B2C Virtual Communities: Typology and Associated Benefits - An Exploratory Qualitative Study

Researches in Marketing tend to design any community belonging to the Website of the company as a brand community. Through a qualitative study, this article describes, interprets and classifies B2C virtual communities and thus removes the confusion between virtual brand communities and B2C virtual communities. The empirical results put also up to date three types of perceived benefits by the participants, associated to these communities. The perceived benefits seem to depend on the object of the community, on its orientation as well as on the nature of the participants’ behaviours. The paper finishes with the managerial implications.