Forum Software For Something Other Than Forums?

Have you ever used forum software for anything other than as an actual forum?

ex: I used to use phpBB, and I wasn't familiar with what a CMS, or even a shopping cart was, so I hacked phpBB and turned it into basically a way of presenting available music pieces to use in my video slide shows (more than slide shows, but that best describes it).

And now I'm considering modding the heck out of vB to create a proprietary online storefront and shopping cart for my Rhinestone Apparel clothing (high-end, not the simple and cheesy clip art shirts you see everywhere. Custom all-the-way.).

The reason I'm considering this is that I love many of vB's features and user permissions.

I love Zen-Cart, but frankly I don't like the way all of the templates are written with all of the PHP mixed in with the HTML.

I like vBulletin's template system, in other words.

$150 seems like a lot to spend on a store (would be my fifth license if I bought a new one), but trust me, that's not even close to being the highest price out there, and this would allow me to have all of the features I want, and leave out the ones that I don't.

Any others that have done similar things with forum software?

 

Well I currently plan to base a whole Website on vbulletin. I currently have hosted my 2nd license on a temporary location to prepare it. I save content up for the launch of vb4 though. I don't wish to do all the work multiple times in a short time.

 

I'd never use a forum software as a store solution. If you're going to put that much work and effort into something like that, why not start with something thats atleast meant to be a store first.

There are hundreds of free open source shopping cart projects out there like CubeCart for example. Use one of them and build off of.

 

Hey Chani, when you're done building your site for the custom rhinestone clothing be sure you add it to Customize Your Life: Directory of sites offering custom-made, customized, made to order and personalized products.

 

Will do!

 

I haven't done anything like this but I know of one website that has.

HotUKDeals - Deals - All

They use vBulletin. Although I'm not exactly sure which bits are being used (obviously the comments but I'm not sure what else) :p

Maybe that technically would still be a forum though, I'm not sure :p

 

Well, if I were to do it with vB, I would still leave it as a support forum, but just do something like GARS and have a certain forum be "products", and then I would tap into the Paid Subscriptions for a payment gateway.

Or at least that's what I'm thinking right now.

I understand the feeling of leave a forum a forum and put up a store that's already a store, but forum software has become so much more than just forums now, and I've heard MANY people request a store feature for their forums.

 

wow, i didnt even think that was possible? i thought a forum was the only thing you could use forum software for

 

I use wordpress for a website. Like the whole site. Pages, comments turned off, theming is easy. I am working on integrating the forum, mostly done, just some font issues.