16 Top Ecommerce Communities to Join to Grow Your Business

Growing your ecommerce business can be challenging. But you don’t have to do it alone.

There are multiple online communities where ecommerce founders and marketers gather to exchange notes, help one another, and grow together.

Have a question about running ads?

Wondering about content marketing for your brand?

Or looking for an app to add to your store?

Pop your question in one (or several) of the ecommerce communities below. Several kind folks will surely jump in and help.

The 11 free communities and five paid communities below are in no particular order, besides being sorted by the platform they are on.

A quick tip: You do not have to join all the communities. I personally found it hard to keep up with all. I would recommend joining just two to three that suit you. For example, if you prefer a close-knit group, join a Slack community. If you find Slack or Discord too overwhelming, join a Facebook Group or forum.

1. DTC FAM (free)

My top recommendation is DTC FAM, a Slack community by Kristen LaFrance, Head of Resilient Retail at Shopify. Why?

The community is filled with ecommerce practitioners who are eager to help one another. Sarah Moret, Founder of Curie. Fred Perrotta, Co-founder and CEO of Tortuga. Monica Grohne, Founder of Marea Wellness. And more.

If you find it hard to keep up with Slack conversations, you can sign up for the weekly roundup newsletter.

Here are some recent discussions:

• AMA with Eli Weiss, Director of CX & Retention at Olipop
• Recommendations for copywriters
• Best platforms to get more wholesales account leads
• Top email marketing tips for Black Friday/Cyber Monday

2. Lean Luxe Connect (free, invite-only)

Lean Luxe is a website and newsletter on modern brands. It has a private community for its most engaged subscribers to “connect, debate, and share ideas around a shared interest in modern luxury, brands, and culture”.

I have not been able to get into Lean Luxe Connect because they are strict about eligibility. You have to be their newsletter subscriber for at least one month and open at least 60% of their newsletters. To be fair, I think that’s a good thing! This ensures the community is filled with people who are genuinely interested in modern luxury and brands.

Since Lean Luxe Connect was recommended to me by Kaleigh Moore, one of the top writers in the ecommerce space, and Aaron Orendorff, VP of Marketing at Common Thread Collective, I’m sure it’s great.

3. DTC Wonderland (free)

DTC Wonderland is a new community set up by Doe Lashes founder, Jason Wong, for DTC operators, agencies, SaaS companies, investors, and anyone new to the ecommerce space. Wong and his team are actively answering questions in the community from their own experience running several brands.

Here are some recent discussions:

• Broad audience or narrow audiences for FB ads
• Should I offer influencers to be my affiliates right away?
• What is everyone doing for loyalty and referral?

4. Club CPG (free)

Club CPG is a community for founders and funders by Chris Cantino and Jaime Schmidt. Schmidt's, their bootstrapped personal care brand, was acquired by Unilever in 2017. Now, they invest in ecommerce, consumer products, marketplaces, and more.

Here are some recent discussions:

• Any recommendations for paid social creative shops?
• Good place for getting some creative inspiration?
• Looking for people to who I can ship my product in exchange for UGC content

(Side tip: Schmidt and Cantino often share helpful advice on Twitter on growing a bootstrapped brand.)

5. Startup CPG (free)

Startup CPG is a Slack community for young consumer packaged goods brands, especially those with five or fewer employees.

Here are some recent discussions:

• Setting up basic email list funnels
• How to structure a rate card for influencers
• Looking an Amazon photo studio on the East Coast
• Apps that show how much someone is spending on marketing/advertising

6. Shopify Plus Community (free, Shopify Plus merchants only)

If you are a Shopify Plus merchant, you will be able to join the exclusive Shopify Plus Community on Facebook for free.

Because only Shopify Plus merchants, partners, and select industry professionals can join the Facebook group, the conversations are relevant and tactical. For example, there are some of the recent discussions:

• How much are you paying for your marketing agency for SMS marketing?
• Does anyone have a good system to manage their influencer programs?
• Which SMS shipping updates apps to use?
• How do you find out the top three combinations of products bought together?

7. Shopify Entrepreneurs (free)

Shopify Entrepreneurs is a Facebook group of 100,000+ Shopify store owners, developers, and service providers. It is managed by HeyCarson, a leading Shopify expert team (and a ReferralCandy partner).

Here are some recent discussions:

• Cross-sell/up-sell app recommendations
• How do I add a category slider to my homepage?
• Mailchimp or Shopify email or Klaviyo
• I’m not getting any sales. Can someone check out my website? (Many people jumped in to help.)

8. Unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders (free)

Unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders, while smaller than Shopify Entrepreneurs, at 4,000 members, is just as engaged. It is a private community for Shopify sellers and listeners of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast by Kurt Elster.

Here are some recent discussions:

• Thoughts on Rebuy as an app for bundles/upsell/cross-sell
• How do I add an email collection bar at the top of my site?
• Is there an app that makes it easy to send out free products for PR purposes?
• Has anyone tried calling their abandoned carts instead of just using automated emails or SMS?

