. However, we have no current understandings, agreements or commitments for any specific material acquisitions at this time. We have not yet determined the manner in which we will allocate the net proceeds we receive from this offering and as a result, our management will have broad discretion in the allocation and use of the net proceeds. See “Use of Proceeds.”

The failure by our management to allocate or use these funds effectively could harm our business. Pending their use, we may invest the net proceeds we receive from this offering in a manner that does not produce income or that loses value. Our ultimate use of the net proceeds from this offering may vary substantially from the currently intended use.

Our directors, executive officers and principal stockholders beneficially own a substantial percentage of our stock and will be able to exert significant control over matters subject to stockholder approval.

Our directors, executive officers, greater than 5% stockholders and their respective affiliates will hold in the aggregate approximately                % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock

 

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following this offering, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares of our Class A common stock. In addition, Peter Szulczewski, our founder, CEO, and Chairperson, will be able to exercise voting rights with respect to an aggregate of                 shares of Class B common stock, which will represent approximately        % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering. Therefore, these stockholders will continue to have the ability to influence us through their ownership position, even after this offering. If these stockholders act together, they may be able to determine all matters requiring majority stockholder approval. For example, these stockholders will be able to control elections of directors, amendments of our charter documents or approval of any merger, sale of assets or other major corporate transaction. This may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our capital stock that other stockholders may feel are in their best interests.

The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with certain stockholders, in particular, our Chief Executive Officer, which will limit your ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.

Our Class B common stock has 20 votes per share, and our Class A common stock, which is the stock we are offering in our initial public offering, has one vote per share. Stockholders who hold shares of Class B common stock, including our executive officers, employees, and directors and their affiliates, will together hold approximately                % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following our initial public offering. This includes shares subject to proxies held by Mr. Szulczewski, which represent approximately                % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following our initial public offering. Because of the 20-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, the holders of our Class B common stock collectively will continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock and therefore be able to control all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval so long as the shares of Class B common stock represent at least 50% of all outstanding shares of our Class A and Class B common stock. This concentrated control will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future.

Future transfers by holders of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions. The conversion of Class B common stock to Class A common stock will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long term. If, for example, Mr. Szulczewski retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could, in the future, continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock. For a description of the dual class structure, see “Description of Capital Stock—Anti-Takeover Provisions.”

Because we qualify as a “controlled company” under the corporate governance rules for Nasdaq -listed companies, we are not required to have a majority of our board of directors be independent, nor are we required to have a compensation committee or an independent nominating function. Our board of directors has not made a determination about whether or not to take advantage of the “controlled company” exemption. However, if we were to take advantage of such exemptions in the future, our Class A common stock could be less attractive to some investors or otherwise our stock price could be otherwise harmed. Additionally, should the interests of our controlling stockholder differ from those of other stockholders, the other stockholders may not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance rules for Nasdaq-listed companies. Our status as a controlled company could make our Class A common stock less attractive to some investors or otherwise harm our stock price.

In addition, in July 2017, FTSE Russell and Standard & Poor’s announced that they would cease to allow most newly public companies utilizing dual or multi-class capital structures to be included in

 

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their indices. Affected indices include the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, and S&P SmallCap 600, which together make up the S&P Composite 1500. Under the announced policies, our multi-class capital structure would make us ineligible for inclusion in any of these indices, and as a result, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other investment vehicles that attempt to passively track these indices will not be investing in our stock. These policies are relatively new and it is as of yet unclear what effect, if any, they will have on the valuations of publicly traded companies excluded from the indices, but it is possible that they may depress these valuations compared to those of other similar companies that are included.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market by our existing stockholders following this offering could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline.

The price of our Class A common stock could decline if there are substantial sales of our Class A common stock, particularly sales by our directors, executive officers, employees, and significant stockholders, or when there is a large number of shares of our Class A common stock available for sale. After our initial public offering, we will have outstanding                shares of our Class A common stock and 10,885,916 shares of our Class B common stock, based on the number of shares outstanding as of September 30, 2020. This includes                 shares that we are selling in this offering, which shares may be resold in the public market immediately following date of this prospectus. Shares of our Class B common stock are convertible into an equivalent number of shares of our Class A common stock and generally convert into shares of our Class A common stock upon transfer. In addition, we expect to issue 3,065,072 shares of our Class B common stock upon the settlement of RSUs on a date in 2021 prior to March 14, 2021, based on shares of our Class B common stock subject to RSUs for which the service condition is expected to be satisfied as of December 31, 2020, and for which we expect the liquidity condition to be satisfied in connection with this offering. All other shares of our common stock will be available for sale in the public market on the earlier of (i) the opening of trading on the second trading day immediately following our release of earnings for the second quarter following the completion of this offering and (ii) 181 days after the date of this prospectus. Furthermore, (i) all shares of our Class B common stock that are subject to RSUs of which the service condition is satisfied as of December 31, 2020, which represents 2,108,129 shares of our Class B common stock, and (ii) if the last reported closing price of our Class A common stock on Nasdaq is at least 33% greater than the public offering price per share set forth on the cover page of this prospectus for 10 out of 15 consecutive trading days during the period prior to the date of our first earnings release following the completion of this offering, then 25% of the shares of common stock or common stock underlying outstanding derivative instruments (including shares of Class B common stock issuable upon exercise of an outstanding warrant and common stock subject to outstanding options), which represents 13,026,047 shares of our common stock, may be sold beginning at the opening of trading on the second trading day after we announce earnings for the first quarter that ends following the completion of this offering (provided that these early termination provisions in this paragraph (a) do not apply to securities held by Mr. Szulczewski, our founder, CEO, and Chairperson), subject in some cases to the volume and other restrictions of Rule 144 as described below. We also expect holders of such shares of Class B common stock issued upon settlement of RSUs, including Mr. Szulczewski, to sell a portion of such shares in the public market to cover tax obligations that become due upon vesting and settlement of such RSUs.

As of September 30, 2020, all of our outstanding options to purchase 7,494,365 shares of Class B common stock were fully vested and the Class B common stock underlying such options will be eligible for sale as set forth above.

After our initial public offering, certain holders of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock will have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering

 

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their shares or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or our stockholders. All of these shares are subject to market standoff or lock-up agreements restricting their sale for specified periods of time after the date of this prospectus. We also intend to register shares of common stock that we have issued and may issue under our employee equity incentive plans. Once we register these shares, they will be able to be sold freely in the public market upon issuance, subject to existing market standoff or lock-up agreements.

Goldman Sachs & Co., LLC may permit our executive officers, our directors, and all of our stockholders to sell shares prior to the expiration of the restrictive provisions contained in the “lock-up” agreements with the underwriters. See the section titled “Shares Eligible for Future Sale” for a more complete description of the lock-up agreements and market standoff agreements that we and our directors, executive officers, and all of our stockholders have entered into with the underwriters. In addition, we may, in our sole discretion, permit our employees and current stockholders who are subject to market standoff agreements or arrangements with us and who are not subject to a lock-up agreement with the underwriters to sell shares prior to the expiration of the restrictive provisions contained in those market standoff agreements or arrangements.

The market price of the shares of our Class A common stock could decline as a result of the sale of a substantial number of our shares of common stock in the public market or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell their shares.

If you purchase our Class A common stock in this offering, you will incur immediate and substantial dilution.

The initial public offering price is substantially higher than the pro forma net tangible book value per share of our Class A common stock of $                per share as of September 30, 2020. Investors purchasing Class A common stock in this offering will pay a price per share that substantially exceeds the net tangible book value per share. As a result, investors purchasing Class A common stock in this offering will incur immediate dilution of $            per share, based on the initial public offering price of $                per share.

This dilution is due to the substantially lower price paid by our investors who purchased shares prior to this offering as compared to the price offered to the public in this offering. In addition, as of September 30, 2020, there were outstanding options to purchase 7,494,365 shares of our common stock with a weighted-average exercise price of approximately $2.34 per share and a warrant to purchase 55,000 shares of our common stock with an exercise price of approximately $1.49 per share. The exercise of any of these options or such warrant would result in additional dilution. As a result of the dilution to investors purchasing shares in this offering, investors may receive less than the purchase price paid in this offering in the event of our liquidation. See the section titled “Dilution.”

Future sales and issuances of our Class A common stock or rights to purchase Class A common stock could result in additional dilution to our stockholders and could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline.

We may issue additional Class A common stock, convertible securities or other equity following the completion of this offering. We also expect to issue Class A common stock to our employees, directors and other service providers pursuant to our equity incentive plans and Class B common stock with respect to awards currently outstanding under our 2010 Stock Plan. Such issuances could be dilutive to investors and could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline. New investors in such issuances could also receive rights senior to those of holders of our Class A common stock.

 

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If analysts do not publish research about our business or if they publish inaccurate or unfavorable research, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our Class A common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that analysts publish about our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our Class A common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our Class A common stock would likely decline. If few analysts cover us, demand for our Class A common stock could decrease and our Class A common stock price and trading volume may decline. Similar results may occur if one or more of these analysts stop covering us in the future or fail to publish reports on us regularly.

Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our company more difficult, could limit attempts to make changes in our management and could depress the price of our Class A common stock.

Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control of our company or limiting changes in our management. Among other things, they will provide:

 

   

for a dual class common stock structure, which provides Mr. Szulczewski with the ability to control the outcome of matters requiring stockholder approval, even if he owns significantly less than a majority of the shares of our outstanding Class A and Class B common stock;

 

   

at any time after our first annual meeting of stockholders when the outstanding shares of our Class B common stock represent less than 40% of the combined voting power of our common stock, our board of directors will be classified into three classes of directors with staggered three-year terms;

 

   

at any time after our first annual meeting of stockholders when the outstanding shares of our Class B common stock represent less than 40% of the combined voting power of our common stock, directors will be able to be removed only for cause and only by the affirmative vote of the holders of at least two-thirds of the voting power of our common stock. Vacancies on our board of directors will be able to be filled only by our board of directors and not by stockholders;

 

   

certain amendments to our restated certificate of incorporation or bylaws will require the approval of two-thirds of the combined vote of our then-outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock;

 

   

authorization of the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a stockholder rights plan;

 

   

at any time after our first annual meeting of stockholders when the outstanding shares of our Class B common stock represent less than 40% of the combined voting power of our common stock, our stockholders will only be able to take action at a meeting of stockholders and not by written consent;

 

   

stockholders may not call special meetings of the stockholders and our restated certificate of incorporation provides that so long as our outstanding shares of Class B common stock represent 25% or more of our total voting power, any transaction that would result in a change in control of us will require the approval of a majority of our outstanding Class B common stock voting as a separate class;

 

   

our board of directors is expressly authorized to amend or repeal any provision of our bylaws;

 

   

that the forum for certain litigation against us must be Delaware or the U.S. federal district courts; and

 

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advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual stockholder meetings.

These provisions may delay or prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace members of our management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”) may delay or prevent a change in control of our company. Section 203 imposes certain restrictions on mergers, business combinations and other transactions between us and holders of 15% or more of our common stock. Anti-takeover provisions could depress the price of our common stock by acting to delay or prevent a change in control of our company.

For information regarding these and other provisions, see “Description of Capital Stock.”

Our certificate of incorporation will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forums for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.

Our certificate of incorporation will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees. Our certificate of incorporation will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for: (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on behalf of us; (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty; (iii) any action arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, our certificate of incorporation or bylaws (as either may be amended from time to time); (iv) any action to interpret, apply, enforce or determine the validity of our certificate of incorporation or our bylaws; or (v) any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine.

This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act. Furthermore, Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our certificate of incorporation will further provide that the U.S. federal district courts will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the exclusive forum provisions. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provisions of our certificate of incorporation. This may require significant additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions and there can be no assurance that the provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions.

These exclusive-forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees. If a court were to find either exclusive forum provision of our certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable to or unenforceable in an action, we may incur further significant additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, all of which could seriously harm our business.

 

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We do not intend to pay dividends on our capital stock, so any returns will be limited to increases in the value of our Class A common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the operation and expansion of our business. Accordingly, we do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. In addition, our ability to pay cash dividends on our capital stock is likely to be restricted by any future debt financing arrangement we may enter into. Any return to stockholders will therefore be limited to increases in the price of our Class A common stock, if any.

We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.

The market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

 

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A LETTER FROM PETER SZULCZEWSKI, FOUNDER, CEO, AND CHAIRPERSON

To our stockholders and partners:

I wanted to share a bit about my personal background so you could better understand why I founded Wish and what drives me and the entire Wish team each and every day. I grew up in Soviet-controlled communist Poland in the 1980s where I learned first-hand what it is like to not have access to basic goods and services. I’d wait with excitement for my uncle to bring gifts – like Legos, my favorite – from his travels. I also dreamed about rare trips abroad where I could visit a shopping mall just to look around. These were my escapes from the reality of not having the access or means to purchase common everyday items. After leaving Poland, I went to the University of Waterloo to study mathematics and computer science, and then worked for ten years as an engineer at Google building advertising technology. At Google, I saw the impact that technology can have on the world and started to think about the type of technology platform it would take to address the problems of retail access and affordability that I felt so acutely during my childhood.

I founded Wish to help the underserved who have been neglected by existing ecommerce offerings. This massive population of value-conscious consumers works hard to make a living, but still cannot afford more expensive or branded goods. My goal is to bring affordable goods and services to this underserved population. I also wanted to help merchants and manufacturers – many of which are small family businesses – find new customers around the world.

I am very proud of the success we have had to date. As of September 30, 2020, we had over 100 million MAUs and over 500,000 merchants. We facilitated the shipment of over 640 million items during the twelve months ended September 30, 2020 to buyers across more than 100 countries. We were the #1 downloaded shopping app in each of the last three years and 90% of our usage is on mobile. We generated $2.3 billion of LTM revenue as of September 30, 2020, and grew over 30% in the first nine months of 2020. Through our Wish Local offering, we are now also helping almost 50,000 local independent stores grow their businesses amidst the heightened competition in today’s digital ecommerce world.

Our global marketplace is underpinned by data and technology across every aspect of our business. Half of our employees are engineers and data scientists. We built a platform – with the right algorithms, data science and machine-learning capabilities – that just gets better with time and usage.

We are going to continue leveraging our scale, data science, and technology capabilities, and the power of discovery-oriented shopping experiences to:

 

  1.

Create the best mobile shopping mall that drives value and accessibility for as many consumers around the world as possible.

 

  2.

Enable brick and mortar stores, brands, merchants, and manufacturers to thrive in the highly competitive retail landscape by providing indispensable services to help grow and run their businesses and by delivering our massive base of value-oriented consumers.

Five key principles drive our strategic priorities at Wish:

 

   

Value. We are focused on serving people in most need who cannot afford existing ecommerce offerings.

 

   

Globalization. We are looking to serve and connect users and businesses around the world.

 

   

Discovery. Discovery and entertainment are at the core of our product experience.

 

   

Personalization. We use data science to deliver a deeply personalized shopping experience.

 

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Enablement. We enable merchants and manufacturers to run and grow their businesses by providing a suite of indispensable services.

In addition to these key principles, as a company we are relentlessly focused on continuous improvement and measurable impact. We have a deeply ingrained culture of experimentation and testing that we combine with rigorous standards of measurement. Based on data, we will both double down and pull back on various initiatives as we continually pursue better performance and results. We have made great progress to date, but we are still in the very early days of our journey and are excited for what lies ahead. I hope you join us.

Best,

Peter

 

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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. The forward-looking statements are contained principally in “Prospectus Summary,” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Business.” Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts such as information concerning our possible or assumed future results of operations and expenses, business strategies and plans, competitive position, business environment and potential growth strategies and opportunities. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “seeks,” “should,” “will,” “would” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Those risks include those described in “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. The inclusion of forward-looking information should not be regarded as a representation by us, the underwriters or any other person that the future plans, estimates, or expectations contemplated by us will be achieved. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements in this prospectus. Also, forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this prospectus. You should read this prospectus and the documents that we have filed as exhibits to the registration statement, of which this prospectus is a part, and any related free writing prospectus, completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect.

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based on information available to us as of the date of this prospectus. While we believe such information provides a reasonable basis for these statements, such information may be limited or incomplete. Our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain, and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely on these statements.

Any forward-looking statement made by us in this prospectus speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements.

 

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INDUSTRY DATA AND USER METRICS

This prospectus contains estimates and information concerning our industry, including market position, market size, and growth rates of the markets in which we participate, that are based on industry publications and reports. This information involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to these estimates. We have not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of the data contained in these industry publications and reports. The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to variety of factors, including those described in the “Risk Factors” section. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in these publications and reports.

In addition, industry publications, studies and surveys generally state that they have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, although they do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information. While we believe that each of these studies and publications is reliable, we have not independently verified market and industry data from third parties. Further, in August 2020 we commissioned a third-party vendor to conduct a study (the “Study”) involving 2,850 participants across 10 countries. All participants received the same 50 questions. Responses were analyzed to identify demographic and consumer preference data, which is referenced in this document. While we believe our internal company research and commissioned studies are reliable and the market definitions are appropriate, neither such research nor these definitions have been verified by any independent source. The third-party industry publications, studies and surveys contained in this prospectus are identified by footnotes and are provided below:

 

   

eMarketer, Global eCommerce 2020, June 2020.

 

   

eMarketer, US Mobile Time Spent 2020, June 2020.

 

   

eMarketer, US Private Label vs. Branded Retail Sales Share of CPG Products, by Channel, March 2019, March 2018, and August 2019.

 

   

Euromonitor International Limited, Economies and Consumers, updated August 2020.

 

   

Euromonitor International Limited, Retailing 2020 edition, published July 2020.

 

   

Sensor Tower, analysis of store intelligence platform data, November 2019.

 

   

IDC, Understanding the Needs of the Global Small and Medium-Sized Business Market, US46393020, May 2020.

 

   

The World Factbook 2020. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2020.

 

   

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, June 2020.

 

   

Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions, 2018.

 

   

CNBC, Small Business Survey, 2017, updated May 2019.

 

   

First Insight, The State of Consumer Spending, published March 2019.

 

   

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, The International Day of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), June 2020.

 

   

U.S. Census Bureau, analysis of population data from, 2019.

The numbers of monthly active users, LTM active buyers, items, and merchants presented in this prospectus are based on internal company data, and we use these numbers in managing our business. We believe that these numbers are reasonable estimates, and we take measures to improve their accuracy, such as eliminating known fictitious or “bot” accounts. There are inherent challenges in measuring usage across large mobile populations around the world. For example, our data regarding

 

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the geographic location of our users and merchants is based on a number of factors, which may not always accurately reflect user location. We define a merchant as of a particular date as a unique merchant account on our platform, and a seller or selling entity may have several unique merchant accounts. In addition, our MAUs and LTM active buyers are based on unique email addresses, so it is possible for a single individual with multiple email addresses to open multiple accounts. We regularly review and may adjust our processes for calculating these metrics to improve their accuracy, and therefore it is possible that in future periods our reported metrics could change as a result of these adjustments. In addition, our MAU estimates will differ from estimates published by third parties due to differences in methodology. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business and Industry—We track certain performance metrics with internal tools and do not independently verify such metrics. Certain of our performance metrics are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.”

