Glossary
The words we use most, defined the way we would explain them to a client. Search them, browse by category, or switch to Test me and guess the term from its definition.
Categories
335 of 335 terms
Ad spend divided by the revenue those ads generated. It measures how efficient a single campaign is, so a lower ACoS means each advertised sale cost you less.
Related: TACoS, Break-even ACoS, Cost Per Click, Sponsored Products
A container inside a campaign that holds a set of ads together with the keywords or targets they run against. Grouping tightly, so one ad group covers one theme, is what lets you read the numbers and act on them.
Related: Campaign, Keyword, Match Type
Amazon's platform for buying display and video ads programmatically, both on Amazon and on sites and apps off it, using Amazon shopping audiences. It reaches people who are not currently searching, which makes it a top of funnel tool rather than a harvesting one.
Related: Demand-Side Platform, Display Advertising, Retargeting
Choosing who sees an ad based on people rather than on what they typed, using signals like past shopping behaviour or interests. It is how you reach a buyer before they have written a search that you could bid on.
Related: Lookalike Audience, Prospecting, Retargeting
A campaign setting where the marketplace decides which searches and products your ad appears against, based on your listing content. It is useful for discovering terms you would not have guessed, and those winners then get moved into a campaign you control.
Related: Manual Targeting, Search Term Report, Negative Keyword
The most you are willing to pay for one click on a given keyword or target. It sets your ceiling, not your price, because what you actually pay is decided by the auction and is usually less.
Related: Cost Per Click, Dynamic Bidding, Placement
Searches that contain your brand name, as opposed to generic category searches. These convert well and are cheap, which flatters an account average, so it is worth reading branded and non-branded performance separately.
Related: Search Term, Share of Voice, New-to-Brand
The advertising cost of sales at which an extra advertised order adds nothing and costs nothing, because the ad spend exactly eats the margin on that sale. It is your ceiling, and it comes from your own margin rather than from any industry benchmark.
Related: ACoS, TACoS, Contribution margin, Cost Per Click
A keyword setting where your ad can show against searches that are related to your keyword rather than identical to it, including variations and related phrasings. It buys reach and discovery at the cost of precision, so it needs negatives to stay clean.
Related: Match Type, Phrase Match, Exact Match, Negative Keyword
The top level of an ad account, where the budget, the start date and the overall strategy sit. Because budget lives here, how you split campaigns decides what you are able to fund independently.
Related: Ad Group, Daily Budget, Dayparting
Placing ads based on the content of the page or the product being viewed rather than on who is viewing it. On a marketplace this is what puts your ad on a competitor's product page.
Related: Product Targeting, Display Advertising, Audience Targeting
What you actually pay each time someone clicks your ad. It is the price of traffic, and it moves with competition, so a rising CPC can wreck your efficiency even when nothing about your own campaign has changed.
Related: Bid, CTR, ACoS, Break-even ACoS
The price of a thousand ad impressions, the standard unit for display and video buying where you pay to be seen rather than per click. It is how awareness media is priced, so judging it by clicks alone will always make it look expensive.
Related: Impression, Reach, Display Advertising, Amazon DSP
The visible part of an ad: the image, video, headline and copy a shopper actually sees. When a campaign is set up correctly and still underperforms, the creative is usually the thing that is wrong.
Related: A/B Test, CTR, Sponsored Brands
The amount a campaign is allowed to spend in a day before it stops serving. A campaign that hits its budget early stops competing for the rest of the day, which quietly hands the afternoon to someone else.
Related: Campaign, Dayparting, Impression Share
Changing bids or budgets by time of day or day of week, so spend concentrates in the hours that convert. It only pays off when your data genuinely shows a pattern, rather than noise in a thin set of orders.
Related: Daily Budget, Bid, Campaign
Software that buys ad space across many websites and apps automatically through real-time auctions, instead of you negotiating with each publisher. It is the plumbing under most display and video advertising.
Related: Amazon DSP, Display Advertising, CPM
Image or video ads shown on websites, apps and marketplace pages to people who are not searching for you at that moment. It creates demand rather than harvesting it, so it is measured on reach and new customers more than on immediate efficiency.
Related: Sponsored Display, Amazon DSP, CPM, Prospecting
Letting the platform raise or lower your bid in real time based on how likely that particular click looks to convert. It usually beats a flat bid, but it means your true cost per click can sit above the number you typed in.
Related: Bid, Cost Per Click, Placement
A keyword setting where your ad shows only on that search term and very close variants of it. It gives you the tightest control and the cleanest data, which is why proven winners usually end up here.
Related: Match Type, Phrase Match, Broad Match, Search Term
The average number of times one person saw your ad over a period. Reach without frequency is forgettable, and frequency without a cap turns into paying repeatedly to annoy the same people.
Related: Reach, Frequency Cap, Impression, Display Advertising
A limit on how many times the same person can be shown your ad in a given period. It exists because the returns on repeat impressions fall off fast, and the spend does not.
Related: Frequency, Retargeting, Amazon DSP
Sales that an ad causes but does not get direct credit for, such as an advertised product lifting the rest of the range or driving a later organic purchase. It is the reason judging advertising only on directly attributed sales understates it.
Related: TACoS, Incrementality, Attribution Window
One instance of your ad being served on screen. It is the raw unit of exposure and means nothing on its own, but it is the denominator under click-through rate and the thing you buy on a CPM basis.
Related: CTR, CPM, Impression Share, Reach
The share of the impressions you were eligible for that you actually got. A low share tells you the demand exists and you are not showing up for it, usually because of budget or bid rather than because of the ad.
Related: Share of Voice, Daily Budget, Bid, Top of Search
A word or phrase you choose to bid on, telling the platform which searches you want to compete for. It is what you asked for, which is not the same as the search that triggered your ad.
Related: Search Term, Match Type, Negative Keyword, Ad Group
The page someone arrives on after clicking your ad. Traffic quality and landing page quality multiply, so a mismatch between the promise in the ad and what loads next wastes every click you paid for.
Related: Brand Store, Quality Score, Creative, UTM Parameter
An audience the platform builds by finding people who resemble a list you supplied, such as past buyers. It is a way to widen prospecting without abandoning what you know about your real customers.
Related: Audience Targeting, Prospecting, Retargeting
A campaign where you choose the keywords or products your ads run against yourself, instead of letting the platform decide. It costs more attention and gives you control of bids term by term, which is where efficiency work actually happens.
Related: Automatic Targeting, Keyword, Match Type, Bid
The setting that decides how closely a shopper's search must resemble your keyword before your ad can show. It is the main dial between reach and control, and running the same keyword at different match types tells you which end of that dial pays.
Related: Exact Match, Phrase Match, Broad Match, Keyword
A term you explicitly block, so your ad never shows against it. It is the cheapest lever in an ad account, because every irrelevant click you stop paying for is money returned with no downside.
Related: Search Term Report, Keyword, Broad Match, Automatic Targeting
An Amazon Ads metric that flags orders from customers who have not bought from your brand in a defined lookback period. It is the closest thing retail media gives you to a customer acquisition number, rather than another sale to someone already yours.
Related: Prospecting, Incrementality, Branded Search, Sponsored Brands
A keyword setting where the shopper's search has to contain your phrase in order, but can have words around it. It sits between exact and broad, catching natural variations without opening the door to everything.
Related: Match Type, Exact Match, Broad Match
Where on the page or site an ad appears, such as the top of search results, further down the results, or on a product page. The same ad performs very differently by placement, which is why placement level bidding usually beats one flat bid.
Related: Top of Search, Bid, Dynamic Bidding, Contextual Targeting
Aiming ads at specific products or categories rather than at search terms, so your ad appears on chosen product pages. It is how you put your offer in front of a shopper who is already looking at something similar.
Related: Contextual Targeting, Sponsored Display, ASIN
Advertising to people who have not engaged with your brand yet. It is more expensive per sale than retargeting and it is the only part of the account that grows the pool everything else works from.
Related: Retargeting, New-to-Brand, Lookalike Audience, Display Advertising
A search engine's rating of how relevant your keyword, ad and landing page are to each other and to the searcher. A better score lowers what you pay for the same position, so relevance is a cost lever and not only a creative one.
Related: Landing Page, Cost Per Click, Keyword
The number of distinct people who saw your ad, as opposed to the number of times it was shown. It answers how many humans you actually got in front of, which is the question awareness spending is supposed to answer.
Related: Frequency, Impression, CPM, Display Advertising
A retailer's own advertising business, selling ad space on its site and in its app to the brands that sell there. It is attractive to advertisers because the retailer can see the purchase, not just the click.
Related: Sponsored Products, Amazon DSP, Sponsored Display
Showing ads to people who already viewed your product or visited your site. It converts well because you are talking to warm demand, and it flatters your reported efficiency for exactly the same reason.
Related: Incrementality, Prospecting, Frequency Cap, Sponsored Display
Revenue from advertising divided by the money spent to get it, expressed as a multiple. A 4x ROAS means four dollars back for every dollar spent, which is the same relationship ACoS states as a percentage, inverted.
Related: ACoS, TACoS, CTR
The actual words a shopper typed, as opposed to the keyword you bid on. The difference between the two is where you find both your best new keywords and your worst wasted spend.
