Adding a forum to your store

[Firecom]

Been toying with the idea to add a forum. I wondered if anyone had done this and what kind of results they had had with repeat business from the users?

any main advantages or disadvantages?

I was hoping to build a community around the products we sell which are highly specialised and 99% related only to the end clients rather than hte home market.

Also, any problems with people flaming etc on the forum? ie arguments erupting and putting people off using your site or even slagging off your service?

Just thinking outside the box at the mo so any ideas are appreciated. Always nice to foster a good reason for people to come to your site, even if they don't intend to buy...

[Duncan Rounding]

A forum can be simple to add to your site but it can take a lot of time to maintain and moderate. It can also take a long time to grow. Why not consider a blog and social networking.

[Firecom]

We will do a blog as well at some point. our industry is very specific and so was thinking about the community angle that would be associated with us as a wholesale supplier.

with the recession at the moment, want to find any and all angles that can help keep people coming our way

interested to know peoples thoughts etc. from my experiences in other industries i know forums and blogs can be a real benefit to fostering communities.

[pixelhaus]

Forums can work well, especially as a market placed for used goods relating to what you sell, but as others have said, moderation is the problem. The more successful the forum becomes, the more of a magnet it becomes for scumbag spammers etc.

[Paul Cooper]

We added a forum as a means of responding to technical queries rather than by Email. Posters can either register to add their questions directly into the public areas or can post a question without registering which goes into a queue for vetting first.

Having a forum has helped with google hits, reduced the repeat technical questions and hopefully offers assurance to customers that we are there to help. Moderation has been far easier than I expected with no issues to date but then it has not been used as a community type forum.

It can be seen at http://www.technobots.co.uk and click on 'Knowledge Base, Projects and Support on the right which is work in progress to extend the technical support.

[Firecom]

Thanks for responses so far. I like the idea about tech support on it.