Wish, an entirely mobile shopping experience, is a fast-growing online marketplace for American brands and consumers. Founded in 2011, the site has grown to become the sixth-largest e-commerce company in the world. Its users are from over 30 countries and include some of the biggest brands in fashion, beauty, and music. Its monthly visitors are over 1.5 billion, and it has over 5 million active users.

Its success has drawn comparisons to the Heinz to Home DTC model, which has worried many retailers and wholesalers. The success of such digitally native brands in the United States has shown that they can compete with big-box retailers. By offering free delivery and other services, these marketplaces are competing directly with big-box retailing companies. And while traditional big-box retailers may be less likely to provide a good consumer experience, they are still in a great position to compete with these businesses.

The biggest challenges for emerging online marketplaces are the same. While the US market is dominated by the developed world, emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Australasia, and Middle East are growing rapidly. But these regions are typically not as large as the big four. While Southeast Asia and Southern and Middle Eastern economies have over 500 million monthly visits, Africa only has 52 million. In addition to that, these marketplaces are mobile-centric. For example, Flipkart recently introduced an app that forced users to download the app to use the site.

People always wonder what the antidote is to Amazon, an eCommerce empire that takes pride in ever-improving efficiency and using robots to replace humans. Maybe Poppy is our latest answer. Poppy is a fashion and lifestyle-focused marketplace. When you open the Poppy mobile app, which is the primary form of the user interface, you can explore thousands of unique brands with distinctive identities and various aesthetic choices. From indie yoga apparel brands to succulent gift boxes for birthdays, you can easily discover goodies to light up your day. 

There is no other inspirational marketplace quite like this. Poppy has nearly 100 million products curated from all indie brands all over the internet. It is more like a "Shoppable Pinterest" or mobile-friendly "Google Shopping". And it is an ever-growing platform with daily updates of 15,000 products.  So you may ask why we need another shopping platform like this? Why don't we just all stick to Amazon?

As a brand-first mobile marketplace, Poppy focuses on connecting American consumers and brands. The app enables shoppers to shop for a variety of products by browsing thousands of unique brands. In addition to allowing consumers to shop online, Poppy also provides a mobile application that helps retailers and consumers connect. With a brand-first mobile marketplace, the opportunity to connect with consumers and brands is unlimited.