Whether you’re an eCommerce newbie or a seasoned professional, it’s imperative for business owners to connect with other professionals, experts, and potential partners.

These connections and opportunities to network are invaluable for learning more about the industry, seeking or sharing advice, and growing your business.

Unfortunately, reaching the right people can be challenging. Social networking apps like LinkedIn make it easier to meet and connect, but not all platforms have robust instant messaging, and it’s more difficult to communicate at scale through them.

Of course, there are in-person networking events, workshops, and conferences, but those can be costly and time-consuming.

Fortunately, in today’s digital world, platforms like Slack are available and designed to help you make those vital connections.

If you don’t currently use Slack, this article will explain what you need to know, along with recommending nine eCommerce Slack groups to join.

What is Slack?

Slack is a messaging app for businesses that connects professionals to the information they need. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.

Those strengths make it an excellent choice for communicating with your team, vendors, or like-minded business professionals.

At its core, Slack is a tool intended for collaboration and conversation. This enables people to exchange instant messages privately, in groups, or through “channels.” Like email, you can attach files, share photos, and even communicate entirely with GIFs.

Unlike social media and networking platforms like LinkedIn, communication is the cornerstone of Slack’s design. When Slack first came onto the scene, teams used it exclusively as an intra-office communications platform, but the technology has since evolved.

Now, Slack functions for both intra-office and external communications (i.e., Slack groups).

What are Slack groups?

Slack groups are like old-school forums, except better organized and more engaging. They’re digital congregations similar to Facebook Groups where you can transfer files, use video and chat calling, and create instant messaging sub-groups.

While there are hundreds of Slack groups dedicated to every topic under the sun, many are invite only, so you may have to reach out to the owner to join.

Within Slack communities, you’ll find #Channels, which are group discussions with dedicated topics like “General,” “Marketing,” “Advice,” “Water cooler/random chats,” and more.

When you become part of a community, you have the option to join all or some of the channels available. Most communities will request that you not add new channels without prior consent from Community Managers. These administrators are available to help you find the channels best suited for your needs.

Why join eCommerce Slack groups?

eCommerce Slack groups are rich resources for gaining practical knowledge and connecting with other eCommerce professionals. Through these groups, eCommerce merchants and developers can engage with one another to learn, share, and celebrate successes.

Many Slack communities host events like Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions featuring experts who can answer questions, swap experiences, and offer helpful advice.

These events give attendees access to authorities in their industries and leading eCommerce professionals to help them expand their knowledge and scale their businesses.

If it’s advice and opinions you seek, Slack communities are an excellent place to poll your peers.

Other benefits of joining eCommerce Slack groups include:

• Hiring:
  Slack groups can be a great way to find new hires for your growing eCommerce business or to discover companies and individuals you can partner with for marketing, logistics, HR, and other initiatives.
• Advice:
  Slack groups are a gold mine for eCommerce professionals wanting advice for all manner of things related to running an online business. Some groups are designed solely for sharing best practices and advice on everything you need to know about eCommerce!
• Marketing:
  Whether it’s peer-to-peer advertising among community members, staying on top of current marketing trends, content creation, or learning more about marketing in general, Slack groups provide in-depth coverage of these topics and more.
• Collaboration opportunities:
  Finding fresh ideas that add excitement to your existing offering can be a full-time job. Fortunately, collabs are much easier with Slack groups. From joining forces for unique digital shopping experiences to co-hosting pop-up shops in local communities, networking in a Slack group can lead to an abundance of partnership opportunities.
• Market expansion:
  When considering expansion into new markets (either geographically or in terms of products to sell), it’s wise to arm yourself with relevant knowledge. Slack groups can provide a wealth of information about different markets and help you find support in new areas.
• Supplier/Vendor or partner discovery:
  If you’re in search of new contracts, Slack communities are an excellent starting point. Connect with suppliers, vendors, third-party logistics services, marketing firms, and even influencers through the variety of eCommerce Slack groups.

9 eCommerce Slack groups to join

Knowing the advantages of eCommerce Slack groups, you should at least be considering joining one.

If you don’t already have a Slack account, that’s your first step. Sign up for Slack by inputting your business email (or use their single sign-on option through Google or Apple).

