The influence of C2C communications in online brand communities on customer purchase behavior

Abstract

Increasingly, consumers use the internet as a vehicle for pre-purchase information gathering. While technical specifications and potentially biased selling points can be gleaned from corporate web sites, online brand communities are becoming essential conduits for the customer-to-customer (C2C) sharing of product information and experiences. This study develops and tests a model of online C2C communications in developing desirable online brand community outcomes. Two studies were used to test the model. In Study 1, a netnography technique was employed and conversations between brand community members were coded and combined with survey data to test the research model. In Study 2 an experiment was conducted to further test the sequence of events in our base model. Our findings show that online brand communities are effective tools for influencing sales, regardless of whether these communities reside on company-owned or independently-owned websites. In addition, we demonstrate interesting asymmetrical effects, whereby the positive information shared by community members has a stronger moderating influence on purchase behavior than negative information. Further, we find that online brand communities are effective customer retention tools for retaining both experienced and novice customers. These findings highlight the need for all firms to carefully consider their online community strategies.

Social commerce—state-of-the-art and future research directions

“…Social commerce research is also concerned with research on social processes (12 %) (e.g., Adjei et al 2010;Amblee and Bui 2011;Chen et al 2009;Forman et al 2008;Garg et al 2011;Gruner et al 2014;Pentina et al 2008;Shen et al 2010;Takac et al 2011;Trusov et al 2013;Wei et al 2011;Xu et al 2008;Zheng et al 2011). Fifty-seven percent of the analyzed articles investigate social networking sites, 29 % are related to social shopping websites, and only one article focuses on group buying websites and another one on presentation sites.…”

“…It is in the nature of things that several contributions to this research theme deal with the influence of community users' ratings, reviews and recommendations on sales and revenues (Amblee and Bui 2011;Adjei et al 2010;Forman et al 2008;). Amblee and Bui (2011), for example, state that eWoM is an essential source for e-tailers to create a social buying experience.…”

Are Facebook brand community members truly loyal to the brand?

“…Brand owner-led communities enable companies to engage in closer and more collaborative relationships with customers and to gain a better understanding of their behavior (Laroche et al 2012). Online brand communities are understood to be effective platforms for both brand owners and customers (Adjei et al 2010) that enhance the development of loyal customer relationships (Casaló et al 2007;Laroche et al 2012). Brand communities act as a means to enhance customer involvement in marketing dialogue with brands and to foster customer interactions with one another (Hur et al 2011).…”

“…The content of a peer message is perceived as more meaningful and relevant (Mazzarol et al 2007) when the sender is not connected to the brand. However, more research is needed on the causal linkages between the conversational elements within consumer networks (i.e., community promotion) and performance outcomes (Adjei et al 2010), such as repurchase intention and WOM. For example, the European Communication Monitor (2012) highlighted the importance of online brand communities and emphasized the need to increase competence in the use of this medium for marketing activities.…”

Marketing research using single-item indicators in structural equation models

“…Regarding the domain of the articles using single-item indicators, the articles present studies related both to business-tobusiness and consumer behavior studies, with varied topics such as online brand communities (Adjei et al, 2010), store manager behavior (Arnold et al, 2009a), satisfaction in a marketing channel (Ping, 2003) and regret in consumer decision making (Tsiros and Mittal, 2000).…”