Temu Is ‘Shopping Like a Billionaire’ for Ads. What Could Go Wrong?

(Bloomberg Opinion) — The business of selling cheap items online might prove to be just as short-lived as a polyester sweater from a fast fashion company.

After years of decline, ContextLogic Inc. announced this week that it sold the buzzworthy discount marketplace Wish to Qoo10 Pte. Ltd., an e-commerce platform serving Asia. Wish was let go for $173 million in cash — just a fraction of the fully diluted valuation of $14 billion it enjoyed at the end of its first day as a publicly traded company in December 2020.