 

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USE OF PROCEEDS

We estimate that our net proceeds from this offering will be approximately $                 million, or approximately $                 million if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares, assuming an initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

Each $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase or decrease, as applicable, net proceeds to us by $                 million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us on the cover page of this prospectus remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. Each 1.0 million increase or decrease, as applicable, in the number of shares of our Class A common stock offered by us would increase or decrease, as applicable, net proceeds to us by approximately $                 million, assuming an initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us.

The principal purposes of this offering are to increase our capitalization and financial flexibility and create a public market for our Class A common stock, obtain additional working capital, and facilitate our future access to the public equity markets to allow us to implement our business plan. We currently intend to use the net proceeds received by us from this offering for working capital, operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses to fund the growth of our business, and capital expenditures. In addition, we may use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies. However, we have no current understandings, agreements or commitments for any specific material acquisitions at this time. We cannot specify with certainty the particular uses of the net proceeds that we received from this offering. Accordingly, we will have broad discretion in using these proceeds.

Pending our use of the net proceeds received by us from this offering, we intend to invest the net proceeds in short and intermediate term, interest-bearing obligations, investment grade instruments, certificates of deposit, or direct or guaranteed obligations of the U.S. government.

 

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DIVIDEND POLICY

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings for use in the operation of our business and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future decision to declare cash dividends will be made at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws.

 

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CAPITALIZATION

The following table sets forth our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, and capitalization as of September 30, 2020 on:

 

   

an actual basis;

 

   

a pro forma basis to give effect to: (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our redeemable convertible preferred stock into                shares of Class A common stock, (ii) the exercise of an outstanding warrant to purchase 986,640 shares of our Series B redeemable convertible preferred stock and the conversion of that Series B redeemable convertible preferred stock into 986,640 shares of our Class A common stock on a net-exercise basis at an exercise price of $0.0001 per share, (iii) the reclassification of all outstanding shares of our common stock into an equivalent number of shares of our Class B common stock; (iv) stock-based compensation expense of approximately $    million associated with RSUs subject to service-based and liquidity-based vesting conditions, which we will recognize upon the completion of this offering, as further described in Note 2 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus, which is reflected as an increase to additional paid-in capital and accumulated deficit; and (v) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation in Delaware; and

 

   

a pro forma as adjusted basis to give effect to: (i) the pro forma adjustments set forth above; and (ii) our sale and issuance in this offering of                shares of Class A common stock at the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

The pro forma and pro forma as adjusted information below is illustrative only, and cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, total stockholders’ equity and total capitalization after this offering will be adjusted based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing. You should read this table in conjunction with the sections titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Description of Capital Stock” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.

 

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     As of September 30, 2020  
     Actual     Pro Forma      Pro  Forma
As
Adjusted(1)
 
     (in millions, except share and per
share data)
 

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities

   $ 1,101     $                    $                
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

 

Redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

   $ 182     $      $    

Redeemable convertible preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 44,346,293 shares authorized, 42,169,192 shares issued and outstanding, actual; no shares authorized, issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

   $ 1,536     $        $    

Stockholders’ equity (deficit):

       

Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; no shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding, actual;              shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

                   

Common stock, $0.0001 par value; 73,000,000 shares authorized, 10,885,916 shares issued and outstanding, actual; no shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

                   

Class A common stock, $0.0001 par value; no shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding, actual;              shares authorized,              shares issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

       

Class B common stock, $0.0001 par value; no shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding, actual;              shares authorized,              shares issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

       

Additional paid-in capital

     10       
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

 

Accumulated deficit

     (1,615     
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

 

Total stockholders’ equity (deficit)

     (1,605     
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

 

Total capitalization

   $ 113     $        $    
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

(1)

A $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase or decrease, as applicable, each of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders’ equity, and total capitalization by $                million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. Each increase or decrease of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares offered by us would increase or decrease, as applicable, each of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders’ equity, and total capitalization by $                million, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price of $    per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us. The pro forma and pro forma as adjusted information discussed above is illustrative only and will change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing.

 

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The number of shares of our Class A common stock and Class B common stock issued and outstanding, pro forma and pro forma adjusted, in the table above is based on 43,155,832 shares of our Class A common stock (including our redeemable convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) and 10,885,916 shares of our Class B common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020, which reflects the Warrant Net Issuance and excludes:

 

   

7,494,365 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of options outstanding as of September 30, 2020 under our 2010 Stock Plan, with a weighted-average exercise price of approximately $2.34 per share;

 

   

2,855,590 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs for which the service condition was satisfied as of September 30, 2020, and for which we expect the liquidity condition to be satisfied in connection with this offering;

 

   

2,167,926 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were outstanding as of September 30, 2020 for which the service condition was not satisfied as of September 30, 2020;

 

   

             shares of our Class B common stock subject to RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 to Mr. Szulczewski pursuant to the CEO Performance Award, and vest upon the satisfaction of a service condition and achievement of certain stock price goals;

 

   

             shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 (not including the CEO Performance Award);

 

   

55,000 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon exercise of a warrant at an exercise price of $1.49 per share; and

 

   

4,545,353 shares of our common stock reserved for issuance under our equity compensation plans, consisting of:

 

   

3,600,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan,

 

   

195,353 shares of our Class B common stock reserved for issuance under our 2010 Stock Plan as of September 30, 2020, which will become available for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan on the date of this prospectus, and

 

   

750,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

 

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DILUTION

If you invest in our Class A common stock, your ownership interest will be diluted to the extent of the difference between the offering price per share of our Class A common stock and the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of our Class A common stock immediately after this offering. Dilution results from the fact that the per share offering price of our Class A common stock is substantially higher than the book value per share attributable to our existing stockholders. Pro forma net tangible book value per share represents the amount of stockholders’ equity (deficit) excluding intangible assets, divided by the number of shares of common stock outstanding at that date, after giving effect to the automatic conversion of our redeemable convertible preferred stock, including the redeemable convertible preferred stock issuable upon the automatic net exercise of an outstanding warrant, immediately prior to the completion of this offering.

Our historical net tangible book value (deficit) as of September 30, 2020 was $(1.6) billion, or $(147.53) per share of common stock. Our historical net tangible book value (deficit) is the amount of our total tangible assets less our total liabilities and redeemable convertible preferred stock, which is not included within our stockholders’ equity (deficit). Historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share represents historical net tangible book value (deficit) divided by the number of shares of our common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020.

Our pro forma net tangible book value as of September 30, 2020 was $     million, or $                 per share of common stock. Our pro forma net tangible book value per share represents the amount of our total tangible assets reduced by the amount of our total liabilities and divided by the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020, after giving effect to (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our redeemable convertible preferred stock into                shares of Class A common stock, (ii) the exercise of an outstanding warrant to purchase                shares of our Series B redeemable convertible preferred stock into                shares of our Class A common stock on a net-exercise basis (assuming an initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), (iii) the reclassification of all outstanding shares of our common stock into an equivalent number of shares of our Class B common stock; and (iv) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation in Delaware.

After giving effect to our sale in this offering of shares of Class A common stock at an assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us, our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value as of September 30, 2020 would have been approximately $                 million, or $                 per share of common stock. This represents an immediate pro forma as adjusted dilution of $                 per share to investors purchasing shares in this offering.

The following table illustrates this per share dilution.

 

Assumed initial offering price per share

     $                

Historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share as of September 30, 2020

   $ (147.53  

Increase per share attributable to the pro forma adjustments described above

    
  

 

 

   

Pro forma net tangible book value per share as of September 30, 2020

    

Increase in pro forma net tangible book value per share attributable to investors purchasing shares in this offering

    
  

 

 

   

Pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after giving effect to this offering

    
    

 

 

 

Dilution in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share to investors in this offering

     $    
    

 

 

 

 

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A $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase or decrease, as applicable, our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering by $                , assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions, and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. Each increase of 1.0 million in the number of shares offered by us would increase our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $                million, or $                per share, and the dilution per share to investors participating in this offering would be $                per share, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us. Similarly, each decrease of 1.0 million shares in the number of shares offered by us would decrease our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value by $                million, or $                per share, and the dilution per share to investors participating in this offering would be $                per share, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us. The pro forma as adjusted information discussed above is illustrative only and will change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing.

If the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full, the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after giving effect to this offering would be approximately $                 representing an immediate increase in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of $                to existing stockholders and immediate dilution in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of $                to new investors purchasing common stock in this offering, assuming an initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts.

The following table summarizes, on a pro forma as adjusted basis described above as of September 30, 2020, the total cash consideration paid and the average price per share paid by our existing stockholders and by our new investors purchasing shares in this offering at the assumed offering price of our Class A common stock of $     per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions, and estimated offering expenses payable by us:

 

     Shares
Purchased
    Total
Consideration
    Average
Price
Per Share
 
     Number      Percent     Amount      Percent  

Existing stockholders

                                    $                                 $                

New investors

             $    
  

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

   

Total

        100   $          100  
  

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

   

A $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $     per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase or decrease, as applicable, total consideration paid by new investors by $                 million and, in the case of an increase, would increase the percentage of total consideration paid by new investors by    percentage points and, in case of a decrease, would decrease the percentage of total consideration paid by new investors by    percentage points, assuming that the number of shares offered by us on the cover page of this prospectus remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. An increase or decrease of 1.0 million in the number of shares offered by us would increase or decrease, as applicable, total consideration paid by new investors by $                million, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us.

 

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The table above assumes no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares in this offering. If the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full, our existing stockholders would own     % and our new investors would own     % of the total number of shares outstanding after this offering.