The seemingly endless number of eCommerce Slack groups can make it difficult to decide which ones to join. To provide a jumping-off point, here are a few of our favorites.

1. Drip’s Ecomm-unity

Drip is a marketing platform that empowers eCommerce brands to run multi-channel marketing campaigns quickly and easily by gathering and organizing customer data.

It’s an excellent resource to construct personalized, omnichannel customer journeys at scale to improve conversions, boost sales, and grow revenue.

The Drip Ecomm-unity is a curated group of Drip experts, eCommerce marketing professionals, founders, and international operators from some of the most well-known eCommerce brands, email and SMS marketers, and creative thinkers.

This eCommerce Slack group features several useful channels, including:

• #EcommEssentials: Everything eCommerce related
• #Troubleshooting: The place for Q&A, support, and other help
• #ChitChat: A space for conversation, casual or otherwise
• #EmailMarketing: A space to discuss email workflows, bounce rates, abandoned carts, and other topics related to this type of advertising
• #SMS: A place to talk text marketing

The channel is all about eCommerce marketing, with a focus on omnichannel.

2. Shopify Partners

One of the giants in eCommerce solutions is Shopify. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Shopify is a platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems.

It’s cloud based and hosted and provides a seamless, all-in-one system to support eCommerce businesses from the creation of their online store through the close of a sale.

The Shopify Partners Slack group is intended for app developers, theme developers, Shopify agencies, and other ecosystem partners who work to enable merchants.

This is a huge community with members from all over the globe, and it’s also the official channel for Shopify Partner Town Halls.

To join the group, you must have an email registered with an official Shopify Partner. Boasting over 35,000 members, it’s one of the most active Slack channels out there, with topics on everything from using Shopify themes and custom development to headless commerce and marketing.

This eCommerce Slack group brings together fellow Shopify store owners, partners, Shopify team members, mentors, and educators. It’s a space to share ideas, learn from one another, brainstorm, and connect.

Anonymous members aren’t allowed, so be sure to include your business name and your full name when you request to join (it’s also important to include all this information on Slack when you sign up).

Alternatively, if you want to join a more specific channel, the official Shopify Supply Chain and Logistics Network community is much smaller and focuses on sharing supply chain and logistical insights and solutions for eCommerce shops.

3. eCommerce Academy

The Slack eCommerce Academy is a global group of founders, entrepreneurs, and eCommerce professionals that learn how to build, grow, and scale eCommerce businesses together.

With only 1,300 members, it’s a lot smaller than Shopify’s channel. However, that means you’ll have more opportunity to connect directly with individuals and get to know the people in the community on a deeper level.

The most popular channels in the community include:

• #General: The Marketplace Academy, where founders, entrepreneurs, and fans of marketplaces gather to discuss everything about online marketplaces.
• #Founders: A channel dedicated to learning, teaching, discovering, and sharing tips, articles, and experiences as it relates to founders’ entrepreneurial journeys.
• #Hiring: If you’re looking to build or expand your team, learn about hiring, or simply network, this is the eCommerce Academy channel for you.
• #Pains: This is the channel for airing your woes and troubleshooting solutions.
• #GrowthHacking: The channel for anyone seeking to grow their business.

4. eCommTalk

eCommTalk is the community for Shopify lovers’, where users and enthusiasts can connect, ask and answer questions, and make lasting relationships with colleagues.

With over 4,000 members, this is a more curated version of the Shopify Partners group. You gain access to experts who are there specifically to share knowledge, as well as opportunities to offer your own in order to build your network and connections.

Some of the channels you’ll find are:

• #AMA: This space hosts AMAs periodically, featuring Shopify experts.
• #Development: This is a general chat channel dedicated to questions and discussions about dev work.
• #Marketing: If you want to discuss your marketing efforts and how to upgrade them, wade into this channel. Learn how to advertise your stores or apps more effectively, share your tried-and-true tips, and boost your sales.
• #Themes: Shopify themes deserve their own dedicated space! Join this channel to talk about theme creation, selling, or troubleshooting their development.
• #Jobs: Hiring? Looking for a new role? This is the channel for you.

5. CRO Growth Hacks

OMetrics is a leader in affordable AI chatbots, conversion rate optimization tools, and tailored services. The company specializes in generative AI, chatbots, lead bots, business lead generation, and A/B conversion optimization testing for eCommerce sites — in short, they’re in the business of helping your business grow.

