E-commerce Glossary

by | Nov 27, 2019 | Pricing strategy, Webstore

E-commerce glossary

There are many terms for many strategies that differentiate between lots of different sorts of prices! Pricing in itself can be tricky. To decide a price for a product, you’ll need to consider the costs, the break-even, the expected sales, market-factors, price-fluctuations due to offer and demand, competition, price-elasticity, market velocity etc.

Try to say that last sentence out loud and really fast. Exactly, there are so many terms in there it’s a real tongue breaker. If you scroll down really fast and then scroll up again, you’ll notice that there are many more terms.

We specialize in pricing. We understand if you don’t, and you may have some questions about a lot of terms regarding pricing strategies. That’s why we’ve created this longlist of price-related terms and their definitions. Is there a strategy that fits you?

 

#

300 Multiple choices: 

status is returned by browsers when the request results in multiple options for the resource. In theory, this could be use to present different file format options, different media presentations of the same content, or even word sense disambiguation.

301 Moved Permanently: 

A This status indicates that the resource has changed URL permanently. Search engines update their index based on this, usually assigning any ranking from the original URL to the new URL.  of telling web browsers and search engines that a web page or site has been permanently moved to a new location.

307 Temporary Redirect:

In this case, the request should be repeated with another URI; however, future requests should still use the original URI. In contrast to how 302 was historically implemented, the request method is not allowed to be changed when reissuing the original request. For example, a POST request should be repeated using another POST request.

400 Bad Request:

The server cannot or will not process the request due to an apparent client error (e.g., malformed request syntax, size too large, invalid request message framing, or deceptive request routing).

403 Forbidden:

The request contained valid data and was understood by the server, but the server is refusing action. This may be due to the user not having the necessary permissions for a resource or needing an account of some sort, or attempting a prohibited action (e.g. creating a duplicate record where only one is allowed). This code is also typically used if the request provided authentication via the WWW-Authenticate header field, but the server did not accept that authentication. The request should not be repeated.

404 Not Found:

The requested resource could not be found but may be available in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible.

410 Gone:

Indicates that the resource requested is no longer available and will not be available again. This should be used when a resource has been intentionally removed and the resource should be purged. Upon receiving a 410 status code, the client should not request the resource in the future. Clients such as search engines should remove the resource from their indices. Most use cases do not require clients and search engines to purge the resource, and a “404 Not Found” may be used instead.

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons:

A server operator has received a legal demand to deny access to a resource or to a set of resources that includes the requested resource.

500 Internal Server Error:

A generic error message, given when an unexpected condition was encountered and no more specific message is suitable.

501 Not Implemented:

The server either does not recognize the request method, or it lacks the ability to fulfill the request. Usually this implies future availability (e.g., a new feature of a web-service API).

502 Bad Gateway:

The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and received an invalid response from the upstream server.

503 Service Unavailable:

The server cannot handle the request (because it is overloaded or down for maintenance). Generally, this is a temporary state.

504 Gateway Timeout:

The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and did not receive a timely response from the upstream server.

505 HTTP Version Not Supported:

The server does not support the HTTP protocol version used in the request.

A

A/B Testing:

Also known as Split Testing is comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. You compare two web pages by showing the two variants (A and B) to similar visitors at the same time.

Abandonment:

When a visitor has visited your online store or webpage but left without completing the purchase journey.

Abandoned Carts:

Occurs when customers add products to their carts but leave your online store before making a purchase.

Address Verification Service (AVS): 

A system used to verify the address of a person claiming to own a credit card. Used when the merchant verifies credit card data, such as billing address and ZIP code, against the Visa/MasterCard billing information of the cardholder.

Admin Panel:

A dashboard provided by every online store and webpage where the admin can manage and customize the store entries.

Affiliate:

A publisher or site owner that forwards qualified web traffic to an online merchant on a pay-for-performance basis is called an affiliate in the context of online marketing.

Affiliate links:

A unique link provided to affiliates to promote an online service that is then used to credit sale commissions to the affiliate. A typical link starts off with the original domain then ends with the affiliate ID number.

Affiliate Marketing: 

Type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.

Affiliate Tracking:

Software that tracks clicks, sales, or other performance measures to determine revenue sharing or commission.

Amazon Marketplace:

A well known and famous marketplace in the world of e-commerce where one can sell his products on a fixed price. Amazon charge fess on each sale that takes place through Marketplace. Also, they can handle the fulfillment process for your business and they charge extra fees for it.

Anchored Pricing:

With anchored pricing, you label your products. You distinguish between a ‘basic’ label and a ‘premium’ label, with a more expensive price for a slightly different product. People are more inclined to buy the basic option because it’s cheaper. Sometimes, the only difference is the packaging. The idea is that the expensive version makes the cheap version seem like a really good deal.

Application Programming Interface (API):

A set of instructions that allows two different softwares to exchange data with each other. It also enables developers to access other websites to perform specific operations on their own website.

Assisted Conversions:

This Google Analytics report summarizes and ranks the importance of marketing channels in a consumer’s conversion journey. It helps you identify the channels responsible for generating leads and visits to your website so you can nurture would-be customers and convert them.

Attribution model:

In Google Analytics, you want to find out which channels—direct, organic search, referral, email, paid search, other advertising, social, and display—account for your sales. Here are seven common attribution models:

1. Last interaction model:

The last channel that the customer interacted with before buying receives 100% off the credit for the conversion.

2. Last non-direct click model:

All direct traffic is ignored in this model, which credits 100% of the conversion to whatever interaction the customer had before making a purchase.

3. Last AdWords click model:

The last AdWords ad that the customer interacted with before buying receives 100% off the credit for the conversion.

4. First interaction model:

The first channel that the customer interacted with before buying receives 100% off the credit for the conversion.

5. Linear model:

Every channel that the customer interacted with before converting receives an equal share of the conversion credit.

6. Time decay model:

This one gives most of the credit to the channels the customer interacted with in the time nearest to the sale.

7. Position-based model:

This model attributes 40% of the conversion credit to the first interaction, 40% to the last interaction, and the remaining 20% equally across any interactions that occurred between the first and last interactions.
Authorization.
The process when your customer’s credit card issuer gives permission and allows a payment transaction to proceed.

Attribute set:

A list of certain individual product details that describe all of the product’s characteristics. Every product in has its own set of unique attributes. A large sized brown color with silver buckle is an attribute set of a bag on the eCommerce store.

Automated Pricing Strategy:

With automated pricing, you use a tool to update your prices a few times a day. This way, you can keep track of all current price-fluctuations in the market. You can implement any strategy you want. If you have a pricing strategy to be the cheapest, this is the way to insure that.

Authorization:

This is a transaction that confirms that the mode of payment is valid by determining that the cardholder has sufficient funds to perform the transaction. The payment authorization that completes successfully is a goal achieved by the business.

Auto Responder:

An automatic email sent to a customer when they do something (e.g. place an order, abandon a shopping cart).

Average Order Value: 

The average value your customer spends with you in a typical visit.
Average Order Value = Total Sales Revenue / Total Number of Orders Taken.

Average Resolution Time:

Average time taken to resolve a customer problem.

