Glossary
Ecommerce, in plain words.
The terms you meet when you run an online store, each explained in a sentence and then in a little more depth.
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- 301 redirect
- A 301 redirect permanently sends visitors and search engines from an old web address to a new one.
A
- Abandoned checkout
- An abandoned checkout is a checkout a customer starts — entering at least their email — but leaves before placing the order.
- Alt text
- Alt text is a short written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and used by search engines to understand what the image shows.
- Average order value (AOV)
- Average order value is the average amount customers spend per order: total sales divided by the number of orders.
B
- Barcode (GTIN, EAN, UPC)
- A barcode is a scannable number on a product's packaging. Global ones (GTIN, EAN or UPC) identify the same product in every store that sells it.
C
- Canonical URL
- A canonical URL is the one address a site tells search engines to treat as the main version of a page that can be reached at several addresses.
- Cash on delivery (COD)
- Cash on delivery is a payment method where the customer pays in cash when the order arrives, usually to the courier, who then passes the money on to the store.
- Checkout
- Checkout is the final step of buying online, where the customer enters their contact and delivery details, chooses delivery and payment, and places the order.
- Conversion rate
- Conversion rate is the share of visitors who do what you want — usually place an order — out of all visitors, written as a percentage.
- Custom domain
- A custom domain is a web address you own, such as yourbrand.com, used for your store instead of an address provided by the platform.
- Customer segment
- A customer segment is a group of customers who share something — location, purchases, spending or how recently they ordered — so you can treat them differently.
D
- Discount code
- A discount code is a word or code a customer enters at checkout to get a price reduction, free shipping or a free item.
E
- Email automation
- An email automation is an email, or a series, sent automatically when a customer does something — subscribes, leaves a checkout, places a first order.
I
- Inventory
- Inventory is the stock a store has to sell: how many of each variant are on hand, where they are, and how that changes as orders and deliveries come in.
M
- Meta description
- A meta description is a short summary of a web page, written in the page’s code, that search engines often show under the page’s title in search results.
O
- Order fulfillment
- Fulfillment is everything between an order being placed and the customer receiving it: picking, packing, handing it to delivery and confirming it arrived.
P
- Payment gateway
- A payment gateway is the service that takes card and wallet payments for an online store, checks them with the bank and sends the money to the store’s account.
- Product option
- A product option is a choice a customer makes about a product — such as size, colour or material — whose values combine into the product’s variants.
- Product variant
- A variant is one specific version of a product — a particular size, colour or material — with its own price, stock and often its own photo.
R
- Refund
- A refund returns some or all of what a customer paid for an order, usually after a return, a cancellation or a problem with the order.
S
- Shipping zone
- A shipping zone is a group of places — countries or regions — that share the same delivery options and rates.
- Sitemap (XML sitemap)
- An XML sitemap is a file listing the pages of a website that should appear in search results, with when each last changed, so search engines find them.
- SKU (stock keeping unit)
- A SKU is a code a store gives each product variant it stocks, so every item — down to its size and colour — can be counted, found and reordered.
- SSL certificate
- An SSL certificate lets a website load over a secure connection (https), so what visitors send — addresses, passwords, payments — is encrypted.