The community challenge

In 2024, Linnworks—a leading connected commerce operations platform that makes commerce easier for both online retailers and their consumers —faced an exciting challenge. Their expansive, global network of customers had begun organically forming groups to exchange advice and share experiences. Recognizing the potential of these grassroots connections, Georgia Leybourne, Linnworks’ Chief Marketing Officer, envisioned a unified, thriving community network. Her goal was to bring these fragmented groups together, fostering a space where customers could collaborate, deepen their product knowledge, and unlock greater value from the Linnworks platform. Ultimately, this initiative aimed to drive product adoption, enhance customer satisfaction, and boost retention.

With this vision in mind, Georgia and the Linnworks team set out to create an online community—a dynamic hub where customers could access best practices, share insights, and build meaningful relationships with other Linnworks customers. This community would empower customers to grow their businesses while strengthening their connection to Linnworks.

The Zapnito solution

To bring this vision to life, Linnworks needed a platform that could deliver a feature-rich, scalable, and branded community experience—without requiring extensive engineering resources or time-consuming maintenance. After careful consideration, Georgia and her team chose Zapnito as their partner.

Zapnito’s platform stood out for its scalability, intuitive navigation, and user-friendly interface. Most importantly, it offered the ability to create a fully customized, Linnworks-branded space—a critical factor in ensuring the community felt authentic and aligned with the Linnworks identity. With Zapnito, Linnworks found the perfect solution to realize their vision of a centralized hub where customers could connect, learn, and grow together.

The outcome

Georgia and the Linnworks team are thrilled with the progress they’ve made so far. Taking a deliberate, long-term approach to community building—viewing it as a marathon rather than a sprint—they began by personally inviting their most engaged customers to join. Over time, they expanded access to all customers, and the community has since grown to over 300 members and counting.

Engagement started taking off just three months after their soft launch in June. A standout success has been the adoption of Zapnito’s Discussions feature and Customer Knowledge Sharing, which has enabled community members to seek advice, share expertise, and support one another—exactly as Linnworks had hoped. This organic interaction has validated their vision and demonstrated the power of a connected, collaborative community.

Reflecting on the initiative, Georgia Leybourne, Chief Marketing Officer at Linnworks shared:

“For anyone in sales or marketing, a customer community represents a phenomenal opportunity—not just to grow your business, but to reinforce it. Ignoring this potential would be a missed opportunity of monumental proportions.”