Average Time on Site: 

In Web analytics, including Google Analytics, it is a type of visitor report that provides data on the amount of time (in minutes or seconds) visitors have spent on your website.

B

B2B (Business to Business): 

Is where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when a business is sourcing materials for their production process (e.g. a food manufacturer purchasing salt).

B2C (Business to Consumer): 

Is a business or transactions conducted directly between a company and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services.

Banners: 

Form of prevalent internet advertising on many sites.

Basket:

Part of shopping cart software which lets online buyers choose items to buy. At the checkout, the software calculates the total cost of delivery and taxes, and takes the buyer to a payment procedure.

Best Price Guarantee:

You sometimes come across this sign. Usually, if this sign is used, you can get a refund if you bought something, but it was cheaper elsewhere. You just come back with your receipt and you’ll receive the price-difference.

Big Commerce:

An eCommerce solution that packs various powerful features into a single platform.

Big Data:

The name given to large amounts of customer information collected through eCommerce. There is a growing trend and interest in leveraging this data to make smarter business decisions.

Billing address:

The address used on a customer’s credit card statement

Blog:

An informal conversational style of content that contains information or a discussion with the audience. This a that web property on a website or a webpage and is run by an individual or a small group and updated on a daily basis.

Bootstrapping:

In business, bootstrapping is the concept of self-funding a new company, meaning that a business pays its operating expenses either with profits or from its founder’s own investments, rather than accepting external capital.

Bottom of the Funnel:

A critical transaction phase or purchase stage of the online buying journey of a visitor/potential customer. At this stage the visitor has done all the research and is closing in to make a purchase, thus leading to becoming a ‘New Customer’.

Bounce Rate: 

The percentage of people who visit one page on your website and leave without clicking on anything.

Brick & Click Store: 

A retail outlet or business with at least one physical location and at least one eCommerce enabled website.

Brick & Mortar Store: 

Refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term brick-and-mortar business is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases retail stores, factory production facilities, or warehouses for its operations.

Budget Pricing:

Budget pricing is more an identity than a strategy. Budget pricing basically means that you’ll only ask really low prices. People usually understand that they won’t receive a great service when they pay a budget price. It is called budget pricing, because you conform you prices to the low budget people have, or to what people want to pay. Walmart, SoLow or the DollarStore are good examples of this.

Bundle Pricing:

By bundling products and asking a lower price, you can entice customers to buy it. For example: create a package with all necessary ingredients to make an apple pie, and ask a combined price that’s lower than all individual prices cumulated.

Business Process Execution Language (BPEL):

A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor.

Buy-to-detail rate:

A Google Analytics metric that looks at the number of products purchased relative to the number of times the customer viewed product detail pages.
Here’s the calculation:
Unique Purchases of a Product/Product Detail Page Views = Buy-to-Detail Rate

Buyers Persona:

A semi-fictional representation of a potential customer based on market research and real data of the existing customers. While preparing a buyers persona it’s important to consider their journey, behavioral pattern, demographics, goals etc.

C

Cache:

Temporary data a computer stores to help websites load quicker. To clear your cache is to reload a web page with new data generally to see changes made during web development.

Call-to-action (CTA):

Is an instruction to the audience to provoke an immediate response, usually using an imperative verb such as “call now”, “find out more” or “visit a store today”.

Canonical URL:

It is an HTML element usually found in the <head> section of the webpage that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues in search engine optimization by specifying the “canonical” or “preferred” version of a web page. For instance, a website can have multiple URLs each for a specific platform, however, the Canonical URL tells the search engine which is the true source of information.

Captive product pricing:

You offer a core product for a low price, but sell captive products with high margins. These captive products are additional products you need to be able to use the core product. Think about a keyboard as a core product, and the music-standard, microphone, headphones en keynote-stickers as captive products.

Cart Abandonment Rate: 

An online shopping metric which shows the ratio of number of abandoned shopping carts to the number of completed orders. An abandoned shopping cart is when a user places products on his virtual shopping cart but does not complete the order.

Cart-to-detail rate:

A Google Analytics metric that looks at products added to a customer’s cart relative to views of product detail pages.
Here’s the calculation:
Times a Product Is Added to Cart/Product Detail Page Views = Cart-to-Detail Rate.

Catalog:

A comprehensive list of the products in the inventory of a store. This contains all the data related to the products including product images, descriptions, specifications, price and user reviews.

Channel Conflict:

Conflict that arises from inconsistencies among a merchants different channels. Such as, price differences in store versus online.

Chargeback: 

Is the return of funds to a consumer.

Charm Pricing:

Charm pricing is basically the same as the well-known psychological prices. You make the prices look cheap by not asking a full number. Instead of €35,00, you ask €34,99.

Checkout:

The checkout process is the process that a customer must go through when finalizing the purchase of their selected items in the cart. This is the final phase of the buying journey of a visitor/user.

Choreography:

The talking between different components of an eCommerce system across different companies and vendors.

Churn Rate:

It is the percentage of customers or subscribers who cut ties with the company or from the services in the given period of time. So it is basically the revenue or customers lost during a specific period (typically a month), by unsubscribing from the services.

Click-through rate:

The act of clicking on an online advertisement (generally a banner) to the advertiser’s website.

Click-to-open rate (CTOR):

This measure reflects the effectiveness of the message and content in your email in getting recipients to click through and find out more about your business or offer.
Here is the calculation:
Unique Click / Unique Opens X 100 = Click-to-open rate.

Closed-Loop Marketing:

An effective method used by companies for the purpose of analytics to achieve better insights into marketing campaigns that lead to ROI.through higher conversion rate.

Cohort Analysis: 

A segmentation technique that creates a unique group of visitors that share a common characteristic within a certain period of time. It’s used to understand visitor behavior.

Competitive price intelligence:

The extensive use of data and detailed analytics to charter your competitors and anticipate on them is what’s called the competitive price intelligence. Basically, you spy on the market to spot opportunities. There are many tools that can help you with this.

Competitive price tracking tools:

These are the tools that will help you gain detailed analytics as competitive price intelligence. Our tool, for example, tracks all prices in the market for a specific product. All competitors are shown together with their prices, so you can see where you stand with yours.

Comma Separated Values (CSV) :

A CSV or a comma-separated file is a file-type that stores data in a tabular form. They look like a general spreadsheet but have a .csv extension.

Commerce Service Provider (CSP):

Solutions partner that provides the system and services to establish the back-office infrastructure for online businesses.

Content Delivery / distribution Network (CDN):

A geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and high performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end-users.

Content Management System (CMS):

CMS is a back-end solution developed to control the content of the website which is the front-end. This software application allows you to create, edit, maintain, publish, and display content on the Internet from a single administration tool. Examples of CMS are WordPress, Magento, Drupal, Joomla and more.

Content Optimization System (COS):

It is a holistic solution designed to help you manage your website and other components of digital marketing all together in one system. It provides you with sales-ready website that allows easy updates, have a responsive design for the website and give it a personalized look and feel.

Conversion:

An online marketing concept where you transform an online store visitor into a paying customer.

Conversion Funnel: 

A Google Analytics metric which shows the series of events that your visitors follow to finally achieve conversion. It’s called a funnel because in each event, a percentage of visitors leave your website so at the end of the funnel where the sale happens, there are fewer users than there were at the beginning.