The foregoing tables and calculations (other than the historical net tangible book value calculation) are based on the our Class A common stock and Class B common stock that will be outstanding after this offering is based on 43,155,832 shares of our Class A common stock (including our redeemable convertible preferred stock on an as-converted basis) and 10,885,916 shares of our Class B common stock outstanding as of September 30, 2020, which reflects the Warrant Net Issuance, and excludes:

 

   

7,494,365 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of options outstanding as of September 30, 2020 under our 2010 Stock Plan, with a weighted-average exercise price of approximately $2.34 per share;

 

   

2,855,590 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs for which the service condition was satisfied as of September 30, 2020, and for which we expect the liquidity condition to be satisfied in connection with this offering;

 

   

2,167,926 shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were outstanding as of September 30, 2020 for which the service condition was not satisfied as of September 30, 2020;

 

   

             shares of our Class B common stock subject to RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 to Mr. Szulczewski pursuant to the CEO Performance Award, and vest upon the satisfaction of a service condition and achievement of certain stock price goals;

 

   

             shares of our Class B common stock issuable under RSUs that were granted after September 30, 2020 (not including the CEO Performance Award);

 

   

55,000 shares of our Class B common stock issuable upon exercise of a warrant at an exercise price of $1.49 per share; and

 

   

4,545,353 shares of our common stock reserved for issuance under our equity compensation plans, consisting of:

 

   

3,600,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan,

 

   

195,353 shares of our Class B common stock reserved for issuance under our 2010 Stock Plan as of September 30, 2020, which will become available for issuance under our 2020 Equity Incentive Plan on the date of this prospectus, and

 

   

750,000 shares of our Class A common stock that will be reserved for issuance under our 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

To the extent that any outstanding options or warrants are exercised, outstanding RSUs settle, new options or RSUs are issued under our stock-based compensation plans, or we issue additional shares of common stock in the future, there will be further dilution to investors participating in this offering. If we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the issuance of these securities could result in further dilution to our stockholders.

 

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SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL AND OTHER DATA

The following tables show selected consolidated financial data. The selected consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2018, and 2019, and the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2018 and 2019 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. The selected consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2016 and the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements that are not included in this prospectus. The selected consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of September 30, 2020 are derived from our unaudited interim consolidated financial statements that are included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have prepared the unaudited interim consolidated financial statements on the same basis as the audited consolidated financial statements. We have included, in our opinion, all adjustments necessary to state fairly our financial position as of September 30, 2020 and the results of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of our results of operations to be expected for any future period and the results of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2020 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the year ending December 31, 2020 or any other future period. The following tables also show certain operational and non-GAAP financial measures. See the accompanying footnotes and “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for more information. Our historical results and key metrics are not necessarily indicative of future results.

The following selected consolidated financial data and key metrics should be read together with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.

 

    Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
    2015(3)     2016(3)     2017(3)     2018(3)     2019(3)     2019(3)     2020(3)  
    (in millions, except share and per share data)  

Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data:

 

Revenue

  $ 144     $ 445     $ 1,101     $ 1,728     $ 1,901     $ 1,325     $ 1,747  

Cost of revenue(1)

    78       131       205       278       443       255       605  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Gross profit

    66       314       896       1,450       1,458       1,070       1,142  

Operating expenses:(1)

             

Sales and marketing

    560       428       989       1,576       1,463       995       1,125  

Product development

    6       10       28       45       74       52       72  

General and administrative

    22       17       26       52       65       47       65  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

    588       455       1,043       1,673       1,602       1,094       1,262  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

    (522     (141     (147     (223     (144     (24     (120

 

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    Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
    2015(3)     2016(3)     2017(3)     2018(3)     2019(3)     2019(3)     2020(3)  
    (in millions, except share and per share data)  

Other income (expense), net:

             

Interest and other income (expense), net

    (5     (5     10       15       19       16        

Remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

    (10     (5     (70           (3     3       (55
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss before provision for income taxes

    (537     (151     (207     (208     (128     (5     (175

Provision for income taxes

                            1             1  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

    (537     (151     (207     (208     (129     (5     (176

Deemed dividend to redeemable convertible preferred stockholders

                (40           (7     (7      
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss attributable to common stockholders

  $ (537   $ (151   $ (247   $ (208   $ (136   $ (12   $ (176
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted(2)

  $ (56.10   $ (15.48   $ (24.60   $ (20.20   $ (13.07   $ (1.15   $ (16.46
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares used in computing net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted(2)

    9,571,398       9,753,940       10,038,841       10,296,604       10,404,562       10,417,444       10,693,561  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited)(2)

          $                         $                    
         

 

 

     

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares used in computing pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited)(2)

             
         

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

(1)

Cost of revenue and operating expenses include stock-based compensation expense of $19 million, $7 million, $8 million, $2 million, $2 million, $2 million, and $9 million for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Following this offering, our future operating expenses, particularly in the quarter in which this offering is completed, will include substantial stock-based compensation expense with respect to our RSUs as well as any other stock-based awards we may grant in the future.

 

(2)

See Note 11 and Note 12 of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for a description of how we compute basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders and pro forma basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders.

 

(3)

On January 1, 2018, we adopted Topic 606, on a modified retrospective basis. Accordingly, our audited consolidated financial statements for 2018 were adjusted to conform to Topic 606 and our consolidated financial statements for 2019, and unaudited consolidated financial statements for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020 were reported under Topic 606. Our audited consolidated financial statements for 2015, 2016, and 2017 were reported under Topic 605. See Note 2 of the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

 

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     As of December 31,      As of
September 30,
 
     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019      2020  
     (in millions)  

Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:

  

Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities

   $ 359     $ 752     $ 1,122     $ 1,014     $ 1,078      $ 1,101  

Working capital

     57       289       352       134       134        55  

Total assets

     434       862       1,301       1,193       1,366        1,342  

Redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

     51       67       124       124       127        182  

Redeemable convertible preferred stock

     744       1,107       1,376       1,376       1,536        1,536  

Total stockholders’ deficit

     (692     (830     (1,076     (1,287     (1,439      (1,605

 

     Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019       2019         2020    
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Other Operational and Financial Data:

  

Monthly Active Users (“MAUs”)(1)

     21       30       49       73       90       81       108  

LTM Active Buyers(1)

     18       31       52       64       62       60       68  

Adjusted EBITDA(1)

   $ (502   $ (132   $ (135   $ (211   $ (127   $ (11   $ (99

Adjusted EBITDA Margin(1)

     (349 )%      (30 )%      (12 )%      (12 )%      (7 )%      (1 )%      (6 )% 

Free Cash Flow(1)

   $ (305   $ 15     $ 134     $ (114   $ (71   $ (50   $ 23  

 

(1)

See the section titled “—Other Financial Information and Data” below for more information.

Other Financial Information and Data

In addition to the measures presented in our consolidated financial statements, we use the following key metrics and other financial information to measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, and make strategic decisions.

Monthly Active Users

We define MAUs as the number of unique users that visited the Wish platform, either on our mobile app, mobile web, or on a desktop, during the month.14 MAUs for a given reporting period equal the average of the MAUs for that period. An active user is identified by a unique email-address; a single person can have multiple user accounts via multiple email addresses. The change in MAUs in a reported period captures both the inflow of new users as well as the outflow of existing users who did not visit the platform in a given month. We view the number of MAUs as key driver of revenue growth as well as a key indicator of user engagement and awareness of our brand.

LTM Active Buyers

As of the last date of each reported period, we determine our number of unique active buyers by counting the total number of individual users who have placed at least one order on the Wish platform, either on our mobile app, mobile web, or on desktop, during the preceding 12 months. We, however, exclude from the computation those buyers whose order is cancelled before the item is shipped and the purchase price is refunded. The number of Active Buyers is an indicator of our ability to attract and monetize a large user base to our platform and of our ability to convert visits into purchases. We believe that increasing our Active Buyers will be a significant driver to our future revenue growth.

 

14 

Wish apps include Wish, Wish Local for Partner Stores, Geek, Home Design & Décor Shopping, Mama, and Cute.

 

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin

In this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents our net income (loss) before interest and other income (expense), net (which includes foreign exchange gain or loss and gain or loss on one time transactions recognized), income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization, adjusted to eliminate stock-based compensation expense and remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability, and to add back certain recurring other items. Additionally, in this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA Margin, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue. Below is a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure.

We have included Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin in this prospectus because they are key measures used by our management and board of directors to understand and evaluate our operating performance and trends and how we are allocating internal resources, to prepare and approve our annual budget and to develop short- and long-term operating plans. We also believe that the exclusion of certain items in calculating Adjusted EBITDA can provide a useful measure for period-to-period comparisons of our business as it removes the impact of non-cash items and certain variable charges.

Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical measure, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

 

   

although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated and amortized may have to be replaced in the future, and Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect cash capital expenditure requirements for such replacements or for new capital expenditure requirements;

 

   

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs;

 

   

Adjusted EBITDA does not consider the potentially dilutive impact of stock-based compensation;

 

   

Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect tax payments that may represent a reduction in cash available to us; and

 

   

other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate Adjusted EBITDA differently, which reduces its usefulness as a comparative measure.

Because of these limitations, you should consider Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin alongside other financial performance measures, including various cash flow metrics, net income (loss) and our other GAAP results.

