r/ecommerce: rules, karma requirements and posting culture
About 680,000 store owners and would-be sellers asking how to sell more online. Text only, link-averse, and gated by separate post and comment karma minimums.
Reddit eCommerce · Open on Reddit
- Members
- 681k
- Created
- 2008
- New posts a day
- 28.6
- Comments on a typical post
- 15
- New posts removed
- 67%
The short answer
r/ecommerce needs at least 10 post karma and 20 comment karma, counted separately, and an account at least 30 days old. The same gate applies to comments. Only text posts are allowed, every post carries a flair, and links to your own site, blog or socials are against the rules unless you are asking for a store review. Only about 3 in 10 posts in our sample stayed up, so expect a strict room that is suspicious of anything that smells like an app or agency pitch.
Who posts here
The feed runs from teenagers asking how to start with no money to operators asking about reorder points, lead times and inventory funding. Terms like DTC and SKU are used without explanation, but a beginner who is honest about being confused still gets answers: a first-timer's question about thin margins drew 35 comments. Our data has no comment sample for this subreddit, so how kindly those answers are worded is not something we can report.
- First-time sellers and dropshippers trying to pick a product or get a first sale.
- Owners of small Shopify and WooCommerce stores dealing with ads, abandoned carts, shipping and suppliers.
- Established brand operators with questions about cash flow, inventory and payments.
- Agency people, app builders and lenders, who post advice with their trade showing and are watched closely.
Karma and account requirements
What it takes to get a post through in r/ecommerce.
| Karma | At least 10 post karma and at least 20 comment karma. They are counted separately and total karma is ignored. The gate applies to comments as well as posts.Mods' wording: “your post and comment karma are separate numbers and must both meet their minimum requirement” |
|---|---|
| Account age | At least 30 days old. Newer accounts are removed automatically.Mods' wording: “accounts must be at least 30 days old” |
| Post type | Text posts only. Link, image and video posts are switched off.Mods' wording: “This is a self-post only sub.” |
| Post flair | Every post in the sample carries one. Business, Marketing and Technology cover almost all of them. |
| Links | No links to a service, blog, video or website inside the post. The exception is your own store when you want it reviewed or need to show a specific issue.Mods' wording: “Do not post a link to a service / blog / video / or website.” |
| Research posts | Posts fishing for store owners' pain points or feedback on an app idea are banned outright.Mods' wording: “feedback on apps or app / software ideas are not allowed” |
What AutoModerator says
The moderators' bot leaves these messages on posts. They are the closest thing to an official statement of the thresholds.
Your comment in /r/ecommerce was automatically removed as your 'post' karma is below 10 (we do not consider your total karma; your post and comment karma are separate numbers and must both meet their minimum requirement). You can increase your post karma by posting in other areas of Reddit to earn upvotes. The higher quality the content, the higher your karma will become.
Your submission in /r/ecommerce was automatically removed as your 'post' karma is below 10 (we do not consider your total karma; your post and comment karma are separate numbers and must both meet their minimum requirement). You can increase your post karma by posting in other areas of Reddit to earn upvotes. The higher quality the content, the higher your karma will become.
Your submission in /r/ecommerce was automatically removed as your 'comment' karma is below 20 (we do not consider your total karma; your post and comment karma are separate numbers and must both meet their minimum requirement). You can increase your comment karma by posting in other areas of Reddit to earn upvotes. The higher quality the content, the higher your karma will become.
Your comment in /r/ecommerce was automatically removed as your 'comment' karma is below 20 (we do not consider your total karma; your post and comment karma are separate numbers and must both meet their minimum requirement). You can increase your comment karma by posting in other areas of Reddit to earn upvotes. The higher quality the content, the higher your karma will become.
Your comment in /r/ecommerce was automatically removed as your account is too new (accounts must be at least 30 days old). Try again a little later.
What you can post
| Post type | Subreddit setting | Share of recent posts |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Allowed | 99% |
| Link | Not allowed | 0% |
| Image | Not allowed | 0% |
| Video | Not allowed | 0% |
| Poll | Allowed | <1% |
Post flairs in use
- 📊 Business 44%
- 📢 Marketing 29%
- 🛒 Technology 24%
- 🧑💻 Creative 2%
- 📰 News 2%
- 🧐 Review my Store <1%
What happens to a new post
Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.
- Stayed up31%
- Removed by Reddit's filters13%
- Removed by moderators54%
- Deleted by the author2%
Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.
