The age of the Internet has brought thousands of new online shops aimed at making sure you have the choice of every single product you could possibly wish for. If you are an online retailer then you will know how hard it is to keep your customers loyal and to keep them using your shop rather than going else where to buy their products.

Running an online shop can be hard enough in itself, but actually then doing the marketing and customer leg work to keep people shopping with you is even harder. You have to constantly give customers a reason to be using you, rather than one of your online competitors which they can find very easily using Google or a price comparison website.

Below, we take a look at five things you can do to keep your customers shopping with you.

Offer Discounts Codes – Discount codes are one of the best inventions in the past few years when it comes to shopping online, because it gives you the chance to offer your customers a special discount as long as they have the correct and sometimes exclusive code. There are loads of voucher code websites on the Internet that you can list your codes on and it also gives you a chance to sell more of the products you want to sell, because these codes can be aimed at any product or range you have to offer.

Provide Loyalty Points – If you shop at Tescos you will no doubt have a club card which means that for every pound you spend with them you will earn points which can be redeemed as money off vouchers or discounts on products. Not only does this allow Tescos to tailor product marketing more towards your needs, it also gives you a reason to keep going back and using Tescos, rather than some of their rivals. People will spend money to earn money so if you can implement a similar scheme then you will guarantee that your customers will have increases loyalty towards your shop.

Regular Newsletters – Well designed and written newsletters is something that you really have to concentrate on if you really want to keep your customers coming back to your shop. The Internet has changed the loyalty of customers, because it has made it so much easier to go elsewhere if they find a better price or service, whereas years ago most people were limited to just one supplier so had to stick with them. Your newsletters are your best form of communication when it comes to keeping customers loyal, but make sure your newsletters always have a purpose and are worth reading; else they just become spam to the reader.

SMS / Text Alerts – When a customer orders something from you, you then have the chance to get a bit of extra information from them, including their mobile number. Research has shown that people are more likely to read their texts when compared to emails or post, so if you have their mobile number why not set up a text alert system where you can SMS your customers with the latest offers, discount codes and information about your products.

Monitor Your Prices – And finally, probably one of the most important things you need to do – always make sure your prices are competitive, because the biggest turn off for any shopper is always going to be the price. Online shopping differs from high street shopping because all of the shops online are in one place, which means the customer doesn’t need to worry about travelling out of town just to get a cheaper price. Keep an eye on the price comparison websites like Kelkoo and Ciao, because these two diamonds give you an easy way to check how competitive your prices are compared to other online shops.

As we have mentioned previously in this article, the Internet has made keeping your customers using you and you alone much harder. This is why you must take all of the chances and opportunities you can to make sure that they will use you again and again because if you do not keep your customers using your shop then you can be sure that they will quickly go elsewhere.