Related: Keyword, Search Term Report, Negative Keyword, Match Type
The report that lists the real searches that triggered your ads and what each one did. It is the primary raw material for advertising work, because it is the only place the platform tells you what shoppers actually asked for.
Related: Search Term, Negative Keyword, Automatic Targeting
How much of the visible advertising in a category or on a search result belongs to you rather than to competitors. It is a competitive position measure, so it can fall while your own numbers hold steady, simply because someone else spent more.
Related: Impression Share, Top of Search, Branded Search
Amazon's ad format that shows a brand logo, a headline and several products, usually across the top of a search result. It is a brand format rather than a single product one, so it is judged on discovery and range exposure as much as on direct sales.
Related: Sponsored Products, Brand Store, Top of Search, New-to-Brand
Amazon's self-service display format, used to reach shoppers on product pages and, depending on the option chosen, off Amazon as well. It is the simplest way to advertise to an audience rather than to a search.
Related: Display Advertising, Product Targeting, Retargeting, Amazon DSP
Amazon's pay-per-click format that promotes a single listing inside search results and on product pages. It is the workhorse of most Amazon ad accounts because it meets a shopper at the moment they are already looking for the thing you sell.
Related: Sponsored Brands, Keyword, Search Term Report, ACoS, Buy Box
Amazon's ad format for streaming television inventory, opening TV style advertising to brands without a traditional TV budget. It is bought for reach and brand building, so measuring it on same-day attributed sales will always disappoint.
Related: Display Advertising, Reach, Incrementality, Amazon DSP
Ad spend divided by total revenue, ads plus organic. It shows whether advertising is growing the whole business, not just the sales it gets direct credit for.
Related: ACoS, Break-even ACoS, Organic Rank, Sponsored Products
The advertising slots at the very top of a search results page, before the organic results. They cost the most and convert the best, which is why bidding the same amount for every placement leaves money in the wrong slot.
Related: Placement, Impression Share, Share of Voice, Bid
A sale credited to an ad that a person saw but did not click. It is genuine in principle and easy to overstate in practice, so it is best read alongside a test that shows whether those sales would have happened anyway.
Related: Attribution Window, Incrementality, Display Advertising, CPM
A company that stores your inventory and picks, packs, and ships your orders across your sales channels, so you keep one stockroom instead of running your own warehouse.
Related: Pick and Pack, FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment, Storage Fees
A way of ranking your inventory into groups by how much of your sales or value each item accounts for, so the small handful of products that carry the business get the tightest control. It tells you where to spend counting time and where a rough estimate is good enough.
Related: Cycle Count, Safety Stock, Dead Stock
A message you send a warehouse or retailer before a shipment arrives, listing what is coming and how it is packed. It lets the receiving team plan labor and check your delivery against what you said you sent.
Related: Receiving, Inbound shipment, Case Pack
Stock that has been sitting in a warehouse longer than you planned for. It matters because storage is charged by how much space you use and for how long, so aged units quietly eat the margin of the units that are selling.
Related: Dead Stock, Storage Fees, Removal Order, Weeks of Cover
An order you accept for an item you do not currently have in stock, promising to ship it when supply arrives. It keeps the sale but moves the risk to your delivery promise, so it only works when you are confident about the restock date.
Related: Stockout, Safety Stock, Replenishment
Picking the same item for several orders in one trip, then splitting it out at packing. It cuts the walking a picker does per order, which is usually the largest single cost inside a warehouse.
Related: Pick and Pack, Wave Picking, Zone Picking, Pick Path
The specific shelf, tote or slot where one item lives in a warehouse, identified by a location code. Bins are what makes a warehouse searchable: without them, finding stock depends on someone remembering where it was put.
Related: Putaway, Slotting, License Plate Number, WMS
The box a set of units is shipped or stored in. Carton dimensions and weight drive both your shipping cost and how a warehouse can handle the freight, so they are worth deciding rather than inheriting from your supplier.
Related: Case Pack, Pallet, Dunnage, Inbound shipment
The fixed number of units packed inside one carton from your supplier. It sets the smallest amount you can realistically move or count at a time, so it shapes your reorder quantities more than most operators expect.
Related: Carton, Pallet, Replenishment
Counting a small slice of your inventory on a rolling schedule instead of shutting down for one big annual count. It catches errors while they are still small and keeps the numbers in your system close to what is actually on the shelf.
Related: Shrinkage, ABC Analysis, Bin, WMS
Inventory that is not selling and has no realistic plan to sell at full price. It is money already spent that is now also costing you storage, so the honest move is usually to discount, bundle or remove it rather than wait.
Related: Aged Inventory, Storage Fees, Removal Order
The packing material inside a box that stops the product moving in transit, such as air pillows, paper or foam inserts. It is the cheapest lever you have on damage rates, which show up later as returns and negative reviews.
Related: Pick and Pack, Carton, Returns Processing
Amazon's program where it stores your inventory and fulfills your Amazon orders for you, which earns the Prime badge but charges for storage and does not cover your other channels.
Related: FBM, Prime Badge, Storage Fees, FNSKU, Multi-Channel Fulfillment
Amazon orders that you ship yourself, from your own warehouse or your 3PL, instead of having Amazon fulfill them. It gives you control of inventory and packaging, and it puts the delivery promise on you.
Related: FBA, 3PL, Seller Fulfilled Prime, Order Cutoff Time
Shipping the units with the nearest expiry date first, regardless of when they arrived. It is the rule for anything dated, because the oldest stock is not always the one that expires soonest.
Related: FIFO, Lot Number, Unsellable Inventory
Shipping the oldest stock first so units do not sit and age at the back of a shelf. It keeps inventory turning evenly and stops a slow pocket of old product building up unnoticed.
Related: FEFO, Aged Inventory, Putaway
The share of ordered units you actually shipped from stock on the first attempt. A low fill rate is a demand planning problem showing up as a customer service problem.
Related: Backorder, Safety Stock, Stockout, Replenishment
The barcode Amazon uses to tie a physical unit in its warehouse network to your seller account. It is what separates your units from another seller's identical product once they are inside the same building.
Related: FBA, ASIN, Prep, Inbound shipment
A warehouse built to ship single orders to consumers rather than pallets to retailers. The layout, staffing and systems are all tuned for picking one or two units at a time, which is why a distribution center rarely converts well into one.
Related: 3PL, Pick and Pack, Inventory Placement, WMS
How your units get spread across a fulfillment network's buildings so they sit closer to the customers who will order them. Placement affects delivery speed and inbound shipping cost at the same time, which is why the cheapest way to send stock in is not always the cheapest overall.
Related: Inbound shipment, Fulfillment Center, FBA, Replenishment
Assembling several separate items into one sellable unit before it is stored, so the order can be picked as a single product. It moves the assembly work off the packing floor, where it is slowest and most error prone.
Related: Prep, Pick and Pack, Receiving
A unique barcode applied to a pallet, tote or carton so a whole group of units can be tracked with one scan. It is how a warehouse moves inventory around without recounting it at every step.
Related: Pallet, Bin, Putaway, WMS
A code identifying the specific production batch a set of units came from. If a supplier problem shows up later, the lot number is what lets you pull only the affected units instead of everything on the shelf.
Related: FEFO, Receiving, Unsellable Inventory
Using Amazon's fulfillment network to ship orders that came from your other sales channels, drawing on the same stock pool. It means one set of inventory serves every channel, at the cost of packaging and delivery options you do not fully control.
Related: FBA, 3PL, FBM, Inventory Placement
The time of day after which an order ships the next working day instead of today. It is the single number that connects the delivery promise on your listing to what your warehouse can actually do.
Related: FBM, Order Cycle Time, Seller Fulfilled Prime
How long it takes from an order being placed to it leaving the building. It is the part of the delivery promise you control, as distinct from the carrier's transit time.
Related: Order Cutoff Time, Pick and Pack, Fill Rate
The core warehouse job of collecting the items for an order and packing them for shipment. Most fulfillment pricing is built around it, so the way your orders are shaped, single item or many, drives what you pay.
Related: Pick List, Batch Picking, Dunnage, 3PL
The list a picker works from, showing what to collect, how many, and from which locations. A good one is sorted by the route through the building, not by the order the customer typed things in.
Related: Pick Path, Pick and Pack, WMS
The route a picker walks through the warehouse to collect an order. Shortening it is the most reliable way to raise throughput, because walking is where most picking time actually goes.
Related: Slotting, Zone Picking, Batch Picking, Pick List
The work done to a unit before it can be stored and sold, such as labeling, poly bagging, or adding a suffocation warning. Getting prep wrong at the source is expensive, because the fix usually happens after the freight has already arrived.
Related: FNSKU, Inbound shipment, Kitting, Receiving
Moving received stock from the dock to its storage location and recording where it went. It is the step that turns a delivered pallet into inventory a picker can actually find.
Related: Receiving, Bin, Slotting, FIFO
Checking an arriving shipment against what was expected and booking the units into the system. Every count error made here follows the stock around for months, which is why it is worth slowing down for.
Related: Inbound shipment, Putaway, Advance Ship Notice, Cycle Count
A request to have your units sent back to you or disposed of from a fulfillment network. It is how you stop paying storage on stock that is not going to sell, and how you get product back to inspect when something is wrong with it.