Conversion Path:

Conversion Path is a step-wise approach that involves converting anonymous website visitor into a known lead. The typical conversion path begins when a user arrives on the landing page, browses through series of page transitions and reaches the final state which is either a purchase or an abandoned session.

Conversion Rate:

An online marketing concept which gives the percentage of online store visitors who transform into paying customers divided by visitors who are given the chance to fulfill it but did not.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): 

A process in online marketing wherein the online marketer is involved in improving their eCommerce website layout, content and design, landing pages and sponsored search ads in order to increase their conversion rate.

Configurable Product:

A representation of all variants of a product generated due to different attributes. These often comprise of options in size, color and customizations of the product being viewed in the product detail page.

Cookies: 

Is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in the user’s web browser while the user is browsing.

Corporation: 

A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

A representation of all variants of a product generated due to different attributes. These often comprise of options in size, color and customizations of the product being viewed in the product detail page.

Cost-per-click (CPC):

Online advertising payment process where payment is based on qualifying actions such as clicking on a banner or search engine listing.

Cost-per-thousand (CPM):

Cost of an ad per thousand impressions.

Cost plus pricing:

The cost plus pricing strategy is often used. You basically calculate the costs of every individual product and add a certain margin, usually a percentage. For example, you add a 23% margin to every product. If product A costs €2,00 to make, you multiply it by 1,23 and the selling price is €2,46.

Cost-oriented pricing:

This pricing strategy heavily relies on the costs of a product, usually when you want to be the cheapest. You’ll calculate the costs of a product and at what margin you’ll need to sell to make a profit. It’s usually the same as the cost plus pricing. However, cost-oriented pricing can be adopted as a corporate-strategy, where you try to lower your costs in order to be able to lower your prices. So instead of focussing a 100% on sales, you might focus 20% on sales and 80% on development to make the product cost less. That way, you’ll be able to ask the lowest price in the market.

Coupon Code:

With coupons, you can convince a consumer that they’re striking a good deal. You’ll make them feel special as if no-one else receives that discount. Coupon codes can be a gift, a themed discount like Christmas, or a loyalty gift for returning customers. By adding a time-limit, you’ll add pressure to buy as soon as possible: ‘Special for you: use the coupon code ‘SANTA18’ to receive a 10% on you Christmas outfit! Valid until december 24th’.

Cross-selling: 

A marketing tactic where sellers present additional products that can complement, enhance or improve the main product they are selling (for example, mobile phone cover for a mobile phone purchase)

Crowdsourcing:

Crowdsourcing is a practice of intellectual gathering of information that comes from loosely defined external group of people to achieve a business-related goal. This involves obtaining ideas, content, ideas or opinions from larger group of people who submit their data online via internet, social media and smartphone apps.

CSS:

Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML.

Currency:

A currency is a system of money in common use, especially for people in a nation. Examples of this can be USD, British Pound and even digital currency like Bitcoin and Ripple.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):

CAC is an important business metrics which refers to the cost associated in acquiring and convincing potential customers. This helps to determine how to allocate resources while gaining new customers.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): 

Is a prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

Customer-oriented pricing:

Instead of focussing on costs, you focus on what a customer is willing to pay. You research what the expectations for a certain product are and what consumers are willing to pay, and than you overdeliver just slightly so it will feel worth it for the consumers, even if they heavily overpay.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM):

A software solution specifically devoted to organizing, synchronizing, and automating a business’ customer relationships.

Cyber Monday

The Monday after Black Friday. Historically, this day has more deals and discounts than any other day of the year. Some claim in the last few years that Cyber Monday has exceeded Black Friday in overall sales.

D

Day Part Monitoring:

Tracking when visitors attend the site.

Demand pricing:

With complicated algorithms, advanced software and thorough market-monitoring, businesses adjust prices according to the circumstances in the market, much like the dynamic pricing strategy.

Directory: 

a search service that arranges the web pages in it is database into categories and subcategories.

Digital Cash:

Money that never leaves the internet (e.g. Paypal, Bitcoin).

Digital Commerce:

An eCommerce system today includes an overarching infrastructure which includes analytics from search engines, social platforms, mobile apps, and other corners of both the internet and the  world of commerce. Together, this is called Digital Commerce.

Discount:

A temporary decrease of the prices on your products.

Discount code (or Coupon, or promo code):

A code, usually a short series of numbers and/or letters, that online shoppers enter at checkout for special offers or discounts.

Discount rate:

The fee that an online merchant pays to its third-party payment processor for processing credit card payments.

Disintermediation:

The process of eliminating channels and selling product directly to the end customer.

Distributor:

A distribution business that inventories products from a number of manufacturers and sells to many retailers. Often distributors are able to offer shorter lead times than manufacturers and may sell in smaller quantities. It is common for distributors to charge a premium over a manufacturer-direct price for the service and convenience provided.

Domain:

The root address for a web page.

Domain Authority (DA):

Is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). … Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating multiple factors, including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score.

Doorway Page: 

a page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords. An entry point through which visitors pass to reach your web site’s main content.

Dropshipping/Drop Shipping: 

Is a supply chain management method in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer, another retailer, or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.

Dynamic Pricing:

With dynamic pricing, you adapt to the circumstances on the market, while keeping in mind a certain strategy. The hotel industry makes extensive use of dynamic prices, in combination with a demand-oriented pricing strategy. When the demand large for hotel rooms in a certain period, the price of that room increases enormously. But in quieter periods the prices fall again. There may even be a distinction between certain classes. For example: premium products might have a higher increase in price when demand is high than budget items. The best known example of dynamic pricing is the stock market.

E

eBay:

An eCommerce giant, auction site eBay allows retailers access to a market of buyers. Sellers pay a listing fee and a percentage of the sale of the item on eBay, with the option to auction or set a Buy It Now price. Ecommerce sellers often use eBay as an alternative 3rd party marketplace, in addition to selling through their own site. A lot of sellers place old or used products on this platform.

Ebook:

An eBook also called as electronic book is a digital version of a printed book which can be read on a computer or a dedicated e-reader devices. It consists of text and images both in readable format and can be easily accessible on computer device that features a controllable viewing screen or on a specifically designed handheld device.

Ecommerce: 

Commercial transactions conducted electronically on the Internet.

Economy pricing:

This pricing strategy is based on prices that are as cheap as possible. Well-known users of this pricing strategy are the DollarStore, Big Bazar, SoLow, Walmart, Action, Ryanair, Transavia, etc. By using this pricing strategy, people know they can expect the lowest price possible.

Editorial Calendar

Editorial Calendar is a way to define and control the publication of content and to keep track of what to write and when to write it. This is mainly used by businessespublications and bloggers that help them control publishing of content on different medium like newspapermagazineblogs etc

Elastic Search:

An advanced solution which provides your store with highly accurate, fast and flexible search. It provides realtime searches and can even scan through documents and images based on more than just meta data.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI):

The process of sending a message across a network in order to perform financial transactions.

Electronic Wallet:

Store credit card information on a computer in encrypted form and then can be used to pay in supported formats and sites.

