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eCommerce Glossary

New terminology abounds in hi tech, in general, and in eCommerce in particular. This eCommerce Glossary was created to help you keep up to date with those terms that are staples of the industry as well as new ones that are making their way in and proving to be important.

If you need clarification with respect to any of the terms or have suggestions regarding additional terms that should be included, please contact us at glossary@celebros.com.  

A/B split or A/B test
 Analytics / Web analytics
 Application Service Provider (ASP)
 B2B / Business to Business
 B2C / Business to Consumer
 Banner / Banner ad
Brick(s)-and-mortar
 Click(s)-and-mortar
Click-through rate (CTR)
 Conversion rate (CVR)
 Commerce server
 Commerce Services Provider (CSP)
 Cross-selling
 Drill-down
 Dynamic merchandising
 eCommerce/E-commerce/Electronic commerce
 E-tailer
 Faceted navigation
 Linguistics / Linguistic analysis
 Machine learning
 Merchant account
 Natural Language Processing (NLP)
 Navigation
 Online store
 Page impression

Query
 Ranking / Relevance / Relevance ranking
 ROI (Return on Investment)
 SaaS (Software as a Service)
 SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
 SEO (Search Engine Optimization)/
                   website optimization
 SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)
 Search engine
 Shopping cart/ shopping basket
 Shopping cart abandonment
 Shopping cart abandonment rate
 Site conversion
 Site map
 Site search /Onsite search
 Thesaurus
 Traffic / Website traffic
 Transaction
 UGC (User-generated content)
 Unique users / Unique visitors /
           Unique shoppers
 Up-sell
User session
Website
A/B split or A/B test: Testing and measuring the performance of specific online page variables such as functionality, promotions, revenues, etc. The A/B test is performed in a controlled environment which randomly presents the two online pages to be compared to random groups of visitors and measures a pre-determined set of parameters for each group.
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Analytics / Web analytics: A tool that measures the impact of a website on its users. eCommerce companies often use analytics software to measure parameters and produce reports on measures such as how many people visited the site, how many visitors converted to buyers, number of unique visitors, from where they came to the site, what keywords were used on the site's search engine, how long they stayed on a given page or on the entire site, what links they clicked on and when they left the site.
 
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Application Service Provider (ASP): A web-based service provider for software; clients need not install software on their own in-house computers as all tasks are hosted on the company’s ASP servers.
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B2B / Business to Business: A business model for conducting business sales over the internet. B2B refers to business transactions between two business organizations.
 
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B2C / Business to Consumer: A business model for conducting sales over the Internet. B2C refers to direct sales to individual consumers typical of eCommerce transactions.
 
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Banner / Banner ad: An online advertisement placed on a website that links to the advertiser's own site. Banners can be ads with text, animated graphics and sound. Most commerce-related websites use banner ads.
 
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Brick(s)-and-mortar: Refers to a company or a shop that has a physical (as opposed to a virtual) presence.
 
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Click(s)-and-mortar: Refers to a shop that exists both online and in the physical world.
 
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Click-through rate (CTR): The rate at which visitors click on a product ad. To get CTR, the number of users who clicked on an ad is divided by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions).
 
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Conversion rate (CVR): The ratio between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a "conversion," such as a sale or request to receive more information. Often expressed as a percentage, the average CVR in online stores varies from 1.5% to 3%; meaning that typically a maximum of three out of 100 visitors to an online site actually make a purchase.
 
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Commerce server: Software that runs some of the main functions of an online storefront such as product display, online ordering, and inventory management. The software works in conjunction with online payment systems to process payments.
 
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Commerce Services Provider (CSP): Commerce Services Providers supply businesses with the tools and services they need to buy and sell products and services over the Internet and manage their online enterprises.
 
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Cross-selling: The process of presenting complementary products to a customer who has already purchased one product for the purpose of encouraging the customer to make another related purchase.
 
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Drill-down: A navigation system that offers multiple paths of navigation to a single piece of information. This is done by using faceted classification to group bits and pieces of information together. This is useful when there are many items in one category that may match shoppers’ interests.
 
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Dynamic merchandising: The process of retrieving promotions and related products based on rules of association established by the retailer.
 
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eCommerce/E-commerce/Electronic commerce: A methodology used for executing business - either wholly or partially - over Internet or a network. Refers generally to the online shopping industry.
 
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E-tailer: A firm that buys products and resells them online just as traditional retailers do offline.
 