Related: Dead Stock, Aged Inventory, Unsellable Inventory, Storage Fees
Sending more stock to a fulfillment location before it runs out, based on how fast it is selling and how long resupply takes. It is a timing decision, not a size decision, and getting the timing wrong is what causes most stockouts.
Related: Safety Stock, Weeks of Cover, Lead time, Inventory Placement
Units that are physically in the warehouse but already committed to orders, or otherwise not available to sell. It explains the common surprise where the shelf looks full but the available quantity reads low.
Related: Unsellable Inventory, Fill Rate, WMS
The work of receiving a returned item, inspecting it, and deciding whether it goes back on the shelf, gets refurbished, or is written off. Doing it quickly is what turns a return from a pure loss back into sellable stock.
Related: RMA, Unsellable Inventory, Removal Order, Shrinkage
The approval and reference number issued before a customer sends an item back. It lets the warehouse match an arriving return to the original order instead of guessing what an unlabeled box is.
Related: Returns Processing, Unsellable Inventory
The extra units you deliberately hold to cover demand spikes and late deliveries. It is the price you pay for not being able to predict either one perfectly.
Related: Replenishment, Weeks of Cover, Stockout, Lead time
Inventory you paid for that is no longer there, lost to damage, miscounts, or theft. It shows up as a gap between the system quantity and the shelf, which is exactly what cycle counting is designed to surface.
Related: Cycle Count, Receiving, Unsellable Inventory
Deciding which product goes in which storage location, usually putting the fastest movers closest to packing. It is a one-time layout decision that pays off on every order picked afterwards.
Related: Pick Path, Bin, ABC Analysis, Putaway
Running out of sellable inventory so the listing cannot be bought. It costs the sale in front of you and the ranking momentum behind it, which is why recovery takes longer than the gap itself.
Related: Safety Stock, Fill Rate, Backorder
What a warehouse or fulfillment network charges to hold your inventory, generally based on the space it occupies and how long it sits. Because the charge scales with time, slow sellers get more expensive the longer you keep them.
Related: Aged Inventory, Dead Stock, Weeks of Cover, Removal Order
Units sitting in a fulfillment center that cannot be sold because the listing they belong to is inactive or broken. The stock is fine, the connection to it is not, and you keep paying storage until it is fixed.
Related: Unsellable Inventory, FNSKU, ASIN, Storage Fees
Units in the warehouse that cannot be shipped to a customer, usually because they are damaged, expired, or returned in poor condition. They still take up space, so they need a decision rather than a corner of the building.
Related: Returns Processing, Removal Order, Shrinkage, Lot Number
Releasing orders to the floor in scheduled groups rather than one at a time, so picking, packing and carrier pickups line up. It is how a warehouse hits multiple carrier cutoffs in a day without chaos at the door.
Related: Batch Picking, Zone Picking, Order Cutoff Time, WMS
How many weeks your current stock would last at your recent rate of sale. It turns a unit count into a timing question, which is the only form a reorder decision can actually be made in.
Related: Replenishment, Safety Stock, Aged Inventory, Lead time
The software that tracks where every unit is inside a warehouse and directs receiving, putaway, picking and packing. Without one, a warehouse runs on memory, which stops working the moment it gets busy.
Related: Bin, Pick List, Cycle Count, License Plate Number
Splitting the warehouse into areas and giving each picker one area, then combining the parts of an order before packing. It keeps walking distances short in a large building, at the cost of needing a step to bring orders back together.
Related: Batch Picking, Wave Picking, Pick Path, Slotting
The brand-controlled section further down a product detail page, built from image and text modules instead of plain description text. It is where a brand explains the product visually, and it is available to sellers who have enrolled their brand.
Related: Brand Registry, Brand Story, Product Description, Detail Page
The written description attached to an image so screen readers and systems that cannot see the picture know what it shows. On a listing it is a small accessibility and clarity gain, not a place to pile keywords.
Related: Main Image, Image Stack, Keyword Stuffing
The ten-character code Amazon assigns to every product in its catalog. It is how a listing is identified, tracked, and analyzed across the marketplace.
Related: Parent ASIN, Child ASIN, SKU, FNSKU, Indexing
A single structured field on a listing, such as color, material, size or wattage, filled in from a fixed set of options rather than free text. Attributes drive the filters shoppers use to narrow a category, so a blank one quietly removes you from those results.
Related: Flat File, Browse Node, Search Relevance, Variation Theme
A field on a listing that holds keywords for the marketplace to read but never shows to a shopper. It exists so you can cover spellings, synonyms and use cases that would read badly in the visible copy.
Related: Indexing, Keyword Stuffing, Search Relevance, Long-Tail Keyword
Amazon's program for brand owners with a registered trademark, which unlocks brand-only listing features and the reporting tools used to act on counterfeit and misuse. It is the gate in front of most of the content and protection controls a brand wants.
Related: A+ Content, Brand Story, Hijacker, Product Video
A scrollable brand module that can appear on a detail page, carrying a short brand introduction and links across to other products from the same brand. It is available to enrolled brands and is a cross-sell surface more than a sales-argument one.
Related: A+ Content, Brand Registry, Detail Page
The category slot a product sits in inside a marketplace's category tree. It decides which filters and category rankings apply to your listing, so a product filed in the wrong node competes in the wrong place.
Related: Attribute, Organic Rank, Search Relevance
The short list of feature lines near the top of a detail page, above the fold on most screens. They are the most-read copy on the listing, which is why each one should answer a real buying question rather than repeat the title.
Related: Product Title, Product Description, Listing Optimization
One buyable option inside a variation family, such as a single color or size. Each child holds its own price, images and inventory, while sharing the family's detail page with the others.
Related: Parent ASIN, Variation, Variation Theme, ASIN
The declared state of the item you are selling, such as new, used or refurbished, set per offer rather than per product. It changes which shoppers see your offer and how it competes against the other offers on the same page.
Related: Buy Box, Detail Page, SKU
The single public page for a product on a marketplace, holding the images, title, bullets, description, reviews and every offer for that item. One page can carry many sellers, which is why the page belongs to the product rather than to you.
Related: ASIN, Buy Box, A+ Content, Image Stack
A second listing created for a product that already exists in the catalog. It splits reviews, sales history and ranking across two pages, so the usual fix is to merge them rather than to keep both.
Related: Detail Page, GTIN, Organic Rank, Product Review
A thirteen-digit barcode standard used to identify retail products, common outside North America. It is one of the accepted identifiers when creating a listing that needs a real product code.
Related: GTIN, UPC, ISBN, GTIN Exemption
The former name for what is now called A+ Content. You still hear it from operators who learned the platform under the old label, and it means the same brand-controlled detail page section.
Related: A+ Content, Brand Registry
A spreadsheet template used to create or edit many listings at once instead of one at a time in the interface. It is how catalog work gets done at any real scale, and also how a single wrong column quietly changes hundreds of listings.
Related: Attribute, SKU, Variation, Duplicate Listing
The umbrella standard for the barcode numbers that identify retail products, covering UPC, EAN and ISBN among others. Marketplaces use it to match your offer to the right product in their catalog.
Related: UPC, EAN, ISBN, GTIN Exemption
Permission to list a product without a standard barcode number, applied for per brand and category. It exists for cases like handmade goods or private-label items that were never assigned a retail barcode.
Related: GTIN, UPC, Brand Registry
An unauthorized seller who adds their own offer to your product's detail page and competes for the sale. The listing is shared by design, so the response is a brand and enforcement one rather than an edit to the page.
Related: Brand Registry, Buy Box, Detail Page
The full set of images on a detail page, in the order a shopper swipes or clicks through them. Most shoppers decide inside the stack, so the order is a merchandising choice rather than an upload accident.
Related: Main Image, Lifestyle Image, Infographic, Product Video
Whether a marketplace has associated your listing with a given search phrase at all. If a listing is not indexed for a phrase, nothing you do to bidding or price will make it appear in those results.
Related: Backend Search Terms, Search Relevance, Organic Rank, Product Title
A listing image built to carry information, such as dimensions, materials or a feature callout, rather than to show the product plainly. It exists because most shoppers read images and skip text.
Related: Image Stack, Lifestyle Image, Main Image
The identifier assigned to books and some other published media. It is the accepted product code for that category in the same way a UPC is for general retail goods.
Related: GTIN, UPC, EAN
Packing a title, bullets or backend fields with repeated or irrelevant keywords in the hope of ranking for more of them. It reads badly to shoppers, tends to break marketplace content rules, and pulls in traffic that does not convert.
Related: Backend Search Terms, Product Title, Listing Optimization, Search Relevance
A listing photo showing the product in use or in a real setting rather than on a plain background. It answers scale and context questions that a studio shot cannot.
Related: Image Stack, Main Image, Infographic
The work of improving a listing's title, bullets, description, images and structured fields so it both reaches more of the right searches and converts more of the shoppers it reaches. It is a content and merchandising job, not a settings change.
Related: Product Title, Bullet Points, Image Stack, Indexing, Search Relevance
A longer, more specific search phrase with lower volume and clearer intent, such as a phrase naming a use case or a size. Individually small, they add up, and they usually convert better than the broad head term.
Related: Indexing, Backend Search Terms, Search Relevance, ACoS
The first image on a listing, shown in search results as well as on the page. It is the single asset most responsible for whether anyone clicks, and marketplaces set strict rules for it, typically requiring the product alone on a plain white background.