What happened when we posted here
We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.
- Stayed up
- 94%
- Removed by Reddit's filters
- 2%
- Removed by moderators
- 5%
- Period
- August 2025 to August 2026
The rules, in the mods' words
- 1
Do not link to sites or blogs within your post
Do not post a link to a service / blog / video / or website. If you are posting your ecommerce website asking for a site review or need to link to a specific example of a site aspect or issue, this is allowed and encouraged.
- 2
Do not post promotional content
Do not link to your YouTube, Twitter, FB, or other pages. The sub exists to help others, not to help you get likes or subs. Keep all conversation pertaining to the post here so that everyone may benefit from the conversation.
- 3
Soliciting, Self-Promotion, or Direct Soliciting via DM
If you solicit in this sub in any way - via post, request for DM, referral, or DM to others - or in any way try to initiate personal contact with a user your comment / post will be removed and you will be banned. No questions asked, no second chances. The sub is here to help users, not for finding clients.
- 4
Be polite and helpful
At all times be civil and constructive.
- 5
Do not post courses, themes, or stores for sale
r/ecommerce is not the place to sell your existing ecommerce store, theme, or course. Users who violate this rule will be banned, due to the risk of fraud and dishonesty it causes.
- 6
Any 'AMA'-type post must first be approved by mods.
- 7
No 'Dev Research' posts
Posts looking for 'pain points' of store owners, app validation ideas, or other posts that are looking for ideas or feedback on apps or app / software ideas are not allowed.
These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.
The culture
r/ecommerce is a help desk for people who sell things online. It has about 680,000 members and gets close to 30 posts a day, nearly all of them text. The typical post is a question of around 140 words from someone running a store, and just over half of titles are phrased as questions. A post that stays up usually gets a real thread: the median is about 14 comments.
Getting a post to stay up is the hard part. In our sample of 400 posts, about 31% stayed, 54% were removed by moderators and 13% by Reddit's own filters. Many of the removed titles read like ordinary questions about ad platforms, shipping costs and tech stacks, so a large share of that 54% is likely AutoModerator enforcing the karma and account age minimums, not a human judging the content. We cannot confirm that from our data.
The live argument is about the feed itself. The top post in the sample was a seller venting that the front page had filled up with AI-written adverts for Shopify apps, and asking whether packing and shipping your own stock is still worth it. That mood shapes how everything is read. Posts by vendors that are dressed as advice do get through, and they sit there with one upvote and no replies.
What lands
- An honest vent from a working seller about whether the business is still worth doing. It was the top post and drew 57 comments.
- A specific operational problem with what you have already tried, such as abandoned checkouts after moving from basic emails to a paid email tool.
- A beginner question with real numbers in it, like finding only two or three euros of margin after tax, shipping and packaging.
- A warning that protects other sellers, such as exposing a fake AI-generated artisan account that funnels people to a store.
- Practical supplier and logistics questions: shipping from China, paying overseas manufacturers safely, box sizes for bulky products.
What gets removed or ignored
- Posts and comments from accounts under 30 days old, or below 10 post karma or 20 comment karma. AutoModerator removes these on sight.
- Offers of free work: free audits, free speed checks if you drop your store URL, or volunteering to work for nothing. The rules treat any solicitation as a ban, with no second chance.
- "I built" announcements for apps and toolkits, and posts asking whether brands would pay for a service.
- Requests for partners or contacts, and posts written in a language other than English.
- One-word or empty titles. Several removed posts had titles that said nothing about the question.
The unwritten rules
- Say what you sell, where, and what you have tried. The questions that get long threads all do this in the first few lines.
- Do not ask people to DM you, even to be helpful. The rules count a request for a DM as soliciting.
- Readers assume a polished how-to post is an advert until proven otherwise. Comparison posts and "what we see as a lender" posts stayed up in the sample but drew no discussion.
- Posting the same text twice under two titles is visible to everyone. Several duplicates sit side by side in the feed.
- Store review requests are allowed by the rules but had a poor survival rate in the sample. If you post one, ask a precise question about the site instead of a general "why no sales".
Self-promotion
The rules are among the strictest in the category. No links to your service, blog, video channel or social pages. No courses, themes or stores for sale. No soliciting by post, by comment or by DM, with a ban and no second chance. AMAs need moderator approval first, and market research for an app idea is banned by name. In practice the moderators and AutoModerator catch most direct pitches, while link-free advice posts from agencies and lenders slip through and get ignored. The only thing that works for a brand here is answering other people's questions well, with no link and no invitation to get in touch.