 

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The following table reflects the reconciliation of net loss to Adjusted EBITDA and net loss as a percentage of revenue to Adjusted EBITDA margin for each of the periods indicated:

 

     Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months
Ended
September 30,
 
     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019     2019     2020  
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Revenue

   $ 144     $ 445     $ 1,101     $ 1,728     $ 1,901     $ 1,325     $ 1,747  

Net loss

     (537     (151     (207     (208     (129     (5     (176

Net loss as a percentage of revenue

     (373 )%      (34 )%      (19 )%      (12 )%      (7 )%      (0 )%      (10 )% 

Excluding:

              

Interest and other income (expense), net

     5       5       (10     (15     (19     (16      

Provision for income taxes

                             1             1  

Depreciation and amortization

     1       2       4       8       10       7       9  

Stock-based compensation expense

     19       7       8       2       2       2       9  

Remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability

     10       5       70             3       (3     55  

Recurring other items

                       2       5       4       3  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Adjusted EBITDA

   $ (502   $ (132   $ (135   $ (211   $ (127   $ (11   $ (99
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Adjusted EBITDA Margin

     (349 )%      (30 )%      (12 )%      (12 )%      (7 )%      (1 )%      (6 )% 
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods presented:

 

     Year Ended December 31,      Nine Months
Ended
September 30,
 
     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019      2019     2020  
     (in millions)  

Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities

   $ (298   $ 21     $ 146     $ (94   $ (60    $ (44     24  

Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities

     (113     (23     (192     (16     (40      (23     77  

Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities

     508       379       212       (5     132        132       (1

Free Cash Flow

In this prospectus, we also provide Free Cash Flow, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents net cash provided by (used in) operating activities less purchases of property and equipment. We believe that Free Cash Flow is an important measure since we use third parties to host our services and therefore we do not incur significant capital expenditures to support revenue generating activities.

Free cash flow has limitations as an analytical measure, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

 

   

it is not a substitute for net cash provided by (used in) operating activities;

 

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other companies may calculate free cash flow or similarly titled non-GAAP measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of free cash flow as a tool for comparison; and

 

   

the utility of free cash flow is further limited as it does not reflect our future contractual commitments and does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for any given period.

Because of these limitations, you should consider Free Cash Flow alongside other financial performance measures, such as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, net income (loss) and our other GAAP results.

The following table reflects the reconciliation of net cash provided by (used in) operating activities to Free Cash Flow for each of the periods indicated:

 

     Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months
Ended
September 30,
 
     2015     2016      2017      2018     2019     2019     2020  
     (in millions)  

Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities

   $ (298   $ 21      $ 146      $ (94   $ (60   $ (44   $ 24  

Less:

                

Purchases of property and equipment

     7       6        12        20       11       6       1  
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Free Cash Flow

   $ (305   $ 15      $ 134      $ (114   $ (71   $ (50   $ 23  
  

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL

CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with the section titled “Selected Consolidated Financial Data” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties about our business and operations. Our actual results and the timing of selected events may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those we describe under the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus.

Overview

We launched Wish with a simple mission—to bring an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping experience to billions of consumers around the world. Since our founding in 2010, we have become one of the largest and fastest growing global ecommerce platforms, connecting more than 100 million monthly active users in over 100 countries to over 500,000 merchants offering approximately 150 million items. Our platform combines technology and data science capabilities, an innovative and discovery-based mobile shopping experience, a comprehensive suite of indispensable merchant services, and a massive scale of users, merchants, and items. This combination has allowed us to become the most downloaded global shopping app for each of the last three years according to a report from Sensor Tower.15

We are revolutionizing mobile with a user experience that is mobile-first, discovery-based, deeply-personalized and entertaining. Over 90% of our user activity and purchases occur on our mobile app. Our data science capabilities allow us to mirror how consumers have shopped for decades in brick-and-mortar stores by offering a discovery-based shopping experience on a mobile device. Our highly-personalized product feed enables our users to discover products they want to purchase by simply scrolling through our mobile app and browsing. Over 70% of the sales on our platform do not involve a search query and instead come from personalized browsing. Wish users engage with our app in a similar manner to how they engage with social media; scrolling through image-rich, highly-engaging, and interactive content. To enhance user engagement, we incorporate fresh gamified features, rich user-generated content including photos, videos, and reviews, and a wide range of relevant products to make shopping more entertaining. Our differentiated user experience has driven superior engagement with Wish users spending on average over nine minutes per day on our platform during the twelve months ended September 30, 2020.

We also built Wish to empower merchants around the world. We define a merchant as of a particular date as a unique merchant account on our platform. Today, most of our merchants are based in China. We initially grew our platform focusing on merchants in China, the world’s largest exporter of goods for the last decade,16 due to these merchants’ strength in selling quality products at competitive prices. We continue to expand our merchant base around the world. The number of merchants on our platform in North America, Europe, and Latin America has grown approximately 234% since 2019. In particular, the number of merchants on our platform in the U.S. has grown approximately 268% since 2019. Through our diversified and global merchant base, we are able to offer greater depth and breadth of categories and products. We give our merchants immediate access to our global base of over 100 million monthly active users and a comprehensive suite of indispensable services, including demand generation and engagement, user-generated content creation, data intelligence, promotional and logistics capabilities, and business operations support, all in a cost-efficient manner.

 

15 

Sensor Tower, analysis of store intelligence platform data, November 2019.

16 

The World Factbook 2020. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2020.

 

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Local brick-and-mortar stores worldwide are struggling to attract consumers and compete in a retail world being transformed by ecommerce and industry consolidation. We launched Wish Local in 2019 to help these merchants increase their online reach and discovery, gain foot traffic, and drive additional sales. Today, we have almost 50,000 Wish Local partners in 50 countries. Over 40% of these merchants have signed up to our Sell on Wish feature to upload their in-store inventory on Wish for local pick-up or delivery. Our Wish Local partners also serve as Wish Pickup locations for online Wish orders, which effectively gives us a local warehousing and fulfillment footprint around the world without owning any real estate.

Our data science capabilities provide us with a unique competitive advantage and are core to our business operations. We collect, analyze, and utilize data across over 100 million monthly active users, over 500,000 merchants, and approximately 1.8 million items sold per day to improve the shopping experience for users and the selling experience for merchants. Our proprietary algorithms analyze a rich and growing data set of transactions and historical behaviors of both users and merchants to drive continuous optimization on the platform and inform key business decisions on a daily basis. Our data science enables personalization at the individual user level at a massive scale and drives significant advantages across all aspects of our business operations, including user acquisition, user experience, pricing strategies, user-generated content, merchant insights, and user and merchant support. For example, our user acquisition strategies utilize our data science capabilities to make decisions on what to show to whom, when, and through which acquisition channel, with a focus on maximizing our return on marketing investment and user conversion. We also leverage our data and unique insights to extend our platform outside of our core business and drive additional growth opportunities, including new services to merchants and new categories for users.

Our proprietary data and technology also fuel our powerful network effects. As Wish grows, we accumulate more data across user and merchant activities, we strengthen our data advantage, and we create an even better experience for everyone on our platform, which in turn attracts more users and merchants. As more users come to Wish, driven by the affordable value proposition and differentiated shopping experience, we drive more sales to our merchants. Adding more users also reinforces our user-generated feedback loop of ratings, reviews, photos, and videos, which drives greater user engagement. As more merchants succeed on Wish, more merchants join the platform to grow their businesses, broadening our product selection, which in turn improves the user experience. This flywheel effect has driven tremendous value to both users and merchants and has made Wish one of the largest ecommerce marketplaces in the world.

We have experienced substantial growth since our founding in 2010. We grew our revenue from $1.1 billion in 2017 to $1.9 billion in 2019 at a compound annual growth rate of 31% and from $1.3 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 to $1.7 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, an increase of 32%. Our revenue is diversified and global. In 2019, 93% of our revenue was from marketplace services, 84% of which was from core marketplace revenue and 16% of which was from our native advertising tool, ProductBoost, and 7% was from logistics services. ProductBoost is an advertising feature by which our merchants can promote their listings within user feeds. For the nine months ended September 30, 2020, 82% of our revenue was from marketplace services, 90% of which was from core marketplace revenue and 10% of which was from ProductBoost, and 18% was from logistics services. In terms of geographic diversification by users, for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, 43% of our core marketplace revenue came from Europe, 42% from North America, 5% from South America, and 10% from the rest of the world. Our growth has been highly capital efficient. We have been able to achieve this massive growth and scale by having net cumulative cash flow from operations of $16 million from January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2020, aided by our positive cash float, where we receive an upfront payment from a user, and remit payment to a merchant a number of weeks later. In 2019, we generated a net loss of $129 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(127) million, compared to a net loss of $208 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(211) million in 2018, and a net loss of $207 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(135) million in 2017. For the nine months ended September 30, 2020, we generated a net loss of $176 million and

 

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Adjusted EBITDA of $(99) million, compared to a net loss of $5 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $(11) million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Key Milestones

 

LOGO

 

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LOGO

Since our founding in 2010, we have scaled our marketplace connecting millions of users with our merchants, improved monetization of our platform, and made substantial investments to further extend our platform to new services, channels, and categories.

Scaling Marketplace

In 2015 and 2016, we focused on scaling our marketplace and building an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping platform.

 

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On the consumer platform:

 

   

We utilized our data science capabilities to acquire users worldwide and grew our monthly active user base to approximately 49 million by 2017.

 

   

In 2015, we launched Blitz Buy, one of our first gamified features on the platform, which offers users once-a-day sales on a selection of extra discounted products. In 2016, we began to introduce on a limited basis, first-party sales, where we source and procure merchandise to sell on our own behalf.

 

   

On the merchant platform:

 

   

To supplement our merchant dashboard and data insights, we introduced additional features on our platform to help our merchants increase user exposure. We launched Wish Express, which helps merchants increase impressions to users who want faster delivery by designating certain eligible products as “Wish Express.” We also launched ProductBoost, a native advertising tool that allows merchants to pay a fee to move their products higher up within the product rankings.

Improving Monetization

Starting in 2017, we increased our focus on further improving engagement and monetization of our users and merchants.