Email marketing:

Promotion of your products and services to a targeted audience through email.

Email Spam:

Unsolicited commercial email.

Engagement Rate:

A metric used to measure how much a visitor gets engaged to the given piece of content or ad. It shows a percentage of the people who came to the site, noticed the ad or content and have interacted or engage with it. Engagements could be clicking it, sharing it or viewing it for a period of time.

E-tailing:

Virtual storefronts which act as a catalogue of products and includes a shopping cart system to enable customers to purchase online.

Event-triggered email:

Email sent to subscribers based on specific events, such as a special offer tied to a subscriber’s birthday or wedding anniversary.

Evergreen Content:

Evergreen content is a content that is timeless, sustainable and stays relevant and useful for months and years to come. It is referred to as SEO content that remains fresh for readers and is currently a buzzword in content strategy.

Evolutionary Algorithms:

A type of algorithm put to use in generating artificially intelligent eCommerce systems. Evolutionary algorithms test variables, find a winner and reset on loop, optimizing the sales funnel to drive gradual, consistent improvements in conversion performance. The best example of this type of programming is Google’s search engine.

Expert judgement pricing:

Sometimes, the costs or value of a product or service is not clear. It can help to get a second opinion, especially if there isn’t sufficient expertise in a company to make an accurate estimation of the costs or value. An external expert is asked, who will make a judgement based on a certain set of criteria which are usually mainstream in the field of that product or service. This will result in a judgement from the expert, hence the name.

Extensions:

A plethora of features and functionalities that are either free or with a price tag that is used to help in setting up ecommerce store and personalize the experience for a user. The user/member sets these based on their preference. Examples of these extensions can be Magento themes, plugins etc.

F

Federation:

Multiple independent web services that cooperate as a single system.

Flash Sales:

Flash sales are a term for temporarily offering products at a reduced rate. There is often a clear time-limit. This is meant to entice consumers to buy as soon as possible before the deadline is over and they’ll have to pay the full price again.

Flat-rate pricing:

Flat rates are more mainstream for services, but may also apply to products. It’s basically a pricing system with a fixed price for use, regardless of how many times or how long you use it. For example, you may rent a car for a week for a fixed price, and drive it as much as you want.

Forum:

An online discussion where visitors may read and post information or comments.

Fulfillment: 

The process of receiving, packaging and shipping orders for goods. Any company selling products directly to consumers through the mail must deal with fulfillment.

Front end:

The user interface of an online store that is intended for the direct use of the end-user.

G

Gateway (or payment gateway):

An e-commerce service provider that communicates with your merchant account provide to authorize and process credit card payments.

Geographical pricing:

The practice of asking different prices depending on the location is called geographical pricing. For example: an iPhone may cost €650,- in Western-Europe, but only €350,- in Eastern Europe. This may have to do with shipping costs, but also even the GDP of a country. You basically consider the purchasing abilities of the consumers in a set area.

GIF: 

image file format used widely on the web.

Google Analytics:

A free web analytic service provided by Google that allows you to link up your website for tracking web traffic and provides statistics that is useful for SEO and marketing purposes. Metrics such as webpage visits, time on site, bounce rate can be seen using this analytics from the get-go. Acquisitions and goals can also be set on the website to analyze and optimize the webpage.

Google Keyword Tool:

A free keyword suggestion tool included in the Google AdWords Platform. The tool uses data from the many searches conducted on the Google search engine to suggest keywords for a given URL and category.  Click here for Google Keyword Tool.

Google Trends:

A search engine tool that shows how often a particular term or keyword is searched for on Google. Results are shown in a relative scale, making the tool well suited for comparing keywords or phrases. Trends will also show where searches came from and how search volume for a particular keyword has changed over time.

Google Webmaster Tools:

These are free services offered by Google tools for website owners to rank strongly in the search results. Webmaster Tools that can help you drill down into the technical performance of your website.

Group Buying Model:

People coming together over the internet to form a community and purchase something as a group.

Grouped Products:

Similar to the bundled product, grouped products offer a fixed price which is the sum of all products in the group that the customers cannot customize. Grouped products can be deals, bridal packages and winter gift deals on any ecommerce website.

Growth hacking:

A marketing approach that blends analytics, traditional marketing, and product engineering to sell products, advertise services, and gain exposure rapidly.

H

Hashtag:

It is a label or a phrase preceded by a hash character (#) used in social networks and microblogging services to identify the messages of specific topics. When customers use hashtags, the message that has been tagged to it is revealed.

High Risk Processors/Brokers:

Institutions that issue merchant accounts to high risk endeavors, therefore allowing them to accept credit card payment. Used when the bank has too stiff requirements. Compensate risk by charging higher fees than traditional banks.

Hit: 

Any request for any file located on the web.

Home page:

The opening page of your website.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language):

A markup language specifically created for displaying web pages and applications in web browsers. Like other markup languages, HTML annotates a document, describing its layout and syntax.

Hyperlink: 

A link from a hypertext file or document to another location or file, usually activated by clicking on a highlighted word or image on the screen. (Example)

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML):

A standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on web pages.

I

Impression:

Any time a particular item, ad, or image is displayed to a user.

Inbound Link:

A link from a site other than your own.

Inbound Marketing:

An approach that uses content marketing, social media marketing, and SEO to attract qualified prospects and build trust and credibility for an online business. Through these means, paid and organic publications are made that not only pull traffic to online properties.

Incentives:

You can set up a system of incentives to bind consumers and build a loyal customer base. Incentives are also a means to attract new consumers. Think of incentives like free gifts, free shipping, free content (blogs, Whitepapers, ebooks, videos), discounts, vouchers / coupons etc.

Incumbent value:

An incumbent is a person in a certain position, think of a politician in a certain office (minister or premier). An incumbent in business is usually a market leader, or a company with a certain status. For example, Apple is an incumbent. Not because they’re the market leader, but they differentiate themselves in several ways from their competitors, which gives them an incumbent value. Their loyal customers see a certain value in Apple which is why they will by Apple and only Apple. Based on this incumbent value, a company can charge a price that their competitors can’t.

Infographics:

Infographics also called as Information Graphics are a graphical visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present data easily and in understandable format. These are widely used as they can quickly communicate messages or simplify the presentation of large amounts of data.

Integral pricing:

To up the sales of another product, you can lower the price of related, cheaper products. In our blog, we use the example of the Citroën-case. The C1-model was sold under cost price, in order to 1) sell more luxury models and 2) have more cars in maintenance to increase revenue of the garage.

Intelligent Product Recommendation Systems: 

First, there was the all-knowing store owner who would know everything about the product they sold. Prices, quality, longevity. Now, there is an AI telling the customer what they might like, based on the their purchase patterns.

Interstitial Pages:

Ads that come up in between too desired pageviews.

Inventory: 

Includes the products, raw materials, work-in-process goods and finished goods that make up the inventory that is or will be for sale by a company.

J

JavaScript:

A scripting language used in the development of web pages. Refers to client side web programming.

JPG/JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group):

Image file format used widely on the web.

K

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

It is a value that helps organizations to evaluate the success of achieving the key business objectives. There are 2 types of KPIs, high-level KPIs that focuss on the overall performance of the enterprise and low-level KPIs that look at processes in departments such as sales, marketing or a call center.

