Understanding E-commerce Terminologies
Company - The business account of the seller.
Brand - An umbrella term given to products made by a certain company.
Selling Locations - The locations where the seller is selling products. This can be a High Street Store, Mall, or a Warehouse.
Products - The items or goods that are being sold.
Size - A product may be available in more than one size, e.g. S, M, L. Each of them is known as size of the product.
SKU/Article - Each size of a product is treated as an article or a stock keeping unit.
Catalogue - A list of products.
Inventory - Quantity and price of the products sold at each selling location.
Import - Uploading a file.
Export - Downloading a file.
GTIN Type - The identification standard for products or individual product sizes, e.g. EAN, ALU, UPC, SKU, etc.
Product Identifier/GTIN Value - The value of the product identification, e.g. PINK-MED-40-2021
Seller Identifier/Primary Identifier - The product identifier the seller will use while sending inventory, either manually or automated.
Actual Price - The MRP/Cost Price of the product.
Selling Price - The price at which the product will be listed.
Discount - The difference between Actual Price and Selling Price.
Coupon - A voucher using which customers can avail additional discount on the selling price, or get more products, e.g. Buy 1 Get 1 Free, and many more.
Bag - Each size of the product ordered by a customer will be treated a bag. An S sized shirt (same brand) + M sized shirt (same brand) = 2 bags An S sized shirt (same brand) + S sized shirt (same brand) = 2 bags An S sized shirt (one brand) + M sized shirt (other brand) = 2 bags An S sized shirt (one brand) + S sized shirt (other brand) = 2 bags
Shipment/Package - A large order may be divided into multiple shipments due to logistics, and also because some products ship late and some may ship early. Therefore, shipments are fulfilled as per their availability.
Order - All the products for which checkout is done by the customer and payment is done/will be done, is treated as an order.
Checkout - The process of finalizing the products added to the cart and proceeding towards payment/order placement.
Payment - The process of paying for an order, either in advance (Cards, NB, UPI, Wallet, etc) or later (CoD, Simpl Pay Later, etc.)
Payout - The process of merchants receiving a payment/earnings after the sales proceedings are adjusted with deductions.
Fulfilment - The process of packing and delivering a product.
Dispatch - Seller is said to have dispatched a product when the product is packed and handed over to the delivery partner.
Delivery Partner - The agency responsible for logistics, i.e. picking a shipment and delivering the shipment.
AWB - Air Way Bill number is generated after the invoice is prepared and used for tracking the location of a shipment.
Invoice - A document containing the shipment details, price-breakdown, and serves as a proof of purchase.
Label - It is a document stuck on the shipment package that helps the logistics/delivery partner know the delivery address, contact details of the customer (and also of the seller in case of RTO - Return to Origin).
Manifest - A document which contains a list of all the shipments when they’re transported from one place to another.
Integrations - An additional feature that is not built into a software but is still available for utilization.
Marketplace - Online e-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, AJIO, Tata CliQ, etc.
Sales Channel - Websites + Marketplaces where the merchant has listed his products for selling.
Franchising - The process of selling products belonging to other companies or brands.
Media Assets - The images and videos attached to a product
Packaging Material - The materials used for enclosing/wrapping/securing a product, for e.g. bubble wrap, corrugated box, cardboard pox, plastic bag, etc.
PLP (Product Listing Page) - Webpage containing a list of products for which filters and sorting methods are available.
PDP (Product Details Page) - Webpage containing the detailed description of the chosen product.