eCommerce Glossary
Everything you need to know to launch a successful Shopify store.
In short: This glossary explains 21 ecommerce terms in plain English, from ROAS and conversion rate to SKU, fulfillment and payment gateways. Each entry says what the term means, how it is calculated or applied, and why it matters for a store that sells. It is written for store owners rather than specialists. Entries that also exist in Romanian are linked to their counterparts; terms specific to the Romanian market live only in the Romanian glossary.
A/B Testing
The process of comparing two versions of a web page, email, or ad to see which one performs better....
AOV (Average Order Value)
The average dollar amount spent each time a customer places an order....
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of protocols that allows different software applications to communicate....
Abandoned Cart
When a potential customer provides their contact information but leaves without completing the check...
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing onl...
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
The total cost of sales and marketing efforts that are needed to acquire a new customer....
CTA (Call to Action)
A marketing term for any design to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale....
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email,...
Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase....
Cross-selling
The action or practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer....
Dropshipping
A retail fulfillment method where a store doesn't keep the products it sells in stock....
Fulfillment
The process of receiving, packaging, and shipping orders to customers....
LTV (Lifetime Value)
The total worth to a business of a customer over the whole period of their relationship....
Omnichannel
A multichannel approach to sales that seeks to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience...
Payment Gateway
A merchant service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes credit car...
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
A marketing metric that measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign....
Retargeting
Online advertising targeted to consumers based on their previous Internet actions....
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The process of optimizing a website to increase its visibility for relevant searches in search engin...
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)
A unique identifier for each distinct product and service that can be purchased....
Upselling
A sales technique where a seller invites the customer to purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or...
How to use this glossary
Every entry answers three questions in the same order: what the term means, how it is calculated or applied in practice, and why it matters for a store that sells. We wrote them for people who run shops, not for people who run reports, so the examples use real numbers and the jargon is unpacked rather than assumed.
The terms fall into four groups. Money and measurement — ROAS, conversion rate, AOV, CAC, LTV, CTR, bounce rate — are the numbers you look at weekly; the important thing about them is how they relate to each other, because none of them means much alone. A ROAS of 4 is excellent at a 20% margin and unremarkable at 60%. Selling mechanics — checkout, abandoned cart, upselling, cross-selling, retargeting — describe what happens between a visitor arriving and an order being placed. Operations — SKU, fulfillment, dropshipping, omnichannel, API — cover what happens after the order. Traffic — SEO, CTA, A/B testing, payment gateway — cover how people arrive and how they pay.
The Romanian glossary has 34 entries, including terms that exist only on the Romanian market: e-Factura (the mandatory electronic invoicing system), Netopia (a local payment processor), instalment payments and automatic AWB generation for local couriers. If you sell into Romania, those are worth reading even in translation: see the Romanian glossary.
If a term you need is missing, write to us and we will add it. And if you would rather see these numbers applied to your own store than read about them, our free store check runs 29 automated checks on a live store and emails the full report.