Key Phrase: 

A phrase used to perform a search.

Keyword:

A word used to perform a search.

Keyword Density: 

On a web page, the keywords as a percentage of indexable text on the webpage.

Keyword Research:

The search for keywords related to your website. The analysis of which words or phrases are used by visitors to locate sites similar to yours. The analysis of which keywords or phrases will yield the highest return on investment.

Keyword stuffing:

An SEO Technique that overloads a webpage with as many keywords as possible often without content, to manipulate a site’s search engine ranking

L

Landing Pages: 

The section of a website accessed by clicking a hyperlink on another web page, typically the website’s home page.

Lead:

A marketing classification used to describe a prospective consumer or organization who expresses interest in a business’s product or service. Businesses gain access to sales leads through advertising, trade shows, direct mailings, and other marketing efforts. You can also purchase leads from third-party companies.

Lead Nurturing:

Steadily communicating and developing relationships with qualified sales leads who are still potential customers. In this process, leads are sent newsletters, content and promotional materials that keep them engaged in an attempt to head them towards sales.

 Lifecycle Stages:

Lifecycle stages in eCommerce mainly refers to the stages a product undergoes before becoming mature. It is a course of events that brings a new product into existence by growing through the main 5 phases namely:

1) Development Phase

2) Market Introduction Phase

3) Growth Phase

4) Maturity Phase

5) Decline/Stability Phase

Link Popularity:

A measure of the quality and quantity of sites that link to your site.

Link Text: 

The text (words) used to create a hyperlink.

Listing fee:

A fee that some online auction websites charge seller to list products or services.

Log file:

The files that maintain a record of the requests for resources on your website.

Logistics:

The management of products or other resources as they travel between a point of origin and a destination. In eCommerce, logistics might describe the process of transporting inventory to a merchant or the act of shipping orders to customers.

Long Tail Keywords:

The Long Tail is an idea that markets and marketplaces, especially online, are moving away from mainstream, broad-appeal products toward niche products. In eCommerce, new retailers may find it easier and more cost effective to focus on niche products. Think large number of products that sell in small quantities, as contrasted with the small number of best-selling products.

Long-Tail Variations:

In search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising, they are keywords similar in meaning or root to other high-volume keywords, but less competitive. Long-Tail variations are often employed when a business is just starting out and cannot gain traction or afford to bid on top performing keywords.

Long-Tail Traffic:

Website traffic derived from Long-Tail variation keywords or from niche searches and keywords in general.

Loss leader:

The loss leader strategy is in essence the same as the integral pricing strategy. You sell an item under its cost value to stimulate sales of other items. With integral pricing, you finetune it more on specific, related products. A loss leader is more focussed on attracting customers in general. Think of a supermarket that sells filtered coffee under cost price, but locates it next to an expensive brand of cookies.

Luhn Algorithm:

An algorithm used for credit card number generation and validation.

M

Magento:

Magento is an open-source CMS that gives business owners the opportunity to expand their activities in the ecommerce world. It is a powerful system, flexible, scalable and easy to customize.

Marketing:

These are activities of a company that includes advertising, selling and delivering products to customers. Marketing is one of the premier components of Business Management where the companies look to target audiences by using slogans, endorsements or media exposure. Marketing can be on-ground, digital and word of mouth.

Marketing Automation:

This is an integral component of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) where processes like customer segmentation, customer data integration, and campaign management can be carried out efficiently. This helps in narrowing down the demographics of the customer persona.

Market-oriented pricing:

This is very much the same as the competition based strategy. A product is compared to the same products or substitutes the competition offers and is either made better or sold at a lower rate.

Manufacturer:

A company that makes goods for the purpose of sale.

Manufacturer’s suggested retail price MSRP:

The manufacturer of a product also recommends at what rate it should be sold. This is to standardize pricing and help resellers. In case of franchising, it may even be mandatory to use these prices as part of a larger, domestic strategy or to prevent competition between companies of the same franchise.

Margin (or profit margin):

A measure of the difference between what a retailer pays for or spends to create a product and how much it earns on each sale of the product.

M-commerce (Mobile commerce):

As mobile internet usage continues to grow, mobile commerce has naturally followed.

Merchant Account:

An online bank account which accepts credit card payments, i.e. where payments made to an eCommerce store are submitted.

Merchant account provider:

An online account service provider that lets e-commerce businesses accept debit and credit payments, and temporarily holds the money until it’s transferred to the business’s bank account.

Merchant Identification Number:

Unique number that is used in conjunction with all transactions for a particular site/merchant.

META tags: 

Tags that describe various aspects of a web page. META Keywords, META Title, META Description are the most commonly used.

Micropayment:

The transfer of a very small amount of funds (cents) so that small transactions can occur.

Microsite:

Microsite is referred to as a web page or a small cluster of pages that acts as a supplement to the primary website. It is a specific content site which is designed to live outside of the company parent website and has a separate URL than its homepage.

 

Middle of the Funnel:

This is when marketers publish and distribute content that aligns to a buyer’s needs in order to engage them with your brand. Middle of the funnel or mid-level funnel engages with visitors more and if done right can boost both metrics from top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel.

Minimum advertised price MAP:

This resembles the manufacturer’s suggested retail price closely, but is slightly different. Instead of suggesting a price, the manufacturer has a policy where it is resellers are not allowed to offer the product under a certain price.

Minimum Order Size:

Manufacturers or distributors may require retailers to place orders that meet a minimum value or unit count. This requirement would be the minimum order size.

Mobile Marketing:

Synonymous to wireless marketing is a form of marketing which uses modern mobile technology to promote personalized goods or services to a user via mobile devices like smart phones, tablets or PDAs. Push notifications are a prime example of mobile marketing.

Mobile Optimization:

It is a practice of ensuring that your visitors who are accessing the website through mobile devices have a brilliant user experience, both practically and visually. This is achieved by optimizing the website content in such a manner that the visitors can accomplish what they want to do on their mobile devices.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR):

This is a predictable revenue! that any business is liable to receive every month consistently. Abbreviated to MRR – Monthly Recurring Revenue, this helps to plan out advertising budgets for the business.

Multi-Channel Retailing:

Retailing products through more than one channel where channels include online stores, online marketplaces like Amazon, physical stores, physical catalogs, and similar.

Multi Store:

Multistore is a facility in many eCommerce platforms where store merchants can manage their manage multiple stores from one platform. This unifies their database of different stores and provides the data without the need of logging in and out to access different stores,

Multi Vendor:

A marketplace that allows multiple vendors to sell their products.

N

Nash equilibrium:

The Nash equilibrium is actually a really complicated concept that covers a lot more than just price. It tries to predict behaviour in the market when certain changes occur. The Nash equilibrium tries to establish optimal conditions where every provider has a commensurate market share. It goes much further than basic pricing strategies.

Native Advertising:

A type of online advertising where online content is created for the paid promotion of a brand on media site but resembles the publication’s editorial content. There is no use of traditional ad formats like banner ads etc but includes editorial content like blogs or infographics.

Navigation:

Generally referred to as the structure and process of moving from one page or section of a website to other.

