Purpose: This study explains how retailers can use the knowledge function of attitudinal theories to understand how millennials in a collectivist emerging market, trade-off between a satisfactory customer service experience versus price when repurchasing a smartphone.Design/methodology/approach: 356 usable questionnaires (86% response rate) were collected and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM), AMOS.Findings: Millennials in Vietnam tend to adopt an individualistic approach when repurchasing a smartphone and utilise their knowledge of the product. However, they value personalised customer service that is specific to their needs, especially interactions with sales staff that raises their confidence and self-esteem. The unique interaction allows authorised retailers to distinguish themselves from unauthorised retailers. Repurchase behaviour is encouraged by low uncertainty avoidance in conjunction with price sensitivity; and the desire to be seen as achieving a high social status.Research limitations/implications: The data for the study was collected in Hanoi, the main city of Vietnam and is representative only of urban-based millennials.Practical implications: Retailers considering entering an collectivist emerging market need to understand that millennials are price sensitive and may repurchase from unauthorised retailers. Accurate information and sales promotions can be used to stimulate demand for a high involvement product.Originality/value: Functional theories of attitudes is used to link the concept of customer service with knowledge function utilisation in order to establish how customers in a collectivist emerging market process information and share knowledge through socialisation.

Social media usage is a direct result of Internet connectivity and is gaining increased prominence in business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), and consumer-to-business (C2B) relationship building, which is allowing marketers to devise and implement digital marketing strategies that are perceived as enhancing a customer’s well-being. Through the process of utilizing social media (SM) to share information with consumers, marketers are affording themselves with the concept of value co-creation and ensuring that the development of knowledge is given priority. To explain how this happens in an emerging economy, in-depth personal interviews were undertaken with the owners of five retail fashion companies in Vietnam. The findings indicate that fashion retail companies in Vietnam are deploying digital marketing strategies that deliver perceived enhanced value to consumers through the process of value co-creation. This highlights the advantage of using SM in relation to increasing retail staff’s ability to convert information into usable resources such as intelligence and knowledge. By achieving knowledge conversion, retail staff fulfill the role of ‘knowledge broker’ and ‘knowledge connector’, and identify how organizational intervention, such as new operating structures, can help to deliver perceived enhanced value to customers.