9. Shopify Community (free)

Besides its Facebook group for Shopify Plus merchants, Shopify has an online forum for all Shopify users. It is more like a questions-and-answers site than a community.

There are several Shopify staff, Shopify partners, and helpful fellow merchants going around the forum to help answer questions. If you have a Shopify-specific question, this will be a good place to ask for help.

The forum is split into several categories, such as the following:

• Feedback On My Store
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Technical Q&A
• Selling Internationally
• Payments, Shipping & Fulfillment
• Accounting & Taxes

10. r/ecommerce, r/shopify, r/smallbusiness subreddits (free)

There are a few subreddits on ecommerce: r/ecommerce, r/shopify, and r/smallbusiness. While they are much less active than the communities mentioned above, there are some good discussions once in a while.

Here are some examples:

• E-commerce Checkout Hacks
• Did anyone switch away from Shopify and why?
• Scaling Facebook Ads
• Killed off my last Facebook ads today, going back to 100% organic marketing, very scared but relieved

11. Ecommerce operators Twitter list (free)

This isn’t a community to join per se but the benefits are quite similar.

As I’m trying to learn more about ecommerce, I started following many ecommerce operators and adding them to a Twitter list. It has been so insightful to read their tweets about their business. It almost feels like being able to hear what they are thinking about for their businesses.

The list includes operators such as the following:

• Joanna Griffiths, Founder and CEO of Knix
• Amanda Goetz, Founder of House of Wise
• Connie Lo, Co-founder of Three Ships Beauty
• Sandro Roco, Founder and CEO of Sanzo
• Patrick Coddou, Founder and CEO of Supply

If you are an ecommerce operator who tweets about your business regularly and you want to join the list, tweet me!

The following ecommerce communities are paid communities. I am not in them, so I can’t vouch for their quality but they were recommended to me by several ecommerce folks.

12. eCommerceFuel ($297/quarter)

eCommerceFuel is probably the most well-known paid ecommerce community. There’s a good reason for that.

The team only accepts store owners with a 7-figure ecommerce business and people who have worked in ecommerce for years (e.g. Director of Ecommerce). They do not allow vendors and agencies into the community.

With the membership, you get access to the following:

• Discussion forum
• Proprietary review directory
• Member directory and message inbox
• Email roundups
• Member-only events

I love this testimonial on the site:

"After migrating to Shopify we saw a significant drop in traffic. I posted the problem on the forums and within minutes we had dozens of knowledgeable suggestions which helped us fix the problem. eCommerceFuel saved us tens of thousands in potentially lost sales."

13. Common Thread Collective ADmission (paid)

Common Thread Collective has managed more than $100 million in Facebook ads and helped their ecommerce clients make more than $250 million in revenue. They set up an exclusive community for those who want to scale their ecommerce business through paid advertising.

With the membership, you will get the following:

• Group coaching and support from their experienced media buyers
• Group webinars on media buying
• Tools, templates, and access to their creative library

The team only admits people who are a good fit for the community. You can apply here.

They don’t list the membership price but I imagine they will let you know if your application is successful.

14. Foxwell Founders ($997/year or $97/month)

Foxwell Digital is a paid social media agency by Andrew and Gracie Foxwell. Besides providing consultancy and courses, they have a community for paid social media. If you like their courses and prefer a small community, their community might be more suitable for you than other communities.

With the membership, you get the following:

• Quarterly webinars on optimization, scaling, and more
• Dedicated Slack channel
• One video audit per month for your brand
• A bunch of discounts

15. Draft Membership ($300/year or $30/month)

Draft is an interaction design consultancy that optimizes online stores by Nick Disabato. It also offers a membership that comes with a private community and many exclusive resources. The community discusses things such as the only metric that matters for your store’s speed, optimizing the buy box, and the ideal starting point for your home page’s masthead.

With the membership, you get the following:

• Access to its private community and iOS app
• Monthly open office hours
• Quarterly private Q&A with Nick
• Fortnightly video teardowns of popular stores
• And more

16. 2PM Inc ($199/year or $20/month)

2PM Inc is the leading publication on the interaction of media and commerce by Web Smith. It has a newsletter, an executive membership, and an invitation-only forum, Polymathic.

Members get premium reports, invitations to member-only events, access to all databases, and more. Polymathic, at $999 per year, is reserved for members who are leading their industries as founders, C-suite, and VPs.

Smith is creating something entirely different (at least to me), and I’m probably not doing 2PM Inc justice by summarizing what it is at a high level. So I definitely recommend you check out the website yourself.

Join and have fun!

As a former community manager, I know how hard it is to manage a community and keep the quality of the conversations high.

If you are joining any of the communities above, do them a favor, follow their rules, and add value. That’s how everyone else can benefit together.

Now, go have fun! :)

P.S. You might also be interested in our compilation of ecommerce blogs and ecommerce podcasts.