It’s no surprise the OMetrics CRO Growth Hacks community is dedicated to all things growth, from CRO, SEM, and SEO to email, business strategy, and everything in between. There, you’ll find channels like:

• #General: A day-to-day, general conversation space for team-wide communication and announcements.
• #CRO_hacks: Conversion rate optimization is the focus here. Learn about CRO hacks to upgrade your landing pages, email campaigns, and website.
• #SEO_hacks: Ready to take your search engine optimization to the next level? This channel is meant to discuss SEO best practices and hacks, share wins, and ask questions.
• #Business_hacks: From business strategy to pivoting your company, questions about employee management, and more, this is the channel for all of your overall business needs.
• #Site_Critique: If you want constructive criticism, you can drop your website’s URL in this channel to request insights and feedback from peers and experts.

6. Online Geniuses

If you’re unfamiliar with Online Geniuses, they’re one of the largest SEO and digital marketing Slack groups out there. It’s dedicated to helping members improve their SEO and digital marketing to realize a greater return on those investments and grow their businesses through knowledge sharing and connections.

Online Geniuses has more than 35,000 vetted members in its global community, which includes VPs, CMOs, freelancers, consultants, and agency owners from every corner of the digital marketing ecosystem.

They regularly host Q&A sessions with industry experts, like Red Bull’s Allyson J. Davis, to deliver valuable information to members on topics of interest that run the full gamut of digital marketing.

Channels include:

• #SEO
• #PPC
• #SocialMediaMarketing
• #Email_Marketing
• #Hangouts
• #Good_Finds

Online Geniuses also runs local events so you can close the online gap and come face-to-face with your contacts.

7. BrainSpin’s Backlinks

BrainSpin is a marketing platform that offers custom marketing content and design. However, they also launch initiatives for the web, including custom content marketing, SEO, PPC, and analytics. Their eCommerce Slack group is a free-to-use service with minimal moderation.

Building backlinks entails forming connections with other content publishers, so these relationships are an important part of SEO and content marketing.

With that in mind, the Backlinks Slack group is dedicated entirely to business owners, SEO specialists, and industry leaders looking to create relationships, share knowledge, and collaborate on content marketing.

The channel also has categories for various industries so you can stick to relevant categories and publish aligned content. Here, you can also look for backlinks and content sharing, seek out industry experts to quote in your content, ask questions, join sessions, and learn more about a given sector.

Channels include:

• #general
• #guestposts
• #traffic-boost
• #random

8. BigSEO

BigSEO is a curated eCommerce Slack group that grew out of a subreddit of the same name. Since its inception, the community has devoted itself to sharing SEO knowledge, building business contacts, and networking.

As an SEO-only community, it’s mostly relevant for eCommerce marketing. However, it does touch on technical knowledge, industry expertise, and a focus on community as well, making it a great place to be if you want to build real connections inside of an established community.

Channels include:

• #General
• #business
• #events
• #localSEO
• #must-reads
• #technical-seo
• #international
• #penalties
• #sitereview
• #jobs

9. SPACEGOATS

SPACEGOATS is an FBA company specifically dedicated to helping businesses scale overseas and break into international Amazon markets.

They provide supply chain consultation, compliance consulting, and services to help you sell without having to manage your sales directly on another continent.

The company launched a Slack channel designed to help FBA sellers find answers to their questions and discuss the Amazon program.

That includes covering general inquiries, exchanging industry knowledge, and taking part in AMAs, as well as some face-to-face meetups. The channel now boasts over 600 FBA experts and users.

It’s also one of the only Slack channels dedicated solely to FBA, making it a great resource whether you’re looking to share expertise, better understand the market, or learn from other experts.

Wrapping up — Find a helping hand through eCommerce Slack groups

Slack groups are an excellent avenue for eCommerce entrepreneurs to connect with and learn from their fellow merchants, industry experts, developers, and other professionals involved in the various eCommerce sectors.

You can join as many or as few eCommerce Slack groups as you like based on your interests and business needs.

By participating in Slack groups, you’re more easily able to build your skills, grow your business, and even make some friends along the way.

Published: July 14, 2022 
Updated: July 23, 2024