What is it and what is the purpose of placing a pending payment on AliExpress?

Did you know that you can leave unpaid orders on AliExpress?

Here’s how to do it and what are the benefits.

How to leave an order with payment pending?

This option is not something that AliExpress offers, but you will have to do a bit of “cheating” to achieve it, although you should be calm, because you will not be violating any rules of the platform.

First, you must fill your cart with all the products you want to buy here. Once you have everything in your cart, you must click on “checkout”.

In the next step you will have to confirm your order, and at that moment you will be asked to indicate the payment method you are going to use.

Whether you are a regular customer or a new user (in this case fill in your card details), the trick is that when you enter the CVV of your card, you must enter another number and not the real number. Then click on “save and confirm”.

When you click on “pay now”, you will get a message asking you to update your CVV number. Close the AliExpress page or app (do not leave it in the background), and reopen it. The order will now appear in the “pending payment” section.

You could contact the seller to let them know that the payment is pending, although it is not necessary, since the purchase order is sent to them.

If the seller modifies the price, they will give you a notice, and you will be able to pay in “pending payment”, “pay now”.

In what situations is it useful to leave an order pending payment?

  • If you want to eliminate or reduce shipping costs: by contacting the seller, you will be able to negotiate to reduce shipping costs before the order is paid.
  • If you want to buy a customized item: in this case, the seller will probably send you a link to customize the item (e.g. custom-made clothing or other items) and ask you to leave it pending payment.
  • If the seller offers you a discount: some sellers prefer to avoid disputes and settle order issues directly with buyers by offering them discounts.
  • To buy something and pay for it later: the order remains pending payment for up to 20 days, after which it will be canceled. This is useful when you have coupons or promotions that you don’t want to miss.
  • To convince the seller to give a discount: if you are placing a large order, you can leave it pending payment and send a message to the seller asking for a discount. For large orders this usually works.