Net Profit:

The difference between a business’ revenue and its costs – all of its costs. Net profit may be thought of as the money left over after every bill is paid.

Net Promoter Score (NPS):

A metric that measures the willingness of customers to recommend the company’s products or services to others. This determines customer loyalty for a company’s brand, products or services. It’s become good practice to take such surveys on the website to perceive products or the whole business from the customer’s perspective.

Network Effects:

The idea that something will become more valuable as the number of people using it increases. Facebook benefits from network effects.

News Feed:

News Feed also called as Web Feed is a service by which users are provided with frequent transmission of data consisting of news updates. These are received by subscribers in XML format as summaries or links of updates about those people who are in your friend’s list as well as the odd advertisement.

Niche:

A distinct market segment.

No-Follow Link:

No-Follow link attribute is an element that instructs the search engines bots not to follow the link. This means its a notification to search engines saying ‘Do not count this link’ so that they will not crawl the link and pass any link juice to it.

O

Odd-even pricing:

This is the same as charm pricing or psychological pricing. Instead of using even prices like €50,00 or €125,00, odd prices are used like €49,95 or €124,99.

Off-Page Optimization:

Off-Page Optimization refers to all the measures taken external to the actual website in order to improve its position in search rankings. Off-Page Optimization is a long-term process and includes acquiring many high-quality backlinks (incoming links) to your page from the authority sites.

Olark:

An industry leading IM chat support client with analytics functions, useful in increasing conversion rates and providing more comprehensive support to customers and leads on a real-time basis.

Omni-channel Management:

While some basics of marketing strategies have not changed as we move to a digital world, one aspect definitely has. It’s the presence of your store across platforms, which may or may not have the same customers.

On-Page Optimization:

On-Page Optimization refers to all the measures taken within the website in order to improve the web page listing or position in search rankings. It is one of the very first step of SEO that can help you increase your overall CTR (Click-Through-Rate) ratio.

Open rate:

The number of email subscribers who open the email you sent them.

Optional product pricing:

There is a core product that the consumer wants. Once the consumer ‘starts’ buying, you’ll offer optional products. Think about booking an plane ticket. You just want to get from A to B. During the process, you’re offered insurance for your luggage, extra leg space, a premium meal option etc. All of these cost extra, increasing the overall price of the one product you wanted.

Opt-in Email:

A process for allowing people to request email from you.

Opt-out Email:

A process for allowing people to request that you stop sending email.

Organic:

In the context of search engine optimization and search engine marketing, organic results are those listings search engines show because of their relevance to a query, not because a site owner paid for an ad or paid to be featured.

Organic Search Results:

The non-paid listings displayed as a result of a key phrase search using a search engine. Featured, pay-per-click, and sponsored listings are generally used by less than 40% of search engine users. This means organic search placement is twice as effective as paid search results.

Order Fulfillment:

It is a process that every organization undergoes for delivering goods to end users. Order fulfillment refers to the steps involved in this process from the point of sale until delivery of the order.

Order Tracking:

The process in which a customer views the progress of their order leading up to delivery. This is generally orchestrated using a tracking code provided when a purchase is completed.

Outsource:

The process of contracting work to external, third-party organizations.

Overhead:

The ongoing expenses associated with operating a business.

Overpricing:

Overpricing is usually done at market entry. At that moment, it’s hard to determine at what point a company will break even, so the company plays safe. It can always adjust the price downward, while increasing the price is never well received by consumers. This way, the company prevents never breaking even at all. It’s the opposite of the penetration pricing strategy.

P

Page Rank (PR)

Measures where a page is ranking with Google or another search engine. Higher ranked pages are closer to the number one spot.

Pageviews:

The total number of times a page on your site is loaded.

Partial shipment:

When you send only part of an order to a customer and fulfill the order in multiple deliveries

Patent: 

License conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.

Path length:

A Google Analytics metric that summarizes how long, in interactions, it takes visitors to your e-commerce site to become customers.

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance:

A set of requirements to ensure you protect your customers’ credit card information when stored, processed, or transmitted.

Payment Gateway:

The processor used to handle payment transactions on one’s eCommerce store. The payment gateway can be either on-site or off-site, depending on what works best for their business model.

Payment Processors or Payment Gateways:

Both allow eCommerce merchants to processes payments from sales. They verify the card information with credit card companies who then approve the transaction.

Payment service provider:

An e-commerce serve that lets online stores accept and process multiple payment methods, such as credit card, deject debits, bank transfers, and real time online banking.

Payment Threshold:

The minimum accumulated commission an affiliate must earn to trigger payment from a program

PayPal:

A service that allows you to pay online—using money in your PayPal account, your bank account, or with a credit card—anywhere a merchant displays a PayPal checkout button.

Pay Per Click (PPC):

An online advertising model wherein advertisers pay only when a prospect clicks on an advertisement and is directed to the advertiser’s website. Google’s AdWords platform is an example of pay-per-click promotion.

Penetration pricing:

In order to enter the market, you initially ask a very low price to attract clients and create brand awareness. Later on, the price can be increased. The low price has the sole function to penetrate the market by creating brand awareness and a customer base. It has an overlap with the underpricing strategy.

Perceived value:

This is the value a consumer perceives in a product, compared to other products. This is basically the outcome of a research where consumers consider the benefits of one product against other, related products and how much they are willing to pay for it. The perceived value is then the difference between the costs and what the consumer would pay.

Performance Marketing:

Refers to online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers (“retailers” or “merchants”) and marketing companies (“affiliates” or “publishers”) are paid when a specific action is completed; such as a sale, lead or click.

Permission Marketing:

Marketing based on getting a users consent to receive information from your company or website.

Per-Order Fee:

When a manufacturer or distributor drop ships an order directly to a customer on a retailers behave that manufacturer or distributor may change a per-order fee for processing.

Phishing:

Using a fake website or download to take user information, targeting login credentials.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics):

A raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. It was created to improve upon the GIF format and is the most used lossles image compression format on the Internet.

Pocket price:

The pocket price is the netto price. To calculate the pocket price, you deduct all additional costs to a product from its gross price. Think of shipping costs, rebates, payment costs, even some taxes etc.

Point-of-sale (POS) system:

Software that lets an online store accept transaction, manage inventory, add products, process payments, and send receipts digitally.

Pop-up-ad:

An ad that automatically opens a new browser window.

Privacy Seal Programs:

Independent organizations that verify if an online companies privacy statement is verifiable and accurate.

Product Affinity:

Products that are usually purchased together.

Product Relationship:

Products that are viewed frequently by the same user.

Profit Margin:

The difference between what a retailer pays for a product and what the retailer’s customer pays for the product. Margin calculations may consider only the cost of the goods sold or may take into account overhead and other variable costs.

Predatory pricing:

With this strategy, you ask prices so low, your competitors will not be able to compete with you and are forced to leave the market.

Premium pricing:

With premium prices, a high and fixed price is generally used for a product or service. The competition is always low and the product is unique. Think of Apple products, luxury car brands like Lamborghini, perfumes like Chanèl etc. This pricing strategy is strongly linked to the status of a brand.