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Faceted navigation: See “Drill-down” above.
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Linguistics / Linguistic analysis: The study of the nature, structure, and variation of language. Linguistic analysis enables transformation of content and queries for the purposes of improving relevancy, recall, and precision.
 
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Machine learning: The ability of computer software to improve its performance over time based on users’ previous choices and selections as well as other inputs.
 
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Merchant account: An online bank account required by a site to receive payments through electronic means. It can be considered as a virtual bank account that receives electronic funds.
 
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Natural Language Processing (NLP): A technique whose algorithms make it possible for software to understand and process queries and questions phrased in everyday language and extract concepts using linguistic analysis.
 
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Navigation: Information discovery using drill-down techniques. In eCommerce this refers to arriving at the desired results (content or products) by clicking on links placed in a menu bar and ordered in a hierarchical structure.
 
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Online store: A virtual retail presence on the Web – usually refers to the B2C experience. Commercial web sites accept electronic payments in exchange for goods and/or services. Often payment can be made offline after viewing products online.
 
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Page impression: The exact number of times a specific website has been accessed or viewed by a user. A page impression acts as a counter for web pages informing site owners how many times their sites were visited.
 
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Query:  A request made via a search engine for information stored in a database.
 
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Ranking / Relevance / Relevance ranking: Relevance is the measure of how well the indexed page answers the search query. When there are a large number of matches for a query, the search engine must rank the results by relevance score, sorting the results listed so that the results most likely to be useful will appear first. This is done by algorithms that define relevance.
 
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ROI (Return on Investment): A measure of the success of a particular marketing campaign or other investment by comparing the sales or other returns with the amount spent on that campaign.
 
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SaaS (Software as a Service): An alternative to in-house integration of software, the SaaS model hosts the software solution off-site on its own servers. The client uses the software as seamlessly as if it were integrated in-house. The software company provides maintenance, daily technical operation, and support for the software provided to their client. In the SaaS, software is delivered over the Internet.
 
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SEM (Search Engine Marketing): A set of marketing methods designed to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages such as Google, Yahoo!, etc. The methods often involve the use of paid ads.
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SEO (Search Engine Optimization)/ website optimization: Process of increasing the amount of traffic and improving its quality to a website from search engines via "natural" search results (in contrast with SEM). SEO can target contextual search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
 
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SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): A unique identifying number pointing to a specific product in stock or in a catalog; shoppers on online sites can conveniently search for the item they want using its SKU.
 
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Search engine: A computer software system designed to retrieve information stored in computer databases, the World Wide Web, a corporate intranet or a proprietary network. Online stores often have their own search engine for shoppers’ use to locate desired items.
 
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Shopping cart/ Shopping basket: Software used in online stores that assists visitors in making online purchases. As they shop and decide to purchase, shoppers add items to the cart. Upon "checkout" the software computes the total price for the order including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) and taxes, if applicable.
 
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Shopping cart abandonment: Refers to the phenomenon of shoppers not purchasing the items they add to their shopping carts (i.e., abandoning them).
 
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Shopping cart abandonment rate: The percentage of shoppers that start the purchasing process without completing it.
 
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Site conversion: The different techniques that aim to convert your traffic into actions; often in the form of sales, brochure requests, email or other contact.
 
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Site map: A dedicated page on a website offering links to every page on the site; also allows a search engine’s crawler to index a site more efficiently.
 
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Site search /Onsite search: Search functionality specific to a single site enabling users to locate desired data/products by entering queries using keywords, phrases or SKUs.
 
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Thesaurus: As used in search technology, a database of synonyms and related words. Thesauri enable accurate retrieval of relevant results even in circumstances where query text does not match text of product names or descriptions.
 
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Traffic / Website traffic: The number of users that visit/view a Web site.
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Transaction: The actual process of buying an item on an online store.
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UGC: Acronym for user-generated content refers to content produced or primarily influenced by end-users e.g., blogs, podcasts, wikis, reviews on shopping sites.
 
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Unique users / Unique visitors / Unique shoppers: The number of visitors to a site measured according to their unique IP addresses (every computer has a unique IP address) – visitors are counted only once no matter how many times they visit the site.
 
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Up-sell: Refers to the practice of suggesting higher priced products or services to a customer who is considering a purchase. An up-sell offer is usually for a better version of the same product or service.
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User session: : The time of activity that a unique user spends on a website during a specified period of time. Used in measuring the amount of traffic a website attracts.
 
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Website: A collection of files organized in a structure that can be read through a browser. The domain name given to a website is the unique identification of a website on the World Wide Web.
 
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