What are e-commerce communities?

Communities for e-commerce operators covering Shopify, Amazon, dropshipping, and direct-to-consumer brands. Slack is popular for DTC and platform-specific groups, while Discord has communities for Amazon sellers and general e-commerce strategy. One of the more active business topics on the site.

Where do most e-commerce communities live?

Discord is the most common platform in this report (25% of 91 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

57% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical e-commerce community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 62K members and the median is 12K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Live Chat is the most common (65%). Others that show up often include forum, paid community, and courses.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's E-Commerce topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

E-Commerce Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 91 e-commerce communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: e-commerce communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 91
Platforms: 10
Avg members: 62K
Median members: 12K

Where E-Commerce Communities Are Hosted

Discord
23(25%)
Independent Platforms
19(21%)
Reddit
12(13%)
Facebook
10(11%)
Skool
10(11%)
Slack
7(8%)
WhatsApp
4(4%)
LinkedIn
3(3%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
41(45%)
Chat communities
34(37%)
Private membership
11(12%)
Other platforms
5(5%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (45%), but chat communities is also well represented (37%).

Discord leads, but Independent Platforms and Reddit also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
3(3%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
17(19%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
8(9%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
27(30%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
12(13%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

24 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (62K vs 12K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How E-Commerce Differs From Other Categories

E-Commerce is less free-to-join, smaller, more platform-diverse, more chat-heavy, and more paid or gated, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	E-Commerce	Hive Index average
Free to join	57%	84%
Median members	12K	25K
Average members	62K	668K
Paid or apply-to-join	43%	16%
Live chat	65%	41%
Discord share	25%	17%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Live Chat
65%
Forum
53%
Paid Community
40%
Courses
29%
Online/Offline Events
19%

Niche Features

Newsletter
12%
Member Perks
7%
Requires Application
5%
Job Board
3%
Pairing
1%
Tools
1%

Live Chat appears on 65% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 1K

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Discord	23	25%	356	27%
Independent Platforms	19	21%	36	3%
Reddit	12	13%	15	1%
Facebook	10	11%	51	4%
Skool	10	11%	26	2%
Slack	7	8%	466	35%
WhatsApp	4	4%	345	26%
LinkedIn	3	3%	15	1%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Slack gets 35% of clicks but only 8% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
1K(88%)
Forum / feed-based
102(8%)
Private membership
29(2%)
Other platforms
21(2%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
1K(95%)
Forum
531(40%)
Paid Community
298(23%)
Courses
243(18%)
Online/Offline Events
160(12%)
Requires Application
136(10%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Large
304(23%)
Huge
282(21%)
Medium
146(11%)
Small
126(10%)
Massive
40(3%)

Top-clicked listings

eCommTalk
270(20%)
Founders Hub
219(17%)
DTC Fam
85(6%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and forum / feed-based communities.

Trends

Founded year

2008

2009

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2019

2020

2022

70 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2014.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 4 communities have ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 4 communities.

Rated examples

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as E-Commerce. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

Updated periodically

FAQ

: Communities for e-commerce operators covering Shopify, Amazon, dropshipping, and direct-to-consumer brands. Slack is popular for DTC and platform-specific groups, while Discord has communities for Amazon sellers and general e-commerce strategy. One of the more active business topics on the site.
: Discord is the most common platform in this report (25% of 91 listings).
: 57% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 62K members and the median is 12K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Live Chat is the most common (65%). Others that show up often include forum, paid community, and courses.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's E-Commerce topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

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All E-Commerce communities

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