Price benchmarking:

Price benchmarking is close related to competitive pricing. With price benchmarking you select certain competitors you want to use as beacons. You basically choose a pricing strategy and select competitors that resemble that strategy. You close follow what they do and adopt it to your own business. If they raise their price, you do too. If they offer a special Christmas deal, you do too. These companies will serve as you benchmarks to confirm your strategy and effectively adopt it, assuming those companies know what they’re doing. Price benchmarking is in its essence exactly copying the behaviour and best practices of your successful competitors, or if you want to differentiate, you use this data to adopt a strategy that suits the position you believe your company is in.

Price lining:

Price lining is all about psychology. By asking different prices for products in the same category or product group, the products with a higher price will be perceived as being of a higher quality.

Price skimming:

Price skimming is a great strategy when initially the break even point, cost price or other indications aren’t clear. By price skimming, you initially ask a high price and, once you’ve gathered more data, you periodically lower the price to finally reach a balance between costs and revenue. This is a safe method to find out the right price when calculating doesn’t work.

This strategy is also often used of new products. A company will ask a high price as long as it’s the only one marketing the product, until competition also enters the market.

Product price elasticity:

Price elasticity is the room you have to ‘play’ with your price. If the demand is ‘inelastic’, an increase in price should generate more revenue, because consumers will buy anyway. If the demand is very elastic, a change in price has a huge impact on how much you’ll sell. The formula is:

Price elasticity(%) = Change in demand(%) / Change in price (%)

Promo Code (or Discount Code):

Short, alphanumerical values which allow a user to access an otherwise hidden discount.

Psychological pricing:

Many companies use psychological prices, even though you often do not notice this as a consumer. This is precisely the intention! Psychological prices are prices that feel like a good deal or purchase, making it easier for the customer to purchase. The most common form are the discussed charm prices or odd-even prices.

PurePlay Business:

Business completely designed for online, had no physical presence.

Q

 

QR Code:

A short for Quick Response Code which is a machine-readable two-dimensional barcode consisting of an array of black and white squares. It is typically used for storing URLs and to provide easy access to information through a smartphone. QR codes have become widely used for smartphone users to scan and add details of a business without having to manually input it.

Qualified Lead:

A prospect that has expressed interest in buying your product and passes a set of lead qualifications in order to progress towards becoming a customer.

Quantitative Metrics:

In online marketing, quantitative metrics are those measures that may be represented as numbers. Click-through rates, visitor counts, and time-on-site are all examples of quantitative metrics.

Qualitative Metrics:

In online marketing, qualitative metrics seek to measure the quality of a customer interaction, and may be subjective in nature. A retailer, as an example, may implement a new product review campaign, compare reviews written before and after the campaign, awarding each review a qualitative score, and then use the relative scored to decide if the campaign was successful.

R

ReCAPTCHA:

Designed to establish that a computer user is human (normally in order to protect websites from bots) and, at the same time, assist in the digitization of books. A lot of sign up processes require the visitor to pass the reCAPTCHA test to ensure that they are human and not bots with the intent of spamming other users.

Reciprocal links:

Mutually agreed upon links between two sites.

Recommended retail price:

This is the same as the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

Recurring payment:

A transaction wherein a customer authorizes an online store to automatically charge a credit card for regular delivery of products or services.

Recurring Transaction:

A transaction in which the customer has given permission to the merchant to charge for goods/services on a prearranged schedule. You give your card details to the company and authorize them to make series of payments without having to give consent again and again.

Reseller:

A company that purchases goods or services for the purpose of resale not consumption. In web economics, a re-seller may also be a form of affiliate marketer, promoting a rebranded service.

Responsive:

Websites that allow users to view and use the website easily on all screen sizes.

Responsive Theme:

These are the theme that smoothly adjusts its layout based on the screen size and resolution. It offers better readability and usability on smaller screens such as smartphones. Responsive screens also adjust the dimensions based on the browser being used,

Responsive Web Design:

A website design approach that is aimed at creating sites to provide an optimal viewing experience (easy reading, navigation, minimization of resizing, panning, and scrolling) across a range of devices (e.g. mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers)

Retailer:

A company that sells directly to the end consumer.

Return on Investment (ROI):

Is a measure of the gain or loss generated on an investment relative to the investment’s cost. It is usually expressed as a percentage and is used for personal financial decisions to compare a company’s profitability or to compare the efficiency of different investments.

Rich Snippets:

The structured data markup that site operators can add to their existing HTML, which in turn allow search engines to better understand what information is contained on each web page. A lot of content rich webpages have rich snippets to help analyze the content and pick out meaningful information for readers.

Robots.txt:

Also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other web robots.

RSS feed:

A type of web feed which allows users and applications to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format. Most news breaking websites provide an RSS feed code so most readers can find content in a standardized format in one place.

S

SaaS:

A software distribution model that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service. It is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted, thus removes the need for organizations to handle installation and maintenance.

Scarcity pricing:

Scarcity pricing is a method to put pressure on a potential buyer. If your browsing for a product, a notification may appear such as: ‘only 1 item in stock’. Or: ‘there is one other user looking at this room, be fast’. The potential buyer would feel there is a time-limit and if he/she wants to have this product/service, he/she has to decide now!

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

The promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

The process of making a website easier for search engine bots to index and categorize.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP):

A search engine web page displaying the list of responses to a particular search query.

Service Level Agreement (SLA):

It is an official contract signed between the service provider and the customer that documents the services expected from the provider and defines the performance standards that is required to be met.

Shipping: 

A charge imposed by a retail company to send merchandise to a customer.

Shipping Method:

This specifies the allowed methods of shipping that is offered to customers. Shipping rates are calculated based on the selected shipping method., banking information and additional overheads.

Shopify:

An eCommerce solution for both small and large stores and caters for small and independent shops, as well as large retailers. Shopify is also one of the first eCommerce platforms to integrate innovative features to provide customers a more interactive experience.

Shopping cart:

A virtual representation of a shopping cart that lists the mites that a customer had identified for purchase.

Single Sign-on:

Sign in information for a particular site is stored locally or over the web so that a returning user does not need to re-enter login information.

SKU:

A stock-keeping unit is a string representing the Product unique identifier in your eCommerce shop. Similar to barcodes in the shops, this code is unique to a product for reference between he potential purchaser and the shop owner.

S-marketing:

Smarketing is a process in which sales and marketing teams are aligned to have a common integrated approach towards achieving the business goal. This kind of integration between the two teams is created through frequent and direct communication between the two.

Social Media:

A collection of all online communication channels dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking etc that facilitates the creation and sharing of information, ideas and other forms of expression. Social Media Platforms include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus and IMs that allow users to connect with new contacts.

Social Media Marketing (SMM): 

A form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach. Vital to an online strategy in Southeast Asia.

Social Proof:

It is a psychological phenomenon in which positive influence is created where people assume the actions and attitudes of people have the correct behavior for a given situation.

Social Signals:

A ranking factor in Google, drawn from social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Similar to links, they allow Google to determine which websites people are more likely to be interested in looking at, as one element of the wider ranking equation.

Sole Proprietorship:

A type of business entity that is owned and run by one person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business. It is not a legal entity. It simply refers to a person who owns the business and is personally responsible for its debts.