 

   

On the consumer platform:

 

   

In 2017, we began to deploy dynamic pricing at scale, which utilizes our rich data set to instantly adjust prices across products to optimize user conversion as well as increase our margin.

 

   

In 2018, we diversified our marketing efforts to include sports partnerships, TV campaigns, and our Wish Stars program. These additional marketing programs enabled us to acquire more users in a cost-efficient manner.

 

   

On the merchant platform:

 

   

Throughout 2017 and 2018, we continued to expand our merchant base globally.

 

   

In 2018, to serve our merchants’ different advertising needs, we introduced, as part of our ProductBoost offerings, MaxBoost, which enables additional product impressions outside of Wish including on social media platforms, and IntenseBoost, which provides increased product impressions in a shorter period of time.

 

   

In 2018, we launched our logistics platform that includes a number of proprietary logistics service programs aimed at reducing cost and operational friction associated with cross-border fulfillment for our merchant base.

 

   

In 2018, we launched the early payment program to accelerate payment to select qualified merchants and aid their working capital management.

Extending Platform

Since 2019, we have continued to develop new services that improve the Wish user experience by continuing to offer an affordable and entertaining mobile shopping platform as well as helping our merchants succeed and grow their businesses.

 

   

On the consumer platform:

 

   

In 2019, we began to offer affordable brands and off-price branded inventory to provide our users with a larger selection of products.

 

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In 2019, we launched Limited Quantity Deals (“LQD”) which price higher cost items at under a dollar for a limited time only. Only one user can win the LQD, and this gamified experience drives higher engagement and overall spend on our platform.

 

   

In 2019, we launched Pay Later program where users can defer payment for up to 30 days.

 

   

On the merchant platform:

 

   

In 2019, we continued to grow and diversify our merchant base.

 

   

In 2019, in response to certain expected changes to the Universal Postal Union Treaty and overall increasing logistics costs globally, particularly costs related to ChinaPost services, we have invested in new logistics offerings and related technology and data science to further diversify our logistics operations. The percentage of packages shipped through our proprietary logistics platform has grown substantially from 0% in 2016 to over 90% in September 2020. Of this volume, we perform all logistic services on behalf of our merchants for approximately 50% of the packages. For the remaining 50%, merchants can choose the carrier and the desired service level based on what is available on our logistics platform. As a result, we also grew our logistics revenue from over $6 million in 2018 to approximately $607 million on an annual run-rate basis based on the three months ended September 30, 2020.

 

   

In 2019, we launched Wish Local to help local brick-and-mortar stores reach our massive user base, leverage our technology platform and digitize their storefronts. We have since grown our Wish Local program to almost 50,000 stores in 50 countries.

 

   

In 2019, we launched our tax engine that assists merchants with local tax requirements compliance.

Our Financial Model

Our business benefits from powerful network effects, fueled by our data advantage and massive scale. As more users join Wish, attracted by our affordable value proposition and shopping experience, we are able to increase revenue potential for our merchants. As more merchants succeed on Wish, more merchants join the platform and grow their businesses with Wish, broadening our product selection, which in turn improves user experience. By developing a strategy focused on users and merchants, we align user and merchant success with the success of our financial model. The growth in users and merchants generates more data, further strengthens our data advantage and creates an even better experience for everyone on our platform, in turn attracting more users and high-quality merchants.

Our model relies on cost-effectively adding new users, converting those users into buyers and improving engagement and monetization of those buyers on Wish over time as well as adding new merchants, delivering economic success for those merchants, and having those merchants use more of our end-to-end platform.

The following are key elements of our financial model that drive our growth:

 

   

Increase the scale and growth of our user and buyer base.    Attracting and engaging users have been our key areas of focus since our founding. We measure our effectiveness in attracting and engaging users through metrics such as our MAUs, which increased over 33% from the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and to the nine months ended September 30, 2020, as well as the average minutes spent per visit by user. These increases have primarily been driven by the growing popularity and recognition of our brand and platform, the user

 

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preferences for our differentiated mobile shopping experience, wide selection of attractively priced products, and the success of our promotional and marketing campaigns. This growth has contributed to making Wish the most downloaded global shopping app for each of the last three years according to a report from Sensor Tower.17 As a result, we have experienced significant revenue growth in recent periods. We will need to continue to invest in our marketing efforts to attract additional users and buyers and to enhance our brand and drive user engagement, and over time we will need to do this cost-effectively in order to achieve profitability.

 

   

Invest in our sales and marketing engine.    We have made significant investments in our data science which underpins all aspects of our operations including marketing and user acquisition. By leveraging our unique and scaled data set and algorithms, our goal is to execute cost-effective and successful digital marketing strategies to acquire new users and re-engage existing users on the Wish platform. We consider our user acquisition expertise a strong competitive advantage and have invested in this capability over time to continue to drive user and revenue growth. We will need to continue to invest in our marketing efforts to attract new users and increase user engagement.

 

   

Increase the lifetime value of our users.    Our ability to successfully drive improvements in user engagement and monetization on the Wish platform will be an important driver in expanding the lifetime value of our users and allow us to achieve profitability. We utilize data science to estimate lifetime value of users and accordingly adjust our user acquisition strategies to maximize our return on marketing investment. We also deploy dynamic pricing to drive effective monetization of our user base. Dynamic pricing utilizes our data to instantly adjust prices across products to optimize user conversion and has increased our margins.

 

   

Continue to grow and diversify our merchant base and product categories.    As of September 30, 2020, we had over 500,000 merchants on our platform. While most of our merchants today are based in China and sell unbranded goods, we plan to continue to grow our merchant base globally and diversify our product categories. While we initially grew our platform focusing on merchants in China due to their production strength, we have since started to diversify our merchant base around the world; the number of merchants on our platform in North America, Europe, and Latin America has grown approximately 234% since 2019. We believe the increase in the number and the diversity of merchants leads to more competitive pricing and broader product categories, which will in turn help us attract more users, generating powerful network effects.

 

   

Continue to innovate and expand our platform.    We generate revenue primarily from commissions earned on the sales by our merchants on the Wish marketplace, as well as from fees from offering our logistics platform to our merchants. We aim to enhance the value of our platform by broadening our marketplace service offerings, expanding the size and engagement of our user base, and improving data insights and services available to our merchants across digital marketing, payments, logistics, user support, and operations. We believe that expanding our platform will attract more merchants to Wish and drive our revenue.

In recent periods, our logistics and advertising offerings provided critical capabilities to our merchants to improve their operations and sales, which has driven their success on Wish and in turn, our growth. We have been able to drive strong adoption of these merchant offerings and intend to continue to invest to increase this adoption. For example, approximately 30% of our merchants have utilized ProductBoost in 2020 to date. This has enabled our logistics and advertising to reach approximately $607 million and $196 million, respectively, on an annual run-rate basis based on the three months ended September 30, 2020. We aim to continue to expand our platform so that we can grow and diversify our future revenue streams.

 

17 

Sensor Tower, analysis of store intelligence platform data, November 2019.

 

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Our ability to manage our costs by leveraging the scale of our business.    Our results of operations depend on our ability to manage our costs. While we expect our costs to increase as we grow our business, we do not expect our costs to grow at the same pace as our revenue because we do not require a proportional increase in the size of our workforce and infrastructure to support our revenue growth. This operating leverage resulted in revenue per employee of $2.8 million for the twelve months ended September 30, 2020, which has increased from $2.6 million in 2017. We believe that our platform model has significant operating leverage and enables us to realize structural cost savings.

As we focused on driving the growth of our marketplace, we invested significantly in marketing activities to target and acquire users we believe will have a high propensity to transact on our platform, and promote our brand and our platform. Our sales and marketing expenses were $1.0 billion in 2017, $1.6 billion in 2018, and $1.5 billion in 2019, representing 90%, 91%, and 78% of revenue, respectively, and $1.0 billion and $1.1 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2020, representing 75% and 64% of revenue, respectively. While our sales and marketing expenses comprises the majority of our operating expenses, we have the flexibility to scale them up or down on a daily basis depending on the unit economics of the users. These marketing spend decisions are informed by deep data science optimized to maximize return. We anticipate that sales and marketing expenses will continue to be our most significant operating expense in the future and our overall profitability will depend on the success of our investments in sales and marketing.

Our data-driven sales and marketing strategy and lean and highly-efficient operations have allowed us to reduce our net losses from $207 million in 2017 compared to $129 million in 2019. As our business continues to grow, we believe we will be able to take advantage of economies of scale to further improve our operational efficiency.

 

   

Capital efficiency of our business model.    We operate an asset-light business model and have achieved substantial revenue growth with limited capital requirements. Our business model enables us to avoid the costs, risks and capital requirements associated with sourcing merchandise or holding inventory. As a result, our growth has been highly capital efficient. We have been able to achieve this massive growth and scale by having net cumulative cash flow from operations of $16 million from January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2020, aided by our positive cash float.

 

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Other Financial Information and Data

In addition to the measures presented in our consolidated financial statements, we use the following key metrics and other financial information to measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, and make strategic decisions.

 

     Year Ended December 31,     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
     2015     2016     2017     2018     2019     2019     2020  
     (in millions, except percentages)  

MAU

     21       30       49       73       90       81       108  

LTM Active Buyers…

     18       31       52       64       62       60       68  

Adjusted EBITDA…

   $ (502   $ (132   $ (135   $ (211   $ (127   $ (11   $ (99

Adjusted EBITDA Margin…

     (349 )%      (30 )%      (12 )%      (12 )%      (7 )%      (1 )%      (6 )% 

Free Cash Flow…

   $ (305   $ 15     $ 134     $ (114   $ (71   $ (50   $ 23  

Monthly Active Users

We define MAUs as the number of unique users that visited the Wish platform, either on our mobile app, mobile web, or on a desktop, during the month.18 MAUs for a given reporting period equal the average of the MAUs for that period. An active user is identified by a unique email-address; a single person can have multiple user accounts via multiple email addresses. The change in MAUs in a reported period captures both the inflow of new users as well as the outflow of existing users who did not visit the platform in a given month. We view the number of MAUs as key driver of revenue growth as well as a key indicator of user engagement and awareness of our brand.

