The Effect Of Online Brand Community On Customer Purchase Tendency

In today's marketing environment, sustaining a competitive advantage on the basis of product differentiation often is an exhausting race to a constantly shifting finish line. Any lead in the race is eroded quickly by imitation or even by superior technology from competitors. Part of the success of brands start to establish online brand communities to to sidestep this treadmill. Business practices have proved that from the establishment of online brand community, the enterprises can enhance customer-centered relationships, by proactively providing the context for relationships to develop, they can gain loyal customers. However, there are not enough general and systematic studies about the online brand community, and the study about the relationship between BC(online brand community characters) and CPT (customer purchasing tendency). Therefore, research on online brand community and the relationship between BC and CPT will of great significance to existing research extension, and it will offer a new efficient way for enterprises to have marketing advantage.The paper first reviews existing literature on online brand community, conclude the theoretical courses of its developing, then proposes a model of the paper based on literature review, and also the hypothesis. This paper employs positive study to finish the research. Firstly we develop and correct a 3- dimension attributes scale of online brand community. Following are research design and data collection. At last, data are analyzed through marginal analysis. Research shows that the 3 dimensions of online brand community all have effects on CPT. The intensity of effecting varies according to different purchasing circumstances and different dimensions.The theoretical significance of this paper is that a) gives the online brand community a clear description in 3 dimensions, b) Enriches the current research on the relationship between BC and CPT, and gives a contrast vision of the relationships' differences in different purchasing circumstances. The practical significance of this paper is that a) gives the enterprises a theoretical direction to establish their own online brand communities, b) from researching the relationship between BC and CPT, give the enterprises a new method to gain and maintain loyal customers.