A Netnography on Consumer Engagement in Virtual Brand Communities

Over 40 million people worldwide are estimated to participate in some form of virtual brand community (Sicillia & Palazon, 2008). The online environment provides numerous venues for consumers to have a safe space to share their opinions and ideas and find solutions to problems, as well as opportunities for retailers to take advantage of interactive and personalized marketing. Express, a US specialty apparel retailer, has implemented a virtual community using asynchronous discussions on product review pages to generate increased sales, positive word-of-mouth, increased information sharing, and richer marketing research data. Such virtual environments help the retailer to engage customers in conversations; however, research has not yet examined the patterns of customer-generated knowledge for online apparel retailers.