The effects of online brand communities on brand equity in the luxury fashion industry

Quoting the fashion genius Coco Chanel: “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” This is even more true today than it was back then. Indeed, Web 2.0 technologies have made luxury fashion more accessible to everyone. Nowadays, consumers can instantly access a wide variety of fashion goods on the Internet and share brand experiences with other consumers. In this scenario, Online Brand Communities (OBCs) allow fashion customers to communicate with each other without any restrictions of time and place. For this reason, OBCs are viewed by fashion marketers as powerful instruments to influence customers’ purchasing behaviour. The aim of the current study is to analyse the effects of OBC dynamics on brand equity. The proposed research model is applied to eight spontaneous OBCs of the luxury fashion industry