Related: Image Stack, Lifestyle Image, Infographic, Product Title
The code a manufacturer uses to identify a specific part or model. It is useful for matching the right item in categories where products look alike, and it is sometimes accepted as an identifier where a retail barcode is not required.
Related: GTIN, Attribute, SKU
A listing that sells more than one unit of the same item as a single purchase, such as a pack of three. It is a different product record from the single unit and carries its own price, barcode and inventory.
Related: SKU, Variation, GTIN, Detail Page
Where your listing sits in unpaid search results for a given phrase. It moves with sales and conversion on that phrase, which is why organic position tends to follow demand rather than lead it.
Related: Indexing, Search Relevance, Browse Node, Listing Optimization
The container record that groups a family of variations together. It is not something a shopper can buy; it exists so the sizes or colors share one detail page and one pool of reviews.
Related: Child ASIN, Variation, Variation Theme, ASIN
The longer body text below the bullets on a detail page. It carries the detail that does not fit in a bullet, and on listings with A+ Content it can be replaced by the A+ modules in what shoppers see.
Related: Bullet Points, A+ Content, Listing Optimization
The customer questions and answers section on a detail page. It is the clearest signal of what your listing failed to explain, since every question there is a shopper who could not find the answer above it.
Related: Product Review, Bullet Points, Listing Optimization
A shopper's written feedback about the product itself, attached to the detail page and shared by every seller offering that product. It is about the item, not about who shipped it, which is what separates it from seller feedback.
Related: Star Rating, Seller Feedback, Verified Purchase, Review Velocity
The listing headline, shown in search results and at the top of the detail page. It carries more weight than any other text on the page for both relevance and clicks, and it gets truncated on small screens, so the important words belong early.
Related: Bullet Points, Indexing, Keyword Stuffing, Listing Optimization
Video placed in the listing's image gallery or in brand content, showing use, scale or assembly. It tends to answer the questions that generate returns, which is why it can be worth more than another photo.
Related: Image Stack, A+ Content, Brand Registry
How quickly a listing is accumulating reviews over a period, rather than how many it has in total. Operators watch it because a sudden change usually means something changed in the product, the packaging or the fulfillment.
Related: Product Review, Star Rating, Vine
How well a marketplace judges your listing to match a shopper's search. It is built from what your listing says about itself and from how shoppers behave when they see it, so relevance is earned by clicks and purchases as much as by copy.
Related: Indexing, Organic Rank, Product Title, Attribute
Your own code for one distinct sellable item, controlled by you rather than by the marketplace. It is what ties a listing back to the unit sitting on a shelf, so a clean SKU scheme is the backbone of inventory and cost reporting.
Related: ASIN, Flat File, Multipack, Child ASIN
The average score shown on a listing, which is a rating and not the same thing as a review. Many shoppers leave a rating without writing anything, so the star count usually reflects far more people than the review count suggests.
Related: Product Review, Seller Feedback, Review Velocity
A listing the marketplace has pulled from search results because it fails a content or compliance requirement, such as a missing required field or an image that breaks the rules. It can still exist and still be reachable by direct link while earning no discovery at all.
Related: Main Image, Attribute, Product Title, Indexing
The twelve-digit barcode standard used to identify retail products in North America. Marketplaces use it to match your offer to an existing product record instead of creating a new one.
Related: GTIN, EAN, GTIN Exemption, Duplicate Listing
A group of closely related products, such as one item in several sizes or colors, sold from a single detail page with a picker for the options. Grouping them pools reviews and traffic instead of splitting them across separate pages.
Related: Parent ASIN, Child ASIN, Variation Theme, Detail Page
The dimension a variation family is grouped by, such as size, color or count. It sets what the picker on the detail page offers, and it has to be one of the themes the category allows rather than anything you choose.
Related: Variation, Parent ASIN, Child ASIN, Attribute
A label on a review showing the reviewer bought the item on that marketplace. It carries more weight with shoppers, and with the marketplace, than a review without it.
Related: Product Review, Star Rating, Vine
Amazon's program where an enrolled brand provides units and selected reviewers receive them and post honest reviews, labeled as such. It is the sanctioned route to early reviews on a new product, and the reviews it produces are not guaranteed to be positive.
Related: Product Review, Review Velocity, Verified Purchase
The level of sales where total revenue exactly covers total costs and profit is zero. Everything sold beyond it contributes profit, which is why knowing it tells you how much volume a price change actually has to buy back.
Related: Contribution margin, Fixed costs, Variable costs, Break-even ACoS
Selling more than one unit or more than one product together as a single offer. It raises the average order value and spreads one pick, pack and ship cost across more product, though it only helps if the bundle actually sells at the higher price.
Related: AOV, Contribution margin, Unit economics
The total sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers it produced. It is the price of a customer, and it only means something when compared to what that customer is worth over time.
Related: LTV, LTV:CAC ratio, Payback period, AOV
What it costs to hold inventory over time, including storage, insurance, handling, and the cash tied up in stock that could have been used elsewhere. It is the reason overstock is expensive even when nothing goes wrong.
Related: Inventory turnover, Working capital, Cash conversion cycle, Markdown
How long cash is tied up between paying for inventory and collecting the money from selling it. A shorter cycle means the same amount of cash funds more sales per year, which is often the real constraint on growth.
Related: Working capital, Days inventory outstanding, Days payable outstanding, Days sales outstanding
The money actually moving in and out of the business, as opposed to the profit shown on paper. Profit and cash are different because inventory is paid for before it sells and marketplaces pay out on their own schedule.
Related: Cash conversion cycle, Working capital, Profit and loss statement
A payment reversed by the card issuer after a buyer disputes the charge with their bank rather than with you. It costs the sale, usually the goods, and a dispute fee on top, so it is more expensive than a plain refund.
Related: Payment processing fee, Net margin, Merchant of record
What the units you sold cost you to buy or make, counted only when they sell rather than when you bought them. It is the first thing subtracted from revenue, so an error here quietly moves every margin number downstream.
Related: Gross margin, Landed cost, Contribution margin, Unit economics
What is left from a sale after every cost that varies with that sale, including product, fees, fulfillment and advertising. It is the money each unit contributes toward fixed costs and profit, which makes it the honest per-unit number.
Related: Gross margin, Net margin, Variable costs, Break-even ACoS, Unit economics
Setting a price by taking what the unit cost you and adding a set margin on top. It is simple and guarantees a margin per unit, but it ignores what the item is worth to the buyer and what competitors charge.
Related: Markup, Keystone pricing, Value-based pricing, Landed cost
The average number of days a unit sits in stock before it sells. Fewer days means cash comes back faster and less is spent holding product, but too few means stockouts.
Related: Inventory turnover, Cash conversion cycle, Carrying cost
The average number of days you take to pay your suppliers. Longer terms mean the supplier funds your inventory for a while instead of your bank account, which shortens the cash cycle without touching margin.
Related: Cash conversion cycle, Net terms, Working capital
The average number of days between making a sale and having the cash. For marketplace and wholesale sellers this is set by payout and invoice schedules rather than by the customer, so it is planned around, not negotiated away.
Related: Cash conversion cycle, Cash flow, Working capital
Operating profit measured before financing and accounting effects are taken out. Buyers and lenders lean on it because it compares the trading performance of two businesses without their debt or tax situations getting in the way.
Related: Net profit, Operating expenses, Profit and loss statement
Costs that stay roughly the same whether you sell one unit or a thousand, such as software, salaries and rent. They are covered by the contribution from units sold, which is why volume changes the profit picture faster than it changes the cost base.
Related: Variable costs, Contribution margin, Break-even point, Operating expenses
The total value of goods sold through a channel before fees, refunds and discounts are taken out. It measures the size of the flow, not what you kept, so it flatters a business when quoted on its own.
Related: Take rate, Net margin, Referral fee
Revenue minus the cost of the goods sold, expressed as a percentage of revenue. It shows how much of every sale survives the product cost, before channel fees, fulfillment and advertising get their share.
Related: Gross profit, COGS, Contribution margin, Net margin
Revenue minus the cost of the goods sold, in currency rather than as a percentage. It is the pool of money everything else has to come out of, which is why a low-margin product can still be worth selling at volume.
Related: Gross margin, COGS, Contribution margin
How many times you sell through and replace your stock over a period. Higher turnover means the same cash does more work in a year, while low turnover ties money up in product sitting on a shelf.
Related: Days inventory outstanding, Carrying cost, Working capital, Markdown
The retail habit of pricing an item at double what it cost you. It is a rule of thumb rather than a calculation, and it usually breaks down online once marketplace fees, fulfillment and advertising are charged against the sale.
Related: Markup, Cost-plus pricing, Contribution margin
The full cost of getting a unit to your warehouse and ready to sell, including the product, freight, duty, insurance and handling. It is the number your margins should be built on, because the factory price alone always understates what the unit cost you.
Related: COGS, Duty, Gross margin, MOQ, Unit economics
A product sold at little or no profit to bring in buyers who will then buy other things. It only works if the follow-on purchases actually happen, so it is a bet on repeat business rather than a pricing trick.
Related: Repeat Purchase Rate, LTV, Contribution margin, AOV
Lifetime value divided by what it cost to acquire the customer. It answers whether growth is buying something worth more than it costs, which a single-order profit number cannot tell you.