LTM Active Buyers

As of the last date of each reported period, we determine our number of unique active buyers by counting the total number of individual users who have placed at least one order on the Wish platform, either on our mobile app, mobile web, or on a desktop, during the preceding 12 months. We, however, exclude from the computation those buyers whose order is cancelled before the item is shipped and the purchase price is refunded. The number of Active Buyers is an indicator of our ability to attract and monetize a large user base to our platform and of our ability to convert visits into purchases. We believe that increasing our Active Buyers will be a significant driver to our future revenue growth.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin

In this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents our net income (loss) before interest and other income (expense), net (which includes foreign exchange gain or loss and gain or loss on one time transactions recognized), income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization, adjusted to eliminate stock-based compensation expense and remeasurement of redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability, and to add back certain recurring other items. Additionally, in this prospectus, we provide Adjusted EBITDA Margin, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

 

18 

Wish apps include Wish, Wish Local for Partner Stores, Geek, Home Design & Décor Shopping, Mama, and Cute.

 

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Free Cash Flow

In this prospectus, we also provide Free Cash Flow, a non-GAAP financial measure that represents net cash provided by (used in) operating activities less purchases of property and equipment. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for more information and for a reconciliation of Free Cash Flow to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Key Factors Affecting our Performance

We believe that our performance and future success depend on a number of factors that present significant opportunities for us but also pose risks and challenges, including those discussed below and in the section titled “Risk Factors.”

Buyer Lifetime Value and Buyer Acquisition Cost Efficiency

Our success relies in part on our ability to engage users and convert them to buyers, while simultaneously optimizing our efficiency and marketing spend and efforts. Failure to effectively engage users and convert them to buyers on a cost-effective basis would adversely affect our revenue growth and operating results.

We are intently focused on optimizing the lifetime value (“LTV”) of our buyers and we seek to improve the ratio of LTV to buyer acquisition cost (“BAC”) in an effort to optimize the efficiency of our marketing spend.

We define LTV per buyer as the cumulative gross profit over a period of time attributable to new buyers acquired during a particular year (a “cohort”) divided by the total number of new buyers acquired in that cohort. We define BAC as the total digital advertising expense targeting new installations of our app in a given period divided by the number of new buyers acquired during that same period.

We look at LTV per buyer to demonstrate the long-term value attributable to each buyer acquired. We see LTV of our buyers as an indicator of the success or challenges we have in engaging our buyers, and driving monetization on our platform over time. For every cohort in the chart below, expansion of LTV over time outpaces any attrition of buyers in that cohort as demonstrated by increasing LTV per buyer over time.

 

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Lifetime Value per Buyer by Cohort

 

LOGO

Our cohort analysis in the chart above also shows improving trends with our 2018 and 2019 cohorts exhibiting higher LTV per buyer in year 1 compared to our 2016 and 2017 cohorts. We believe this demonstrates both the improvement in our ability to leverage our platform, scale, and data science and the effectiveness of our strategy to invest in marketing to drive greater user engagement and quicker monetization on our platform.

In addition to LTV, we also focus on managing our new BAC and continuously improving the ratio of LTV to BAC. All of our annual cohorts since 2016 have achieved a BAC payback period of under two years, and our most mature of the cohorts disclosed – the 2016 cohort – has achieved a 2.8x LTV to BAC ratio by year 4. We are intently focused on managing our BAC and are using our data science capabilities to implement more efficient buyer acquisition strategies as we scale and target additional users and buyers in new geographies.

However, these positive trends in our LTV and BAC may not continue and may be negatively impacted by our inability to engage users and convert them to buyers.

Revenue from New Buyers and Existing Buyers

Our success also depends on our ability to increase engagement from existing buyers while simultaneously attracting and engaging new buyers. Therefore, we focus on increasing revenue from both new and existing buyers. If we are unable to increase engagement and revenue from existing buyers and attract new buyers to our platform, our revenue and results of operations will be negatively impacted.

We have been able to consistently grow revenue from both new and existing buyers. While we continue to acquire new buyers, the share of revenue from existing buyers has also increased over

 

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time, indicating our ability to improve engagement and monetization of existing buyers. Existing buyers generated 69% of revenue in the last twelve months (“LTM”) ended September 30, 2020, up from 57% in the last twelve months ended March 31, 2017. The figures below represent our revenue from new and existing buyers for the last twelve months ended March 31, 2017, March 31, 2018, March 31, 2019, and September 30, 2020. However, these positive trends in revenue from new buyers and existing buyers may not continue and may be negatively impacted by our inability to continue to increase engagement from existing buyers and attract and engage new buyers.

LTM Revenue from New and Existing Buyers ($ billion)

 

LOGO

Average Revenue per Active Buyer

Our success also relies on our ability to continue to improve our platform and maintain and increase engagement from our active buyers. Therefore, we use average revenue per active buyer in a given cohort as an indicator of the level of engagement, the success of our discovery-based and personalized user experience, the quality of our products listed, and the overall scale and growth of our business. If we are unable to improve our platform, including, among other things, creating a positive user experience, ensuring that quality products are listed for sale, and otherwise increasing or maintaining engagement, then average revenue per active buyer may decline, which could lead to decreased revenue, which would have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

For our 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts, the average revenue per active buyer has increased consistently year over year, highlighting that as buyers stay longer on our platform, their spend per year also increases. Additionally, the average revenue per active buyer in year 1, year 2, and year 3, as applicable, increases with each of these cohorts, demonstrating that newer cohorts of buyers have on average exhibited higher levels of engagement and spending in their initial year and increased spend on our platform faster year over year.

However, these positive trends in our average revenue from active buyers may not continue and may be negatively impacted by our inability to improve our platform and maintain and increase engagement from our active buyers.

 

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Average Revenue per Active Buyer per Cohort

 

LOGO

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

Our revenue consists of marketplace and logistics revenue.

Marketplace revenue:    We provide a mix of marketplace services to merchants. We provide merchants access to our marketplace where merchants display and sell their products to users. We also provide ProductBoost services to help merchants promote their products within our marketplace. Marketplace revenue includes commission fees collected in connection with user purchases of the merchants’ products. The commission fees vary depending on factors such as user location, demand, product type, and dynamic pricing. We recognize revenue when a user’s order is processed and the related order information has been made available to the merchant. Commission fees are recognized net of estimated refunds and chargebacks. Marketplace revenue also includes ProductBoost fees for displaying a merchant’s selected products in preferential locations within our marketplace. We recognize revenue when the merchants’ selected products are displayed. We refer to our marketplace revenue, excluding ProductBoost revenue, as our core marketplace revenue.

 

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Logistics revenue:    Our logistics offering for merchants, introduced in 2018, is designed for direct end-to-end single order shipment from a merchant’s location to the user. Logistics services include transportation and delivery of the merchant’s products to the user. Merchants are required to prepay for logistics services on a per order basis.

We recognize revenue over time as the merchant simultaneously receives and consumes the logistics services benefit as the services are performed. We use an output method of progress based on days in transit as it best depicts our progress toward complete satisfaction of the performance obligation.

Cost of Revenue and Operating Expenses

Cost of revenue.    Cost of revenue includes colocation and data center charges, interchange and other fees for credit card processing services, fraud and chargeback prevention service charges, costs of refunds and chargebacks made to our users that we are not able to collect from our merchants, depreciation and amortization of property and equipment, shipping charges, tracking costs, warehouse fees, and employee-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation expense for our infrastructure, merchant support, and logistics personnel. Cost of revenue also includes an allocation of general IT and facilities overhead expenses.

Sales and marketing.    Our sales and marketing expenses are primarily driven by the cost of acquiring and engaging users by targeting social media and search engine digital advertisements, outsourced user support services, sponsorships and local marketing campaigns, and employee-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation, for our employees involved in marketing, user support, and business development functions. Sales and marketing spend also includes an allocation of general IT and facilities overhead expenses as well as business development expenses for attracting merchants and conducting ongoing merchant education. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of our revenue over the long term, although our expenses may fluctuate from period to period due to the timing of expenses related to our sales and marketing campaigns.

Product development.    Our product development expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation for our engineers and other employees involved in product development activities. Product development costs have historically been expensed as incurred. Product development costs also include the cost of IT used by the product development team as well as an allocation of general IT and facilities overhead expenses. We expect our product development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we continue to invest in the development of our marketplace and merchant offerings.

General and administrative.    Our general and administrative expenses consist primarily of employee-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation for our executives, finance, legal, information technology, human resources, and other administrative teams. General and administrative expenses also include outside consulting, legal, tax, and accounting services, and facilities and other supporting overhead costs. We expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars for the foreseeable future as we continue to invest in our corporate infrastructure to support our revenue growth. Further, we expect to incur additional general and administrative expenses in connection with our becoming a public company.

Remeasurement of Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock Warrant Liability

Remeasurement of our redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability is as a result of the change to the underlying redeemable convertible preferred stock value at the end of each reporting period. After the date of this offering, we will no longer incur expenses related to the change in fair value of our redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant liability.

 

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Interest and Other Income (expense), net

Interest and other income (expense), net consists primarily of interest income earned on our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, interest expense and foreign exchange gain or loss.

