Customer communities

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[edit] eBay

René Algesheimer and Paul M. Dholakia showed that involvement in online customer communities led to eBay users spending up to 54% more money on the site.

In an article published in the Harvard Business Review (subscription required), Algesheimer and Dholakia describe a study where 79,242 customers were invited to participate in eBay's customer communities. Over 3000 of them became active community members and another 11000 read the community pages but didn't get involved. Lurkers and community enthusiasts put in more bids, won more auctions, spent more money, listed more items on eBay, and earnt more from their sales. Almost ten times as many lurkers and enthusiasts made their first sale compared to a control group who were not involved in the community side of eBay.

In just one year, eBay earned several million dollars in profit from the increased trading behavior of the community participants in the experiment.

The full paper can now be downloaded from futureofcommunities.com (PDF)