Related: LTV, CAC, Payback period, Contribution margin
The lowest price a brand allows its resellers to advertise a product at. It exists to stop a race to the bottom that would strip margin out of the whole channel, and brands enforce it through their reseller agreements.
Related: MSRP, Markdown, Gross margin
What it costs to produce or sell one more unit. It matters at decision points such as whether to add a unit to a container or take a lower price on a clearance run, because the fixed costs are already paid either way.
Related: Variable costs, Fixed costs, Contribution margin, MOQ
A permanent reduction from the original selling price, usually to clear stock that is not moving. It is a margin decision disguised as a promotion, and the cost of holding the stock is what makes it the cheaper option.
Related: Carrying cost, Inventory turnover, Gross margin, Markup
How much you add on top of what a unit cost you, expressed as a percentage of the cost. It is often confused with margin, which is measured against the selling price instead, so the same sale gives two different numbers.
Related: Gross margin, Cost-plus pricing, Keystone pricing
The party that is legally the seller in a transaction, which means it handles payment, tax collection and disputes. Who holds that role changes who carries the risk and who owns the customer relationship.
Related: Payment processing fee, Chargeback, Take rate
The price a brand recommends its product be sold at. It is a suggestion rather than a rule, but it anchors what shoppers think the item is worth and sets the reference point that discounts are measured against.
Related: MAP, Markdown, Price elasticity
Profit as a percentage of revenue after every cost, including product, fees, fulfillment, advertising and overhead. It is the number that says whether the business makes money, rather than whether a product does.
Related: Gross margin, Contribution margin, Net profit, Operating expenses
What is left after all costs are taken out of revenue. It is the figure at the bottom of the profit and loss statement, and it is not the same as the cash in the bank because inventory and payout timing sit in between.
Related: Net margin, Profit and loss statement, Cash flow, EBITDA
An agreement to pay a supplier a set number of days after the invoice rather than up front. Terms are effectively free funding for your inventory, which is why negotiating them can matter more than negotiating unit price.
Related: Days payable outstanding, Cash conversion cycle, Working capital
The costs of running the business that are not the cost of the goods themselves, such as software, payroll, agencies and rent. They are usually the costs you can act on quickly when margin needs help.
Related: Fixed costs, Net margin, EBITDA, Profit and loss statement
How long it takes for a customer to earn back what it cost to acquire them. A short payback lets you reinvest sooner, which is why it often decides how fast you can grow more than the total lifetime value does.
Related: CAC, LTV, LTV:CAC ratio, Cash flow
What a payment provider charges to take a card or wallet payment, typically a percentage of the order plus a small flat amount per transaction. The flat part is why low-value orders lose a bigger share of their price than large ones.
Related: Contribution margin, Chargeback, AOV, Merchant of record
Launching at a deliberately low price to win volume and reviews quickly, then raising it later. The risk is that the low price becomes the reference point buyers judge you against, so the increase costs more sales than expected.
Related: Price skimming, Price elasticity, Loss leader, Contribution margin
How much demand changes when the price changes. Elastic products lose a lot of volume for a small increase, inelastic ones barely notice, and knowing which you have is what makes a price test worth running.
Related: Markdown, Value-based pricing, Penetration pricing, Contribution margin
Launching high to capture the buyers who will pay most, then lowering the price over time. It suits genuinely new or differentiated products and works badly where a cheaper equivalent is one search away.
Related: Penetration pricing, Price elasticity, Value-based pricing
The report that lays out revenue, costs and what is left over across a period. It is where the pieces reconcile, so if channel reports and the P&L disagree, something is being counted twice or not at all.
Related: Net profit, Operating expenses, COGS, Cash flow
The cut a marketplace takes for each sale made on its platform, set as a percentage of the sale price and varying by product category. It comes off before fulfillment costs and advertising, so it belongs in unit economics from the start.
Related: Contribution margin, Take rate, GMV, Unit economics
The profit from an investment measured against what it cost. It is broader than advertising return because it applies to anything you put money into, from a production run to a piece of software.
Related: ROAS, Payback period, Contribution margin
The share of a transaction's value that a marketplace keeps once its fees are added up. It is the practical gap between what a customer paid and what reaches you, and it varies by channel and category.
Related: Referral fee, GMV, Contribution margin, Merchant of record
The profit and loss of a single unit or a single customer, rather than the business as a whole. If one unit does not work, more volume makes the problem bigger rather than smaller.
Related: Contribution margin, COGS, Landed cost, Break-even ACoS, CAC
Setting a price from what the product is worth to the buyer rather than from what it cost you to make. It usually earns more margin than cost-plus, but it requires actually understanding what the buyer is comparing you against.
Related: Cost-plus pricing, Price elasticity, Price skimming
Costs that rise and fall with how much you sell, such as product cost, marketplace fees, shipping and payment fees. They are subtracted from the price to find contribution, which is what makes them the ones that matter per unit.
Related: Fixed costs, Contribution margin, Marginal cost, Unit economics
The money available to fund day to day trading once short-term obligations are covered. In ecommerce most of it sits in inventory, which is why a growing business often feels short of cash while looking profitable on paper.
Related: Cash conversion cycle, Inventory turnover, Net terms, Cash flow
Removing the value of stock from the books when it cannot be sold, because it is damaged, expired or obsolete. It turns an asset into a cost in one move, which is why it is worth discounting slow stock before it reaches that point.
Related: Carrying cost, Markdown, Inventory turnover, COGS
A fee a carrier adds on top of the base rate for anything beyond a standard pickup and delivery, such as a liftgate, an inside delivery, or a second delivery attempt. They are easy to miss when comparing quotes, and they are usually where a cheap looking rate stops being cheap.
Related: Fuel surcharge, Residential surcharge, Peak season surcharge
Moving goods by aircraft, normally booked through a forwarder rather than direct with an airline. It costs far more per unit of weight than ocean but turns weeks of transit into days, so it is the lever you pull when running out of stock would cost more than the freight does.
Related: Ocean freight, Freight forwarder, Lead time
The contract and receipt between a shipper and a carrier, listing what is being moved, from where, and to whom. It also controls release of the goods at the other end, so an error on it can hold a shipment that is physically fine.
Related: Manifest, Proof of delivery, Customs clearance
A storage facility approved by customs where imported goods can sit before duty is paid. It lets an importer delay the duty bill until the goods actually move, or re-export them without paying it at all.
Related: Duty, Customs clearance, Importer of Record
The company that physically moves your parcels or freight, as opposed to the broker or forwarder who arranges it. Knowing which is which matters the moment something goes missing, because only one of them is actually holding your box.
Related: Freight forwarder, Service level, Tracking number
The weight a carrier actually bills you on, which is the greater of the real weight and the dimensional weight. Light bulky shipments almost always bill on their dimensions, which makes box size a freight decision rather than only a packaging one.
Related: Dimensional weight, Parcel, Shipping zone
Combining several smaller shipments into one larger one so they move at a better rate. It is common when several suppliers sit in the same region, and the cost is waiting on the slowest of them before anything ships.
Related: LCL, Freight forwarder, Lead time
Moving inbound goods straight from the arriving truck onto an outbound one, with little or no storage in between. It cuts handling and storage cost, and it only works when inbound and outbound timing line up closely.
Related: Inbound shipment, Drayage, 3PL
A licensed agent who files your import entries with customs and handles the duty payment on your behalf. Most importers use one because the filings are unforgiving and mistakes surface as held containers rather than as polite corrections.
Related: Customs clearance, Importer of Record, HS code
The process of getting an imported shipment released by the destination country's customs authority. Clearance depends on correct paperwork and correct classification, so most delays here are document problems rather than transport problems.
Related: Customs broker, Duty, HS code, Lead time
A charge for leaving a container at the port or terminal longer than the free time you were allowed. It accrues by the day and adds up quickly, which is why a slow customs response or a missing truck gets expensive fast.
Related: Drayage, Customs clearance, FCL
A pricing weight calculated from a package's size rather than what it actually weighs, so carriers can charge fairly for light bulky boxes that fill up a truck. Carriers compare it to the real weight and bill whichever is higher.
Related: Chargeable weight, Parcel, Shipping zone, Rate shopping
The short truck move between a port or rail yard and a nearby warehouse. It is a small leg of the journey carrying an outsized share of the risk, because a delay here runs straight into demurrage.
Related: Demurrage, Ocean freight, Landed cost
A tax a government charges on imported goods, worked out from the declared value and the classification of what you bring in. It is a genuine cost of goods, so leaving it out of a landed cost calculation makes every margin number downstream wrong.
Related: Tariff, HS code, Landed cost, Customs broker
An ocean shipment that fills a container you book for yourself. Once your volume is large enough it is cheaper per unit than sharing, and it avoids the extra handling that shared containers involve at both ends.
Related: LCL, Ocean freight, Drayage
A trade term that sets the point where cost and risk pass from the seller to the buyer, at the port of loading in its ocean form. It decides who pays the freight and who carries the loss if something happens in transit, so two supplier quotes are only comparable once you know the terms behind them.
Related: Incoterms, Landed cost, Ocean freight
A classification used for less than truckload freight in the United States that groups goods by density, handling, stowability and liability. Your class drives your rate, and a class declared wrong comes back later as a corrected invoice.
