A food delivery platform has introduced a mandatory Basket Commitment Check to all UK accounts, requiring customers to rate their certainty on each basket item before checkout becomes available.
The check, described by the company as a “basket readiness feature”, presents users with a brief rating prompt when the checkout button is tapped, asking them to classify each basket item as Definite, Probable, or Not Fully Committed. Items rated in the lower categories do not prevent the order from proceeding but trigger a five-second Consideration Window on the checkout screen, which the app labels “a moment to confirm your direction.”
The company said the feature follows internal analysis of UK ordering patterns showing that 47% of baskets placed between 17:30 and 20:30 contained at least one item that had been added and removed at least once during the same session, which the platform categorises as “commitment divergence behaviour.”
Baskets assessed overall as Low-Certainty — defined as three or more Not Fully Committed items, or baskets where combined Probable and Not Fully Committed items exceed 60% of the order value — are routed to an extended 90-second Consideration Window. The window does not restrict checkout; it provides what the company describes as “structured space for basket confidence to develop.” It can be dismissed at any point by tapping a button marked “I’m satisfied with my direction.”
A secondary feature, the Cuisine Alignment Notice, generates a soft prompt when a customer’s basket conflicts with the preferred cuisine listed on their account profile. Customers whose profile indicates a preference for Italian but whose basket contains no Italian items receive a note described as “a gentle cuisine direction check.” The company confirmed the notice is advisory and that no order had been delayed on Cuisine Alignment grounds, adding that the feature was “still finding its calibration window.”
Customers who complete the assessment but then modify their basket before confirming are reclassified as Revised Certains and receive a post-delivery follow-up survey asking whether the revised order better reflected their needs. Internal results from the first three months of the pilot showed that 43% of Revised Certain orders showed no meaningful difference from the pre-assessment basket, a figure the company described as “within the expected range of directional reconsideration.”
A fifth basket classification, Basket Ambiguous, is under consultation for accounts showing persistent high levels of Not Fully Committed scoring across multiple sessions. The company said it had not yet determined what, if anything, would differ for accounts in this tier, and confirmed that the consultation had not yet opened.
The platform said it planned to extend the Basket Commitment Check to its corporate lunch accounts in early summer, pending the outcome of a separate internal review into whether group ordering contexts required a different certainty threshold. A spokesperson said the company was “committed to helping every customer arrive at a basket that genuinely reflects where they are.”