Income Tax

Income taxes consist primarily of income taxes in certain U.S. state and foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct business. As we have expanded our global operations, we have incurred increased foreign tax expense and we expect this to continue.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. In an effort to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, many countries, as well as many states within the United States, have imposed unprecedented restrictions on travel and business operations, and there have been business closures and a substantial reduction in economic activity in countries that have had significant outbreaks of COVID-19. As a result, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global disruptions have affected our business, as well as our users and third-party merchants.

To provide additional information on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, we have included below the quarterly revenue from the first quarter through the third quarter of 2020, as well as year-over-year comparisons.

 

     Q1 2020     Q2 2020     Q3 2020  
     (in millions, except
percentages)
 

Core marketplace revenue

   $ 340     $ 555     $ 405  

Increase (Decrease) %

     (8 )%      67     17

ProductBoost revenue

   $ 44     $ 45     $ 49  

Increase (Decrease) %

     (34 )%      (36 )%      (32 )% 

Marketplace revenue

   $ 384     $ 600     $ 454  

Increase (Decrease) %

     (12 )%      49     9

Logistics revenue

   $ 56     $ 101     $ 152  

Increase (Decrease) %

     367     461     311

Revenue

   $ 440     $ 701     $ 606  

Increase (Decrease) %

     (2 )%      67     33

Core Marketplace Revenue

Our core marketplace revenue declined by 8% on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter of 2020. In January and February of 2020, businesses across China were impacted by the initial outbreak of COVID-19 before the virus spread globally, and many businesses shut down due to nation-wide lockdowns. This affected many of our China-based merchants who experienced severe manufacturing and supply disruptions in the first quarter. China represents the majority of our merchant base today, and as a result, we saw a reduction in the number of merchants selling and the number of products available for sale on our platform.

The second quarter of 2020 showed strong recovery with core marketplace revenue growing at 67% year-over-year as our China-based merchants recovered due to the reopening of the economy in China. We also benefited from increasing consumer demand globally driven by greater mobile usage, online shopping, and less competition from physical retail as a result of shelter-in-place mandates in various countries. In the United States, we also experienced increased buyer spending due to U.S. government stimulus programs that were implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While

 

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manufacturing and supply capacity had recovered in China, we experienced severe disruptions in the global logistics network that affected delivery times to our buyers around the world. We temporarily shifted from air freight to ocean transport, which increased delivery times. However, the impact of challenging global logistics and longer delivery times was more than offset by the increase in consumer demand.

In the third quarter of 2020, our core marketplace revenue growth moderated to 17% year-over-year, largely due to the extended delivery times in the second quarter and early part of the third quarter as we continued to experience COVID-19 related disruption in the global logistics network. These longer delivery times, particularly severe in the second quarter, impacted buyer engagement and retention on our platform in the third quarter and led to a lower conversion of monthly active users into buyers compared to the second quarter of 2020. The consumer demand for online shopping also declined from the peak levels of the second quarter with fewer shelter-in-place mandates and more physical retail reopenings around the world.

We believe that our continued investments in expanding our logistics platform will have a long term positive impact on our user experience by offering a combination of low delivery times and door to door tracking, leading to improvements in buyer retention and MAU to buyer conversion.

ProductBoost Revenue

Our ProductBoost revenue declined by 34% year-over-year in the nine months ended September 30, 2020. In the first quarter of 2020, during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China, our merchants’ advertising activities declined materially due to the shutdown of business activity in China. In the second quarter of 2020, because consumer demand increased significantly on our platform for the reasons stated above, many merchants did not see the need to pay for advertising like they did in the past because they experienced very robust consumer demand without incremental advertising spend. In the third quarter of 2020, we saw modest month-over-month increases in ProductBoost revenue as countries reopened and many merchants began to resume normalized business activities including marketing.

Logistics Revenue

Logistics revenue experienced consistent robust growth in 2020 as we continued to expand our logistics offerings around the world and more of our merchants adopted our logistics programs. In July 2020, in the United States, we launched our most comprehensive logistics offering, our A+ program, which manages first mile collection from merchants to warehousing operations all the way to last mile delivery to the buyer.

This expansion of our logistics platform globally has led to an improvement in delivery times towards the end of the third quarter of 2020. For example, we saw a reduction in the average “time-to-door” delivery in our key countries, a metric which looks at the average number of days that registered mail packages take between when the order is placed on our platform and when it is delivered to the buyer. For example, in the United States, the average “time-to-door” has changed from 27 days in the first quarter of 2020 to 62 days in the second quarter of 2020, and down to 22 days in the third quarter of 2020. The increase in “time-to-door” in the second quarter was due to the temporary use of ocean transport described above and the expansion of our logistics platform, which was still ongoing throughout the second quarter.

Moreover, the expansion of our logistics platform and the subsequent improvement in delivery times have lowered refund rates, which we believe is an indicator of improved buyer experience and satisfaction. Because our core marketplace revenue is recognized net of estimated refunds, changes in our refund rates also impact our core marketplace revenue. From March through September 2020, our estimated monthly refund rate decreased by more than 30%.

 

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Business Operations

To serve our users while also providing for the safety of our merchants and service providers, we have made numerous changes to aspects of our supply chain, purchasing, and third-party merchant processes.

We have implemented a number of measures to protect the health and safety of our workforce. These measures include substantial modifications to employee travel, employee work locations, and virtualization or cancellation of meetings, among other modifications. Currently, the vast majority of our employees are working remotely. For the employees who are in the office, we are following the guidance from public health officials and government agencies, including implementation of enhanced cleaning measures, social distancing guidelines and wearing of masks.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may impact our business will depend on future developments related to the geographic spread of the disease, the duration and severity of the outbreak, travel restrictions, required social distancing, governmental mandates, business closures or governmental or business disruptions, and the effectiveness of actions taken in the United States and other countries to prevent, contain and treat the virus and any additional government stimulus programs. These impacts are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. See the section titled “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business and Industry—The COVID-19 pandemic may adversely affect our business and results of operations.”

We continue to monitor the rapidly evolving situation and expect to continue to adapt our operations to address foreign, federal, state, and local standards as well as to implement standards or processes that we determine to be in the best interests of our employees, users, and merchants.

Comparison of Nine Months Ended September 30, 2019 and 2020

The following table summarizes our consolidated results of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2020:

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
    Change  
     2019     2020     $     %  
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Revenue

   $ 1,325     $ 1,747     $ 422       32  

Cost of revenue

     255       605       350       137  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

Gross profit

     1,070       1,142       72       7  

Operating expenses:

        

Sales and marketing

     995       1,125       130       13  

Product development

     52       72       20       38  

General and administrative

     47       65       18       38  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

Total operating expenses

     1,094       1,262       168       15  

Loss from operations

     (24     (120     (96     400  

Other income (expense), net

        

Interest and other income (expense), net

     16             (16     (100

Remeasurement of convertible preferred stock warrant liability

     3       (55     (58     n/m  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

Loss before provision for income taxes

     (5     (175     (170     n/m  

Provision for income taxes

           1       1       100  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

Net loss

   $ (5   $ (176   $ (171     n/m  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

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The following table presents the components of our consolidated statements of operations as a percentage of revenue:

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
 
     2019     2020  

Revenue

     100     100

Cost of revenue

     19       35  
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Gross profit

     81       65  

Operating expenses:

    

Sales and marketing

     75       64  

Product development

     4       4  

General and administrative

     4       4  
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

     83       72  

Loss from operations

     (2     (7

Other income (expense), net:

    

Interest and other income (expense), net

     1        

Remeasurement of convertible preferred stock warrant liability

           (3
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss before provision for income taxes

     (1     (10

Provision for income taxes

            
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss

     (1 )%      (10 )% 
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Revenue

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
     Change  
     2019      2020      $     %  
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Core marketplace revenue

   $ 1,049      $ 1,300      $ 251       24  

ProductBoost revenue

     209        138        (71     (34
  

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

Marketplace revenue

     1,258        1,438        180       14  
  

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

Logistics revenue

     67        309        242       361  
  

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

Revenue

   $ 1,325      $ 1,747      $ 422       32  
  

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

   

Revenue increased $422 million, or 32%, to $1,747 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020 as compared to $1,325 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. This increase was attributable to both increased marketplace and logistics revenue.

Marketplace revenue increased $180 million to $1,438 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, as compared to $1,258 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. This increase was due to improved monetization of buyers through increased dynamic pricing, and to a lesser extent, an increase in transaction volume. This increase was partially offset by a decrease in merchant utilization of our ProductBoost service, as the result of economic uncertainties related to the global pandemic.

Logistics revenue increased $242 million to $309 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, as compared to $67 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. This increase was primarily due to the continued expansion of our logistics offerings around the world and significant expansion of our A+ program to additional countries. Most notably, we launched our A+ program in the United States in July 2020.

 

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Table of Contents

Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
    Change  
       2019         2020       $      %  
     (in millions, except percentages)  

Cost of revenue

   $ 255     $ 605     $ 350        137

Percentage of revenue

     19     35     

Gross Margin

     81     65     

Cost of revenue increased $350 million, or 137%, to $605 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, as compared to $255 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019, primarily due to costs related to the increased volume of logistics services provided.

The gross margin decreased to 65% for the nine months ended September 30, 2020 from 81% for the nine months ended September 30, 2019, primarily due to costs related to the increased volume of logistics services provided.

Sales and Marketing

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
    Change  
       2019         2020       $      %  
     (in millions, except
percentages)
 

Sales and marketing

   $ 995     $ 1,125     $ 130        13

Percentage of revenue

     75     64     

Sales and marketing expense increased $130 million, or 13%, to $1,125 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, compared to $995 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019. The increase in sales and marketing expenses consisted primarily of an increase in advertising spend, as we re-focused on growth after we intentionally moderated user acquisition spend temporarily to focus on the launch of the logistics platform in the first half of 2019.

Product Development

 

     Nine Months Ended
September 30,
    Change