Related: LTL, Accessorial charge, Pallet
A company that arranges the movement of your goods across carriers and borders without owning the ships or planes itself. They book the space, prepare the documents, and coordinate the handoffs, which is why most importers work through one rather than direct.
Related: Carrier, Ocean freight, Customs broker, Landed cost
A freight shipment that takes an entire trailer and runs direct from pickup to delivery. It costs more than sharing a trailer but is faster and handled less, which suits large, heavy or fragile loads.
Related: LTL, Freight class, Transit time
A variable percentage carriers add to the base rate to track fuel prices. It moves independently of the rate you negotiated, so shipping can get more expensive without your contract changing at all.
Related: Accessorial charge, Carrier, Rate shopping
Goods that are regulated in transit because they can cause harm, such as lithium batteries, aerosols and flammable liquids. They need specific packaging, labeling and paperwork, and shipping them without it gets shipments refused or removed from the network.
Related: Carrier, Shipping label, Air freight
The international numbering system used to classify traded goods for customs. The code you declare determines the duty rate you pay, so classification is a cost decision as much as a compliance one.
Related: Duty, Tariff, Customs broker, Customs clearance
The party legally responsible for declaring an import correctly and paying the duty owed on it. It carries real liability, so it should be a deliberate choice rather than whoever the supplier happened to put on the paperwork.
Related: Customs broker, Duty, Customs clearance
Stock moving from a supplier or your own warehouse into a fulfillment location, as opposed to orders going out to customers. Getting counts, labels and timing right on inbound is what keeps the outbound side from running dry.
Related: Purchase order, Lead time, Cross-docking, FBA
A standard set of three letter trade terms that define where a seller's responsibility ends and a buyer's begins on an international shipment. They settle who arranges transport, who pays which costs, and who carries the risk at each stage.
Related: FOB, Landed cost, Freight forwarder, Duty
The final leg of a delivery, from the local depot to the customer's door. It is the most expensive part of the journey per package and the only part the customer experiences, so it drives both cost and delivery complaints.
Related: Parcel, Shipping zone, Carrier, Proof of delivery
An ocean shipment that shares a container with other companies' goods. It suits smaller volumes, and the trade is extra handling at both ends plus a longer and less predictable door to door time.
Related: FCL, Consolidation, Ocean freight
The time between placing an order with a supplier and having that stock available to sell. It covers production, freight, customs and receiving, so it is nearly always longer than the manufacturing time a supplier quotes.
Related: Purchase order, MOQ, Inbound shipment, Ocean freight
A freight shipment too big for parcel but too small to fill a trailer, so it shares space with other shippers' loads. It costs less than booking a whole truck and involves more handling and more stops, which makes transit slower and less predictable.
Related: FTL, Freight class, Pallet, Parcel
The list of everything on a shipment, given to the carrier or to customs. Keeping it matched to what is physically in the boxes is most of what keeps a shipment from being held.
Related: Bill of lading, Customs clearance, Inbound shipment
The smallest amount a supplier will produce or sell in a single order. It sets a floor on how much cash a product ties up, so a high MOQ on a slow seller is a working capital problem before it is a purchasing one.
Related: Purchase order, Lead time, Landed cost
Moving goods by sea, either in a container of your own or sharing one. It is the cheapest way to move volume across borders and the slowest, which makes forecasting rather than reacting the main planning skill.
Related: FCL, LCL, Air freight, Lead time
A standard platform that goods are stacked and wrapped onto so a forklift can move them as one unit. Warehouses price, store and receive by the pallet, so how neatly your cartons fit one affects what you pay to hold stock.
Related: LTL, Freight class, Inbound shipment, 3PL
A single package small and light enough to travel through a courier network rather than move as freight. Parcel and freight are priced in completely different ways, so knowing where a shipment crosses between them is worth real money.
Related: LTL, Dimensional weight, Shipping zone, Last mile
An extra amount carriers add during their busiest periods, when capacity is tight. It is announced separately from your negotiated rates, so shipping costs rise in exactly the quarter you were counting on margin.
Related: Accessorial charge, Fuel surcharge, Carrier
Confirmation from the carrier that a shipment reached its destination, usually a signature, a photo, or a scan record. It is what settles a claim of non delivery, so it is the first thing to pull when a customer says the package never arrived.
Related: Tracking number, Last mile, Carrier
The document you send a supplier to order goods, listing items, quantities, prices and dates. It anchors the whole inbound chain, because receiving, invoicing and lead time measurement all reference back to it.
Related: MOQ, Lead time, Inbound shipment, Landed cost
Comparing carrier and service options for a given shipment and picking the one that still meets the delivery promise at the lowest cost. Done per shipment rather than once per contract, it is one of the least glamorous and most reliable ways to cut shipping spend.
Related: Service level, Carrier, Shipping zone, Dimensional weight
An extra a carrier charges for delivering to a home address rather than a business one. It applies to most direct to consumer volume, so it belongs in your standing shipping cost model rather than being treated as an exception.
Related: Accessorial charge, Last mile, Parcel
Everything involved in moving goods backwards, from a customer return through inspection, restocking, refurbishment or disposal. It is a genuine cost center and almost always less measured than the outbound side of the same operation.
Related: Last mile, Carrier, 3PL
The specific speed and commitment you buy from a carrier for a shipment, such as ground, two day, or overnight. Each is a different price for the same box, so matching the service level to the promise you actually made is where a lot of shipping overspend hides.
Related: Rate shopping, Transit time, Carrier
The carrier document on the outside of a package carrying the addresses, the service level, and the barcode the network scans. Once it is generated it usually represents a billable movement, so unused labels need voiding rather than binning.
Related: Tracking number, Carrier, Parcel
A carrier's measure of the distance between where a shipment starts and where it ends, used to price it. The further the zone, the more it costs and the longer it takes, which is why holding stock nearer your buyers improves both at once.
Related: Transit time, Last mile, Zone skipping, Rate shopping
A duty applied to imported goods, usually set by product category and country of origin. Tariff changes can move your cost of goods without anything about your product, supplier or process changing at all.
Related: Duty, HS code, Landed cost
The unique code a carrier assigns to a package so its scans can be followed through the network. It is also the reference customers and marketplaces expect, so shipping without one confirmed back against the order creates support work you did not need.
Related: Shipping label, Proof of delivery, Carrier
How long a shipment takes from pickup to delivery, not counting the time before it is handed to the carrier. Carriers quote it in business days, so a cutoff missed on a Friday costs more calendar days than the quote suggests.
Related: Service level, Shipping zone, Lead time
Trucking parcels in bulk closer to their destination before injecting them into a carrier's network, so they enter at a nearer zone. It lowers cost per parcel on high volume lanes in exchange for an extra handling step and more planning.
Related: Shipping zone, Parcel, Consolidation, Last mile
Selling to Amazon at wholesale and letting Amazon resell your products to shoppers. You get purchase orders and predictable volume, but Amazon sets the retail price and owns the customer relationship.
Related: 3P, Vendor Central, Purchase order
Selling directly to shoppers on a marketplace using your own account, with the marketplace taking a cut of each sale. You keep control of pricing, listings, and inventory, and you carry the operational work that comes with it.
Related: 1P, Seller Central, Referral fee
The marketplace's running scorecard of how well you are performing as a seller, covering order problems, policy violations, and shipping reliability. It matters because a poor score can cost you selling privileges, not just ranking.
Related: Order Defect Rate, Suspension, Plan of Action
A percentage of a sale paid to the creator or partner whose link or content drove it. On creator-led channels it is the main way brands get their products in front of an audience they do not own.
Related: TikTok Shop, Social Commerce, Live Shopping
Amazon's program for getting early reviews on a new product by giving units to selected reviewers in exchange for their honest opinion. It is the sanctioned route to first reviews, and the reviews you get are not guaranteed to be good ones.
Related: Product Reviews, Retail Readiness, Brand Registry
A seller a brand has given permission to list its products. Brands use written authorization to decide who appears on their listings and to give themselves grounds for acting against everyone else.
Related: Unauthorized Seller, MAP, Brand Registry
A multi-page storefront inside a marketplace where a brand can present its whole range in its own layout rather than one product at a time. It gives ad traffic somewhere to land that is not a single product page.
Related: Brand Registry, Product Detail Page, Digital Shelf
The add-to-cart button on an Amazon product page when more than one seller offers the same item. Winning it means your offer is the default one shoppers buy, decided by price, fulfillment, and seller performance.
Related: Buy Box Share, Prime Badge, Seller Central, Referral fee
The share of your product page views where your offer held the buy box rather than a competing seller's. It matters because ad spend and traffic to a listing you do not own the buy box on largely converts for someone else.
Related: Buy Box, Unauthorized Seller, Price Parity
An Amazon offering that lets shoppers check out on a brand's own website using their Prime account, with Amazon handling fulfillment. It brings marketplace delivery expectations to a direct site without moving the sale onto the marketplace.
Related: Direct-to-Consumer, Prime Badge, Multichannel Selling
When your sales channels start competing with each other instead of adding up, usually over price, exclusivity, or who gets the customer. It shows up as a retail partner objecting to your own site's pricing, or a marketplace offer undercutting your wholesale accounts.
