Facebook: a blessing or a curse for grocery stores?

Abstract Purpose – Increasingly businesses are using Facebook to communicate and engage their customers. However, there is a dearth of research as to why and how customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the roles played by online brand communities (OBCs) and social customers in the creation as well as the destruction of value. Design/methodology/approach - Netnography was adopted as an approach to gain insight into the various ways customers engage with grocery stores on their official Facebook pages. Messages posted on Tesco’s and Wal-Mart’s Facebook pages are thematically analysed and critical discussion is linked back to the extant contemporary debate on social media. Findings – This study shows that customers respond to company posts for the following reasons: to communicate with the stores, to converse with other customers, to express their emotions, to share their experiences as employees of the stores with customers, and to share their positive or negative actions with members of the online communities. The study further highlights the role of social media in the co-creation and co-destruction of customer, consumer and supermarket value and builds contemporary theory and informs practice. Practical implications – Retailers should use social media to enrich the customer experience by encouraging customer engagement, co-creation of value and responding efficiently to customer needs in real time. Originality/value - This paper contributes to knowledge by uncovering the various ways customers react with the business. The social customer is both a curse and a blessing to Tesco and Walmart as they can create or destroy value for the business.