Exploring the role and significance of consumer relationship quality and participation within online fashion brand communities

This study contributes towards the online value co-creation debate, by examining key theories within the relationship marketing literature for building online brand communities in a fashion context (Chae and Ko, 2016; Vargo and Lusch, 2004; Üçok Hughes et al., 2016). To this end, this research plugs an important gap for the highly lucrative global and digital fashion industry. In the empirical research, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with millennials who interact regularly with luxury fashion brands online. A thematic analysis approach is adopted to discover common threads and similarities in behaviour. Data reveals that online brand communities facilitate customer engagement through quality interactive relationships amongst luxury fashion consumers. On this basis, the authors provide recommendations for luxury retailers on how to maximise business performance by enhancing online customer interactions. Originality of the paper lies on the revision and validation of a model (Hajli et al., 2017) that depicts the iterative process between virtual brand community participation, qualities of online relationships, loyalty and branding co-creation.