Related: Price Parity, MAP, Multichannel Selling
Selling into marketplaces outside your home country, which brings its own listings, taxes, compliance rules, and shipping realities. The catalog work is rarely the hard part; the local rules are.
Related: Marketplace Facilitator, Restricted Product, Marketplace
The online equivalent of shelf space: every place a shopper can encounter your product, from search results to the product page to a retailer's app. Managing it means making sure the same product looks correct and current everywhere it appears.
Related: Retail Readiness, Product Detail Page, Omnichannel
Selling on your own website rather than through a marketplace or retailer, so you keep the margin, the customer data, and the email list. You also carry the cost of getting traffic, which the marketplace was quietly providing.
Related: Shopify, Marketplace, Merchant of record
A product category or brand a marketplace will not let you list in until you apply and are approved. Approval usually turns on documentation such as invoices or certifications, and the requirements differ by category.
Related: Restricted Product, Authorized Reseller, Account Health
Running your storefront's front end separately from the commerce engine behind it, connected by an API. Teams choose it when they want full control of the customer experience and can carry the engineering that comes with it.
Related: Shopify, Direct-to-Consumer
A formal report to a marketplace that a listing infringes a trademark, copyright, or patent you own. It is the main lever a brand has for removing counterfeit or misused listings, and filing one carelessly carries its own consequences.
Related: Brand Registry, Unauthorized Seller, Listing Suppression
When a marketplace hides your listing from search and shopping results because something about it fails a requirement, such as missing required data or a policy problem. The product stays in the catalog but stops selling, so suppression usually shows up first as revenue that vanished overnight.
Related: Account Health, Product Detail Page, Restricted Product
Selling through a live video stream where viewers can buy the product being shown without leaving the broadcast. It rewards demonstration and personality, which makes it a better fit for some categories than others.
Related: TikTok Shop, Social Commerce, Affiliate Commission
A platform where many sellers list products to a shared pool of shoppers, with the platform handling discovery and checkout and taking a cut. You are renting demand rather than building it, which is the whole trade in one sentence.
Related: 3P, Referral fee, Direct-to-Consumer
A company that buys up marketplace businesses and runs them as a portfolio. Aggregators shaped a wave of acquisitions in the category and set many sellers' expectations about what a brand is worth.
Related: Private Label, Marketplace
A tax rule that makes the marketplace, not the seller, responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax on the orders it processes. It simplifies marketplace sales and does nothing for your direct site, where the obligation stays with you.
Related: Merchant of record, Cross-Border Selling, Direct-to-Consumer
Selling the same catalog across more than one channel, such as a marketplace, your own site, and a retail partner. The hard part is not listing everywhere, it is keeping inventory, pricing, and product data honest across all of them at once.
Related: Omnichannel, Channel Conflict, 3PL
A specific seller's terms on a listing: their price, condition, fulfillment method, and availability. Several sellers can have offers on one product page, and the buy box picks which one shoppers get by default.
Related: Buy Box, Buy Box Share, Product Detail Page
Treating every channel as one connected experience for the customer rather than separate stores that happen to share products. In practice it means shared inventory, consistent pricing, and returns or support that work regardless of where the order came from.
Related: Multichannel Selling, Digital Shelf, 3PL
The share of your orders that ended in a defect the marketplace counts against you, such as a negative feedback, a claim, or a payment dispute. It is one of the metrics most likely to put selling privileges at risk.
Related: Account Health, Seller Feedback, Suspension
The written response a marketplace asks for when it suspends an account or listing, setting out the root cause, what you have fixed, and what stops it recurring. Vague ones fail, which is why the specific and verifiable version is the only kind worth sending.
Related: Suspension, Account Health, Listing Suppression
Keeping your price for the same product consistent across the channels you sell on. Marketplaces watch the prices you offer elsewhere, and a lower price on another site can affect how your offer is treated.
Related: MAP, Channel Conflict, Buy Box Share
The label on an offer telling shoppers it qualifies for Prime delivery. It carries real weight in conversion, which is why fulfillment choices are also merchandising choices.
Related: FBA, Seller Fulfilled Prime, Buy with Prime
Selling products manufactured for you under your own brand rather than reselling someone else's. It gives you control over the listing and the margin, and puts product development, quality, and demand generation on your side of the table.
Related: Brand Registry, Marketplace Aggregator, Authorized Reseller
The page for a single product, holding its title, images, description, reviews, and every seller's offer. It is where nearly all marketplace conversion is won or lost, so it deserves more attention than most catalogs give it.
Related: Offer, Retail Readiness, Digital Shelf
Shopper ratings and written feedback about the product itself, shown on the product page and shared by everyone selling it. They influence both conversion and ranking, and they belong to the product rather than to any one seller.
Related: Seller Feedback, Amazon Vine, Retail Readiness
A product a marketplace either prohibits outright or allows only under specific conditions, often for safety, legal, or licensing reasons. Restrictions vary by country, so a product that is fine in one market can be blocked in another.
Related: Gated Category, Cross-Border Selling, Listing Suppression
Whether a listing is actually in a state to convert traffic: accurate title, complete images, in stock, competitively priced, and with enough reviews to be credible. Sending ad spend to a listing that is not retail ready is the most common way to waste it.
Related: Product Detail Page, Digital Shelf, Product Reviews
The account interface where third-party sellers run their Amazon business: listings, inventory, orders, advertising, and performance. It is the working surface for the seller model, as opposed to the vendor one.
Related: 3P, Vendor Central, Account Health
Ratings about your performance as a seller, covering delivery, packaging, and service, kept separate from reviews of the product itself. Buyers often confuse the two and leave product complaints as seller feedback.
Related: Product Reviews, Order Defect Rate, Account Health
An Amazon program that lets you show the Prime badge on orders you ship yourself, provided you consistently meet the delivery standards it requires. It suits products that are awkward or expensive to hold in a marketplace warehouse.
Related: Prime Badge, FBM, 3PL
A hosted platform for running your own online store, widely used as the direct-to-consumer counterpart to a marketplace presence. It handles the storefront, checkout, and order flow so the brand can own the customer relationship.
Related: Direct-to-Consumer, Headless Commerce, Multichannel Selling
Buying that happens inside a social platform rather than on a separate store, with discovery, content, and checkout in one place. Demand tends to be created by the content rather than by search intent, which changes what a good product looks like.
Related: TikTok Shop, Live Shopping, Affiliate Commission
Amazon's repeat-delivery option, where a shopper sets a product to arrive on a schedule in exchange for a discount. It suits consumables and trades some margin for more predictable repeat volume.
Related: Product Detail Page, Prime Badge
When a marketplace removes your ability to sell, either on one listing or across the whole account, until you resolve the issue behind it. Inventory and payouts can be held while it is unresolved, so it is a cash problem as much as a sales one.
Related: Plan of Action, Account Health, Order Defect Rate
TikTok's in-app marketplace, where products are sold through creator content, live streams, and a shop tab without the viewer leaving the app. Demand comes from what people are shown rather than what they searched for.
Related: Social Commerce, Live Shopping, Affiliate Commission
A seller offering your products without your permission, usually undercutting price and holding stock you cannot vouch for. They cost you buy box share and control of how the product reaches customers.
Related: Authorized Reseller, Brand Registry, Buy Box Share
The interface used by brands that sell to Amazon as a supplier rather than to shoppers directly. It is where purchase orders, cost negotiations, and vendor-side operations happen.
Related: 1P, Purchase order, Seller Central
Walmart's third-party selling platform, the closest structural analogue to selling on Amazon in the United States. Competition is generally thinner, and so is traffic, so it works best as an addition rather than a replacement.
Related: Marketplace, Multichannel Selling, 3P
Showing two versions of something to two comparable groups at the same time and measuring which performs better. It is the cleanest way to tell whether a change caused a result, because both groups faced the same week, the same season, and the same market.
Related: Statistical Significance, Sample Size, Holdout Test, Lift
The share of product page visitors who add the item to their cart. It separates a listing problem from a checkout problem, because a healthy add to cart rate with weak orders points at what happens after the cart, not at the page.
Related: Conversion Rate, Funnel
Watching a metric against its own normal range and flagging the days that fall outside it. It matters because nobody reads every chart every morning, and the point of the alert is to catch a break in tracking or a sudden drop while it is still small.
Related: Baseline, Moving Average, Data Lag
Revenue divided by the number of orders over the same period. It tells you what a typical order is worth, so you can see whether growth came from more buyers or from each buyer spending more.
Related: Purchase Frequency, LTV, Conversion Rate
Deciding which marketing touch gets credit for a sale. Every attribution setup is a rule, not a fact, so two reports can honestly disagree about the same order depending on the rule each one applies.
Related: Attribution Window, First-Touch Attribution, Last-Touch Attribution, Multi-Touch Attribution, Incrementality
The period after a click or a view during which a later purchase still gets credited to that touch. It is the single setting that most often explains why two reports show different sales for the same campaign.
Related: Attribution, Last-Touch Attribution, Data Lag
What the metric was doing before you changed anything. Without one you cannot say whether a result is an improvement, because there is nothing to improve on.
Related: Lift, Incrementality, Benchmark, YoY
A reference figure you compare your own performance against, either your past self or a wider set of similar sellers. It is useful for orientation and dangerous for decisions, because your product, price and category rarely match whatever produced the benchmark.