Spiders: 

Software used by search engines to locate new Web pages for their document databases.

Split Testing (A/B testing):

A website development method that companies use to compare two web pages to determine which one performs better. There are two variants of the web page which are shown randomly to the prospect and the page which provides a good conversion rate is opted.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL):

This is a certificate that is used to secure a website as it establishes an encrypted link between the web server and a browser. Most internet users would see an icon symbolizing an SSL certification when they’ve reached a page that initiates an authentication session with the purchaser’s bank.

Stripe:

One of the few serious alternatives to Paypal. Slightly more technical to integrate, Stripe competes with Paypal and various other online purchasing services.

Surge pricing:

With complicated algorithms, advanced software and thorough market-monitoring, businesses adjust prices according to the circumstances in the market, like the demand pricing strategy.

Supply Chain:

The oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies.

T

Tax:

Refers to the sales tax associated with an online sale. Sales tax is a small percentage of a sale tacked on to that sale by an online retailer. Tax variations depends on the country and it is respective policies.

Third-party payment processor:

An external service that helps merchants accept and process online payments even without a merchant account, such as PayPal.

Time lag:

A Google Analytics measure that summarizes how long, in days, it take your website visitors to become customers.

Time pricing:

Time pricing has the same principle as scarcity pricing. Instead of putting pressure on scarcity, you give a time limit such as: ‘you still have 9 hours, 3 minutes and 5 seconds to score this deal’. The consumer knows that if it wants the discount, he/she will have to buy within the set time limit. Other forms are discount codes with an end date, such as Sovendus.

Tiered pricing:

Tiered pricing is a strategy to increase bulk buying for a set product. For example: 1 items costs $1. 5 items cost $4 and 20 items cost $16. The more of the same product you buy, the less you pay per unit.

Top of the Funnel:

Any touch-point that begins an interaction of a customer with the company. This is usually the first point of engagement and interaction of a business with a visitor. Metrics related to the top of the funnel comprise of page views, time on page, and a number of visitors.

Traffic:

In Internet marketing, traffic represents the number of visitors a particular page or site receives.

Transaction:

A record of the actions taken for each order.

Transparent Pricing:

Transparant pricing is a relatively young strategy. With transparent pricing, the overall price is accounted for. For example, an item costs $10. In the advertisement or product information, the supplier explains that resources cost $1, man-hours cost $2, a fair price for a farmer in Cambodia was paid, which raised the costs another $1 etc. This appeals to the consumer and makes the product seem a responsible purchase.

Trends (Traffic):

The fluctuation of traffic or a specific period. Trends can be based on many factors such as season, time of day, or relevancy of product based on fads.

Turnkey:

A software product sold as complete and ready to operate.

U

UI (User Interface):

The means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular the use of input devices and software.

Underpricing:

Underpricing is basically another term for the penetration pricing strategy. To penetrate the market, you ask a price under cost price in order to be the cheapest. Once you’ve gained popularity and constituency, you can raise the price again. It also often occurs in the stock market on the first public offering of a certain stock.

Unique Users:

In web marketing, a unique user is an individual that has visited a website for a given period of time or have received specific content like adsemails or newsletters. Marketers and website owners track unique users to determine how many people see their content within a given period of time.

Up-selling:

A technique to offer customers an opportunity to upgrade a purchase or to buy a more expensive version of a product to maximize the value of the purchase for the seller.

Uptime:

The percentage of time a website is live.

URL (universal resource location):

Location of a resource (web page, file, image) on the Internet. (e.g. sweettooth.wpengine.com)

Usability: 

Ease of use of a website. Some broad goals of usability are the presentation of information and choices in a clear and concise way, a lack of ambiguity and the placement of important items in appropriate areas. KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid)

UX (User Experience):

Is a person’s entire experience using a particular product, system or service. It includes the practical, experiential, meaningful and valuable aspects of human–computer interaction and product ownership.

V

Value pricing:

Instead of focussing on the costs of a product, the price is determined according to the perceived value of the consumer. Usually this perceived value is measured by asking for reviews and conducting surveys with ultimately the question: ‘What are you willing to pay for it?’

Velocity pricing:

Instead of focussing on costs or value, the velocity of sales of a certain products is the parameter for its price. If a product has a high velocity the price can be either decreased or increased to see if the overall revenue will ultimately increase. The same goes for products with a low velocity.

Vertical:

An industry segment made up of similar business and customers.

Viral Content:

This is referred to as a media material like articlesimages or videos that spread rapidly online through website links and social sharing channels. It is basically a kind of online content that appeals the users to share it or something that gets a lot of viewsreadsclicks etc.

Void:

A transaction that cancels a purchase that has not been completed.

W

Walk-away pricing:

Walk-away pricing is a strategy where you go just low enough before consumers lose interest in buying. That is, low enough from the sellers point of view. This is a common practice in the automobile market. A car seller will try to ask the highest price possible, before a consumer walks away.

Web analytics:

A set of strategic methodologies to collect, measure, and report website data to understand the behavior of visitors and customers so you can optimize the site experience and improve conversion.

Web Browser:

A software application that allows you to view resources (primarily HTML web pages) on the Internet. (e.g. Google Chrome, Internet Explorer)

Web Design:

The creation and coordination of information on a website.

Web Hosting:

Where data for your eCommerce site is stored. This network of computers allow customers to access the information needed to load your website on their computer.

Web Resource:

Any HTML file, image or other computer file that can be reached through a URL.

Website Traffic: 

The number of visitors and visits to your website. Can be measured in hits, page hits, or unique visitors.

Wholesale:

The supply chain stage before retail, where wholesalers deals in bulk volumes. Buying stock wholesale, or selling wholesale to another trade parties or to end users (drop shipping) has become a successful business model.

Wishlist:

Shoppers to create personalized collections of products they want to buy and save them in their user account for future reference. A wishlist is a common element in most ecommerce platforms as the brand can engage with its customers and pinpoint products they desire.

WooCommerce:

A free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control. Alternatives of Woocommerce are Marketpress pro, Jigoshop, Cart66 and more.

WordPress:

WordPress is a free, open source blogging platform, used as a basis for creating ecCmmerce stores and a series of other websites. WordPress ties up with WooCommerce and others to provide ecommerce functionality through the WordPress platform.

WP Engine:

The best hosting solution for those running eCommerce stores on WordPress, WooCommerce is robust, fast and scalable to meet the needs of your business as it grows.

X

XML Sitemap:

A textually representation of the hierarchical model of the website’s content pages. The list is provided with links to its counterpart sections of the website and is organized by topic in an XML format, thus the term – XML Sitemap. Almost all websites comprise a webpage showing the sitemap for user’s who wish to go to a specific section that is not easily accessible through the menus.

Conclusion:

If you, after reading all this, still have no idea what to do, you may have more luck with our blogs. This long list was purely meant as an explanation too many terms and jargon. On our blog, we discuss many pricing strategies and best practices for web stores and how to implement it successfully.Need a good, complete strategy for your webstore? Download our free whitepaper where we provide a lot of information and tips to set up a complete strategy for your webstore. Do you have questions about a term that’s not in the list? Let us know and we’ll add it!

Get started with Pricesearch today

No creditcard required