What new consumption signals do the pending orders in the shopping cart reflect?

This year’s Double 11 promotion cycle has been extended to nearly one month, and today (November 11) marks the end of this round of promotions. When opening the shopping cart, many people have purchased a few items early and looked at them repeatedly, but in the end they have not paid for them.

In the long promotion cycle, there is ample room for trade-offs between planting and purchasing and the final order. These shelved goods are not only orders that have not been completed, but also new interaction signals between consumers, merchants, and platforms. What are the reasons why everyone has not placed an order after purchasing? When the promotion cycle is lengthened, the shopping cart slowly changes from a list to be settled to a testing ground for consumer decision-making. What new revelations will this bring to merchants and the entire e-commerce ecosystem?

The month-long Double Eleven promotion, with discount pop-ups one after another, did not make everyone rush to pay. During interviews, reporters found that many people had a batch of unsettled goods in their shopping carts, and the reasons for not placing orders varied.

Consumer Ms. Li: During this month’s big sale, I bought thick coats, shoes and a lot of household items, but in the end I didn’t place many orders. The main reason is that I always feel that there will be lower prices in the future. The live broadcast room pushes discounts and announces limited-time events every day. The more I watch, the more entangled I become, and I am always afraid of losing money if I buy early. For me, the shopping cart is now less of a checkout list and more of a waiting list.

The long promotion cycle has made the "buying the bargain mentality" a choice for many people. Under the constant impact of marketing information, some people choose to wait and see, while others are slowly sorting out their real needs. Ms. Yang, a citizen, told reporters that after she calmed down after adding more purchases, she screened out a lot of "make-up" products.

Ms. Yang: I also bought a lot of small household appliances and daily necessities. After letting it cool down for a while, I realized that many things are not strictly needed, and there is no need to spend blindly to make up for it. At the same time, I will also compare prices on various platforms. After comparison, if I feel that the price-performance ratio is average and the after-sales service is not guaranteed, I will not buy it. To me, the shopping cart is a place for collecting, comparing prices, and slowly sifting through items.

Waiting for the lowest price, giving up non-essential needs, and comparing prices with multiple parties: these mentality outlines the shopping habits of consumers during this year’s Double Eleven. The shopping cart has gradually changed from the "checkout list" in the past to a "consumption watch list" that integrates collection, price comparison, screening, and wait-and-see. Merchants across the country are also adjusting their tactics. A biotechnology company in Shandong that makes peony series products was very popular during this year’s sales. Zhang Mengwei, deputy director of the sales department, said that they do not rush orders, but focus on making consumers "buy with confidence."

Zhang Mengwei: For this year’s Double Eleven, we have deployed four major tracks: online e-commerce, live streaming, offline supermarkets, and community private areas, and launched a total of more than 40 peony series products. During the major promotion period, the popularity of additional purchases of products was very high, with overall sales increasing by 22.6% year-on-year. During this year's major promotion period, many consumers purchased additional products but did not place orders. This phenomenon is very common, and many customers are collecting and purchasing, repeatedly comparing prices, and hesitating to put together an order. They only temporarily reserve our products. We understand everyone's mentality of rational purchase. Next, we will explain clearly the advantages of peony products, ensure the timeliness of inventory and delivery, and provide quality and service so that everyone can buy and choose with peace of mind.

Fresh food merchants have a different approach. In Wugong County, Shaanxi Province, it is the best time for kiwi fruits to be sold. Li Huan, deputy general manager of a local e-commerce company, said that customers do not pay when they purchase more, and they do not rush or follow up with price cuts. Fresh fruits are all about freshness. The customer service clearly explains in advance how to keep the fruit fresh, how many days it will take to arrive, and how to compensate if it is damaged. Customers have thought about it before placing the order, and they can accept it at any time.

Li Huan: Faced with customers who put their purchases on hold, we did not choose the path of ‘prolonging promotions and lowering prices along the way’. The original slogan for fresh fruits is ‘pick today, arrive tomorrow’, but prolonging the cycle dilutes the confidence of the place of production. What supports us is self-built cold storage, standardized sorting, as well as mature express distribution and origin warehouses. If users can afford it, we can afford it, and we don’t have to rely on low prices to force them. It is better to think carefully before placing an order than to make impulsive purchases and then return the goods. After the big promotion, the natural return visits and repurchases were more stable than before the event. Many customers who made additional purchases without paying later became repeat customers and recommended Kung Fu Guo to people around them.

Judging from the response of merchants in various places, the direction is actually the same: relying on quality, service and certainty, rather than relying on countdowns and low prices. When adding a purchase is no longer equivalent to placing an order, the shopping cart becomes a "watch list" that consumers repeatedly weigh. What kind of deep changes in the consumer market do these delayed orders reflect?

Lao Guoling, a distinguished researcher at the Chinese Modernization Institute of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and director of the E-Commerce Research Center, emphasized that this change is quietly rewriting the way businesses and consumers deal with each other. When the shopping cart changes from a checkout list to a watch list, the essence is that consumers take the decision-making power back from the platform.

Lao Guoling: Additional purchase no longer equals high intention, but is included in the observation and decision-making rights are retained. Turning the shopping cart into a watch list will slowly change the interaction between consumers and merchants from a price game during a major promotion to a daily and continuous trust service. At this time, consumers will use additional purchases to express their reservation of decision-making rights, while merchants use transparent prices, automatic price guarantees, certainty of performance, and low-interference reminders to fight for settlement rights. Therefore, additional purchases no longer equal a commitment, transactions no longer rely on impulse, and the relationship between each other is no longer maintained by a countdown. In a sense, merchants who can read these signals and transform the interaction method will have the opportunity to turn the watch list into a settlement form. If you cannot read it, you may only face a shopping cart that is getting quieter and quieter, and it is increasingly difficult to prompt orders.

So how do you get consumers who are waiting to finally place an order? In October this year, seven departments including the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the "Notice on Implementing the "Five Excellent" Actions for Quality E-commerce." Lao Guoling said that this document is not urging consumers to "stop waiting and buy now", but "laying a foundation" for trust between buyers and sellers.

Lao Guoling: What the shelving of the shopping cart reflects is a wait-and-see consumption phenomenon. The solution to this wait-and-see consumption problem is not actually how to make consumers stop waiting, but why you let consumers choose you. This requires the platform to make price certainty, the credibility of price guarantees, and access methods into basic services. Merchants only need to calculate the profits of single products, increase non-price reduction returns, solidify basic trust, and open up omni-channel access. The "Five Excellent" campaign for quality e-commerce is essentially a supply-side reform of e-commerce trust infrastructure deployed in advance, which means that it does not directly change consumers' willingness to wait, but rather makes the reasons for waiting gradually invalid. Prices no longer need to be verified by games, and quality no longer needs to be extracted by consumers themselves from a large amount of information noise.