20 Online Seller Forums & Communities You Need to Join
Introduction
Online sellers/merchants often work alone, particularly when starting out.
Forums are perfect places to connect with like the minded. You can ask for help and provide help to others, discuss each other’s problems, share experience, make new business contacts, or simply have a cozy chat.
Whether you’re trying to expand your biz to another country or learn the best payment processors to connect with your online store, it all comes down to the advice that you receive from people who have played around with tactics and tools in the past.
Here is a list of helpful online seller forums for merchants. There are eCommerce forums, small business forums, social media forums and UX forums which are useful for online merchants. All of the forums are active. Most of the forums are free, though some offer additional private groups.
Forums that Focus on eCommerce
1. eCommerce Fuel Forum
This is a private community for experienced store owners. It requires that all members own or work for a 6 or 7 figure store to join.
It’s made up of approximately 1,000 store owners and professionals. It was started by Andrew Youderian, an experienced eCommerce entrepreneur who has founded and grown numerous online businesses.
Unfortunately, no newbies are allowed in this forum!
2. Shopify eCommerce University – online seller forum
If you are a Shopify store owner, this is a forum you must sign up for.
Having said that, it’s still not a bad idea to bookmark this forum if you’re using a different platform.
Some of the threads include information for eCommerce marketing, drop shipping, crowdfunding and manufacturing.
3. Digital Point eCommerce forum
Digital Point is one of the biggest forums in the world. The eCommerce section is filled with threads for chatting with folks on what your next step should be when scaling up your store.
You should check some of the hot topics like “What is the best eCommerce site for online selling” or “Is it Worth Advertising on Bing Ads and Google Adwords?”
Everyone on the page will give an honest opinion on how you should move a certain way to help create more sales.
It’s a good forum where you can learn everything from eCommerce to SEO to social media.
4. Ecommerce bytes
Ecommerce Bytes has tons of content in terms of the blog, podcast links and other information to guide you through your eCommerce journey.
You’ll also be able to post your own questions and suggestions. Ecommerce Bytes covers almost everything on earth.
5. BigCommerce forum
BigCommerce has a very extensive forum profile that shows things on a more question and answer kind of basis.
The forum has separate sections for Announcements & Introductions, “How To” Questions, Marketing + Ideas, and Big Commerce University Discussions.
Your single destination to find answers, stay informed, and make connections to scale your business. Be sure to log in so you can ask questions, join discussions, submit ideas, review events and more!
6. The Web Retailer Forum
Web Retailer is a free community for businesses who sell through online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, with over 12,000 members globally.
It helps them find the best software for their needs, discuss the latest issues and trends, build their knowledge of the industry, and learn to become more effective sellers.
Web Retailer Forum Members receive a weekly newsletter covering the latest eCommerce news, discussions and reviews, and profiles of innovative new software.
Business – Online Seller Forums
7. Small Business Forum
Small Business Forum is a forum for entrepreneurs — both newbies and experienced.
Board categories are Your Small Business, Financial & Legal, Marketing, Your Website, Community Talk, and Forum Business.
8. UK Business Forums
As the name suggests, the forum is specially built for businesses in UK. But, you don’t necessarily have to be running a business in the UK for this forum to be helpful, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
One of the main threads outlines some of the best UK merchant accounts, so this would obviously not have anything to do with those in the US or rest of the world. That said, if you’re in the UK, bookmark this page for future use. It’s also not a bad idea if you plan to expand your business to UK.
9. The WholeSale Forum
The Wholesale Forums (or TWF) is the UK’s leading networking community & independent advice forum for trade buyers and suppliers.
They are on a mission to change the way our industry connects with each other by building a networking and engaging community.
10. Small Business Brief
Forums and Communities for Online Marketing
11. Warrior Forum
Warrior forum is, perhaps, one of the most extensive message boards for internet marketers, online entrepreneurs, and online store owners.
It has large active discussion boards for search engine optimization, email marketing, social media, product reviews, and eCommerce sites, wholesaling, and drop shipping.
Warrior Forum has more than 8 million posts and 1 million members. Warrior Forum also has a premium board, The War Room, for Internet marketers and entrepreneurs.
12. Rise Forum
Rise Forums combines information for webmasters, internet marketing and WordPress, using a beautifully organized homepage with threads that have tons of responses. That’s one of the keys to locating good
That’s one of the keys to locating good communities because it’s not worth hanging around a forum unless people are active. WordPress themes and plugins are covered here, along with design, eCommerce, hosting, social media and productivity.
13. Wicked Fire
Wicked Fire is a great and reputable forum that keeps active on a number of relevant topics.
A great place to learn SEO, web design and development, and internet marketing along with affiliate marketing strategies.
This is the Internet marketing forum that every major player in the industry is either a member of or has made their bones and learned from here.
14. SEO chat
A community dedicated to helping beginners and professionals alike in improving their Search Engine Optimization knowledge.
Forum has boards on SEO, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, hangouts, and other Internet marketing topics.
Forums and Communities for Social Media:
15. Social Media Examiner
Social Media Examiner is more of a great social interaction in a community.
This isn’t a forum. Rather, it’s a community and blog where super helpful articles are published everyday.
They often have events that allow you to meet with other people who are trying to expand their businesses through social media.
Look at the daily updates. They range from new topics like “Facebook Articles”: How to Get Started” to evergreen topics such as “5 Tools to Measure Social Media ROI.”
16. Fresh Marketing Forum
From SEO, traffic, and social media, this is a great forum that takes a fresh approach to your marketing.
Fresh Marketing offers several community modules for talking about marketing in general, but the social page is very effective since it has threads for topics like social media engagement and an area discussing how many social media accounts you should have for a business.
17. Social Media on Warrior Forum
The Warrior Forum Social Media forum is a place for Warriors to discuss the latest social media marketing strategies. This includes utilizing instant messages, news feeds, competitions, and people’s networks to drive traffic.
Special dedicated sub-forum for discussing social media.
18. Social Media from Digital Point
Digital Point is one of the biggest forums in the world. The social media section, in particular, is very active. Popular topics range from using Instagram for business and tutorials on Facebook marketing.
Digital Point is your go-to place for finding relevant, and active, threads about online marketing, social media.
UX/ Design
19. UX Mastery
Whether you’re looking for a software to create wireframes, conduct user testing, perform card sorting, or just keep track of your time, here is the place to ask.
20. Designers Talk
A forum for designers to discuss ideas and get feedback on graphic and web design.
From the design perspective of using certain applications to even the marketing and promoting, there’s a lot to gain on this forum.
Some of the main topics they touch in the forum include: gaining more traffic, catering to your target audience, and even great email marketing solutions to help you build your store in a more inclusive realm.