How people write here
- Typical post length
- 137 words
- Typical title length
- 11 words
- Titles phrased as a question
- 53%
- Typical comment length
- 47 words
- Comments that include a link
- 7%
- Posts that carry a flair
- 100%
When people post
- 0:00 UTC, 10
- 1:00 UTC, 15
- 2:00 UTC, 5
- 3:00 UTC, 18
- 4:00 UTC, 11
- 5:00 UTC, 11
- 6:00 UTC, 15
- 7:00 UTC, 10
- 8:00 UTC, 16
- 9:00 UTC, 15
- 10:00 UTC, 16
- 11:00 UTC, 22
- 12:00 UTC, 24
- 13:00 UTC, 20
- 14:00 UTC, 17
- 15:00 UTC, 21
- 16:00 UTC, 21
- 17:00 UTC, 23
- 18:00 UTC, 16
- 19:00 UTC, 28
- 20:00 UTC, 19
- 21:00 UTC, 19
- 22:00 UTC, 20
- 23:00 UTC, 8
New posts by hour of day, UTC.
Top keywords
The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/ecommerce.
- ecommerce 43 posts
- shopify 48 posts
- e-commerce 34 posts
- store 57 posts
- product 61 posts
- ecom 16 posts
- brand 38 posts
- products 38 posts
- inventory 24 posts
- shipping 26 posts
- meta 21 posts
- ads 27 posts
- sales 32 posts
- stores 21 posts
- orders 20 posts
- brands 21 posts
- customers 28 posts
- meta ads 11 posts
- sellers 12 posts
- amazon 16 posts
- order 24 posts
- customer 26 posts
- starting ecommerce 4 posts
- price 23 posts
- stock 14 posts
- china 10 posts
- supplier 12 posts
- sell 20 posts
- conversion 12 posts
- shop 14 posts
- selling 17 posts
- relevant products 4 posts
- e-commerce business 5 posts
- traffic 16 posts
- clothing 8 posts
- checkout 11 posts
- suppliers 9 posts
- store owners 7 posts
- margins 7 posts
- site 19 posts
Recurring topics: ai, ecom, store, shopify, product, marketing, advice, email, business, ads.
Growth
- 20121k
- 20132.3k
- 20144.6k
- 20157.4k
- 201612k
- 201718k
- 201832k
- 201968k
- 2020130k
- 2021184k
- 2023421k
- 2024503k
- 2025596k
- 2026681k
Related subreddits
- r/dropshipping
- r/Businessowners
- r/ecommercemarketing
- r/SmallBusinessOwners
- r/Dropshipping_Guide
- r/ShopifyeCommerce
- r/ecommerce_growth
- r/smallbusinessowner
- r/smallbusiness
- r/Businessideas
Common questions
How much karma do you need to post in r/ecommerce?
At least 10 post karma and at least 20 comment karma. AutoModerator checks the two numbers separately and ignores your total, so a lot of comment karma will not make up for low post karma. Your account also has to be at least 30 days old, and the same limits apply to comments.
Can I promote my store, app or agency in r/ecommerce?
No. The rules ban links to services, blogs, videos and social pages, ban selling courses, themes and stores, and treat any solicitation, including asking for a DM, as grounds for a ban with no second chance. The one allowed link is your own store when you are asking for a review of it.
Why was my r/ecommerce post removed?
The most likely reason is the account gate: under 30 days old, under 10 post karma or under 20 comment karma. After that, the common causes are a link in the post, an offer of free work or an audit, a request for DMs, or a post looking for feedback on an app idea. About 54% of posts in our sample were removed by moderators and another 13% by Reddit's filters.
Can I post a link or an image in r/ecommerce?
No. The subreddit is text only, and link, image and video posts are switched off. Inside a text post, links to services, blogs and videos are against the rules. You can link your own store if you want it reviewed or need to point at a specific problem on it.
Data as of October 4, 2026. Numbers come from public Reddit data (the Arctic Shift archive and GummySearch) sampled on this date. Removal share counts posts taken down by moderators, AutoModerator or Reddit's own filters. Banner and icon belong to the community. Moderators change rules without notice, so treat the sidebar as the final word.
