There is nothing more frustrating than watching customers page through your eCommerce website, spend 40 minutes picking out different items, put them into their digital shopping cart and then leave their purchases unfulfilled. There are any number of reasons why consumers would abandon their shopping carts, and Fourth Source recently noted a few ways merchants can minimize this behavior.

1. Rethink what you need from the customer
When you have someone making a purchase via your eCommerce website, you want to learn as much about them as you can. This will help you better market your products to them in the future and can inform other eCommerce operations as well.

However, it’s always important to think of the shopping experience from the eyes of the customer.

If they are ready to make a purchase, but then your website asks them for their entire life story to register as a member, you come off as if you don’t value their time.

You want to make purchasing products as hassle-free as possible, so consider what information you truly need from them and also where you’re asking for it in the buying process. For instance, some retailers choose to ask people to become registered members after completing the purchase, filling in key data fields (such as name and address) with the information they entered as their shipping information.

2. Keep shipping in mind and be transparent
Shipping is always a contentious subject within online retail. If you need to charge your customers shipping and processing fees, be transparent about it.

“Nobody likes to be surprised by shipping costs popping up as they check out,” the source added. “Even a small fee will leave a customer feeling cheated. Irritated they click away to see if another site has free shipping, causing a lost sale.”

Beyond that, you may want to see what steps you can take to eliminate shipping costs altogether. If you’re using the latest eCommerce solutions, you may be able to identify and eliminate barriers in the order processing and logistics management aspects of your operations that can help you reduce costs and pass those savings down to customers.

3. Embrace all consumers
Another common reason consumers abandon their digital carts is that the site may not be optimized for the device they are using. Whether they are shopping on a tablet, smartphone, desktop computer or via any other channel, it’s critical that you optimize the shopping experience for them. If your customers can’t make purchases via their mobile devices, you can’t guarantee that they’ll switch to a compatible platform to finish the transaction.

Additionally, it’s critical that you’re using the right shopping cart platform to begin with, Webgilty noted. There are a variety of options that modern retailers have to chose from, so you must be sure to pick a platform that works in conjunction with the rest of your eCommerce software and makes sense for your business.