Related: Baseline, Segment, YoY
The share of visits where someone arrived and left without doing anything else. Read it next to the traffic source, because a high bounce rate usually says more about who was sent to the page than about the page itself.
Related: Session, Traffic Source, Funnel
When one product, channel or campaign takes sales that would have gone to another rather than adding new ones. It is why a launch can look successful on its own report while total revenue stays flat.
Related: Incrementality, Lift, Holdout Test, TACoS
The share of customers who stop buying over a given period. It is the mirror image of retention, and small changes in it compound, because every lost customer has to be replaced before growth starts.
Related: Retention Rate, Repeat Purchase Rate, LTV, Cohort Analysis
Grouping customers by when they first bought, then following each group forward in time. It shows whether the customers you are winning now behave better or worse than the ones you won last year, which a blended average hides completely.
Related: Retention Rate, LTV, Repeat Purchase Rate, Churn Rate
The range a measured result is likely to sit inside, given how much data you collected. It is the honest way to report a small sample, because it says how precise the number is instead of pretending a single figure is exact.
Related: Statistical Significance, Sample Size, A/B Test
The share of visitors who buy. It is the cheapest lever most stores have, because lifting it earns more from traffic you have already paid for.
Related: Session, Funnel, Add to Cart Rate, AOV
Two numbers moving together over the same period. It is a reason to look closer and never a reason to act on its own, because a shared cause such as a busy season will move both without either one driving the other.
Related: Incrementality, A/B Test, Seasonality
Clicks divided by impressions. It measures whether what people saw was worth clicking, which makes it a read on the image, title and price rather than on the product itself.
Related: Impression, Conversion Rate, ACoS
The delay between something happening and it appearing in a report. It is why yesterday's numbers usually rise for a day or two afterward, and why judging a campaign on same day data reliably makes it look worse than it was.
Related: Attribution Window, Anomaly Detection, Time Series
Removing double counting when the same order or the same person is recorded by more than one system. Without it, two channels can each claim the same sale and the totals will not reconcile to the money actually received.
Related: Attribution, Multi-Touch Attribution, Unique Visitor
Estimating how many units you will sell over a future period so you can buy and position stock against it. The forecast is a planning input rather than a prediction, and the useful question is how wrong it usually is and in which direction.
Related: Forecast Accuracy, Seasonality, Moving Average, Run Rate
The thing you split a number by, such as channel, product, region or device. Metrics tell you what happened and dimensions tell you where, which is why a flat total can hide one segment collapsing and another growing.
Related: Metric, Segment, KPI
Visits with no recorded referrer, usually typed URLs, bookmarks, and clicks from places that strip tracking such as some apps and email clients. It is best read as an unknown bucket, because a growing direct number often means tracking is losing sources rather than that brand demand is rising.
Related: Traffic Source, UTM Parameter, Organic Traffic
Giving all the credit for a sale to the first marketing touch a customer had. It flatters the channels that introduce people to you and undercounts the ones that close, so it is useful for judging discovery and misleading for judging efficiency.
Related: Attribution, Last-Touch Attribution, Multi-Touch Attribution
How close past forecasts came to what actually sold. Tracking it turns forecasting into something you can improve, and it tells you how much buffer stock the current level of error really requires.
Related: Demand Forecasting, Baseline, Seasonality
The sequence a shopper passes through, from seeing you to buying, with fewer people at every step. Drawing it out is how you find the step that leaks, instead of trying to fix a conversion rate in general.
Related: Conversion Rate, Add to Cart Rate, Bounce Rate, Impression
Deliberately withholding marketing from a comparable group so you can measure what would have happened anyway. It is the most direct way to find out whether spend is creating sales or being credited for sales you already had.
Related: Incrementality, A/B Test, Lift, Baseline
The sales a marketing activity created that would not have happened without it. It is the number that matters for budget decisions, and it is almost always smaller than the number the platform reports.
Related: Holdout Test, Lift, Attribution, Cannibalization, TACoS
The small set of numbers a team agrees to be judged on. The value is in the word key, because a dashboard with thirty KPIs has none, and nobody knows which one to defend when they conflict.
Related: Metric, Dimension, Benchmark
Giving all the credit for a sale to the final marketing touch before it. It is the most common default and the most flattering to bottom of funnel channels, because whatever a buyer clicked last takes credit for everything that brought them there.
Related: Attribution, First-Touch Attribution, Multi-Touch Attribution
The difference between what happened and what would have happened without the change. It only means anything when there is a real comparison group or a solid baseline behind it, otherwise it is just the number going up.
Related: Baseline, Holdout Test, Incrementality, A/B Test
The total profit a customer is expected to bring across every order they ever place, not just the first one. It sets the ceiling on what you can afford to pay to acquire one, which is why a business with repeat purchases can outbid one without them.
Related: Cohort Analysis, Retention Rate, Repeat Purchase Rate, AOV
A number that measures something, defined precisely enough that two people calculate it the same way. Most reporting arguments are really definition arguments, which is why writing the definition down is worth more than another chart.
Related: KPI, Dimension, Deduplication
The average of a metric across a rolling window of recent days, redrawn as the window slides forward. It smooths out weekday noise so you can see the direction, at the cost of reacting a little late to a real turn.
Related: Time Series, Seasonality, Demand Forecasting, Run Rate
Spreading credit for a sale across several of the touches that led to it rather than giving it all to one. It reflects how buying actually happens, and it depends on rules you choose, so treat the split as a working assumption rather than a measurement.
Related: Attribution, First-Touch Attribution, Last-Touch Attribution, Deduplication
Visits that arrive through unpaid search or unpaid marketplace results. It is worth tracking separately from paid because advertising can grow it over time, and a report that mixes the two hides whether that is happening.
Related: Traffic Source, Direct Traffic, TACoS, Session
One load of a page. It counts activity rather than people, since one visitor refreshing a listing five times produces five of them, which is why visitor and session counts usually answer the question you actually asked.
Related: Session, Unique Visitor, Bounce Rate
How many times an average customer buys within a set period. Together with average order value it explains most of lifetime value, and it is the metric replenishable products live or die on.
Related: AOV, LTV, Repeat Purchase Rate, Cohort Analysis
The share of customers who go on to place a second order. It is the earliest honest signal of whether the product delivered, because people rarely buy something twice that disappointed them once.
Related: Retention Rate, Churn Rate, Cohort Analysis, LTV
The share of customers from an earlier period who are still buying in a later one. It compounds, so a business that keeps a few more customers each period ends up needing far less new traffic to grow.
Related: Churn Rate, Cohort Analysis, Repeat Purchase Rate, LTV
Projecting a recent period forward as if it continued unchanged, such as reading a strong month as a yearly figure. It is a quick sanity check and a poor plan, because it silently assumes the season you happen to be in lasts all year.
Related: Seasonality, Demand Forecasting, TTM, Moving Average
How much data a result is based on. Small samples swing wildly by chance, which is why a change measured on a handful of orders is usually noise wearing the costume of a finding.
Related: Statistical Significance, Confidence Interval, A/B Test
The repeating pattern in demand across the year, the month or the week. It is the reason month over month comparisons mislead and same period last year comparisons are usually the fairer read.
Related: YoY, Demand Forecasting, Moving Average, Run Rate
A defined slice of customers, traffic or products that you analyze on its own. Averages across everything hide the parts that are working, and segmenting is how you find them before you decide what to do more of.
Related: Dimension, Cohort Analysis, Benchmark
One continuous visit by one person, ending after a period of inactivity. It is the usual denominator for conversion rate, so knowing how a platform defines and times out a session matters before comparing rates across tools.
Related: Unique Visitor, Pageview, Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate
A judgement that a measured difference is unlikely to be chance alone. It answers whether the result is real, not whether it is large enough to be worth acting on, and those are separate questions.
Related: A/B Test, Sample Size, Confidence Interval, Lift
A metric recorded in order over time rather than as a single total. Looking at the shape rather than the sum is what lets you separate a steady decline from one bad week that dragged the average down.
Related: Moving Average, Seasonality, Anomaly Detection, YoY
Where a visit came from, such as paid search, unpaid search, email, social or direct. It is the first thing to check when a conversion rate moves, because a change in mix explains more of those swings than a change in the page does.
Related: Organic Traffic, Direct Traffic, UTM Parameter, Attribution
The most recent twelve months of results, rolled forward each month rather than reset in January. It levels out seasonality, which is why buyers, lenders and anyone valuing a business tend to ask for the number in this form.
Related: Run Rate, Seasonality, Moving Average, YoY
One person counted once over a period, no matter how many times they came back. Every tool estimates this differently and none of them can follow someone perfectly across devices, so treat it as a good approximation rather than a headcount.
Related: Session, Pageview, Deduplication
A tag added to the end of a link so analytics can record which campaign, source or email a visit came from. It only works if the naming is consistent, because one team writing newsletter and another writing Newsletter creates two campaigns that were always one.
Related: Traffic Source, Direct Traffic, Attribution
Comparing a period against the same period one year earlier. It is the standard way to strip seasonality out of a comparison, so growth is measured against a similar month rather than against a quieter one.
Related: Seasonality, Baseline, TTM, Time Series
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A working reference
Use the glossary to move from an unfamiliar term to the relevant guide or tool.
