AB Testing: Variant Testing (A vs B)
A/B testing is a method where two versions of a given piece of content are deployed at the same time to determine which one performs better. Variants are shown to users (website visitors or email recipients, for example) at random, and each variation is tracked to see which has better performance with respect to the chosen conversion goal. Conversion goals may include metrics concerning number of clicks, number of sales, number of shares, email opens, or even number of comments, replies, and reviews left.
(For more on this topic check out our article on A/B testing)
AOV: Average Order Value
This is a metric that measures the average amount spent per transaction on a website or application. It's calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of orders.
API: Application Programming Interface
A set of protocols and tools that allows different software applications to communicate and share data or functionality. It’s effectively a messenger that allows applications to ‘talk’ to each other, facilitating interactions and data exchange.
ASIN: Amazon Standard Identification Number
This is a unique identifier of 10 letters and/or numbers for a product that’s assigned by Amazon.com. It’s primarily used for product-identification within their product catalog of billions of items.
AVS: Address Verification Service
A fraud prevention tool used by merchants to verify the validity of a credit or debit card used in a ‘card-not-present’ transaction (like online purchases) by comparing the billing address provided by the customer with the address on file with the card issuer.
B2B: Business To Business
This refers to transactions or commerce conducted between businesses as opposed to members of the public.
BOPIS: Buy Online Pick Up In Store
Customers can purchase items from an ecommerce store, but they’re not shipped to them - instead, they have to go to the physical store to pick them up.
BORIS: Buy Online Return In Store
Similar to BOPIS, but in this instance the stores don’t have a returns facility - if the customer wants to take an item back, they have to return it to the physical store.
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
The customer acquisition cost is the total cost a business incurs to secure a new customer - including all marketing and sales expenses, such as advertising, sales commissions, overhead costs, software. (All of these elements are why it is true that it’s much more cost-effective for a business to retain an existing customer than to find a new one.)
CDN: Content Delivery Network
A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers that caches content close to end users. It allows assets to be quickly transferred to load internet content, including HTML pages, JavaScript files, stylesheets, images, and videos.
The majority of web traffic is served through CDNs, including traffic from major sites like Netflix and Amazon.
CMS: Content Management System
A CMS is software that allows users to create, edit and publish content on websites without needing to have development or technical skills.
CPA: Cost Per Acquisition
This is a marketing metric that measures the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level. Cost Per Acquisition is a financial metric used to directly measure the revenue impact of marketing campaigns.
CPA: Cost Per Action
A cost per action (CPA) is the total cost spent to receive the required actions by your customers. Actions typically refer to a purchase, registration, sign-up, amongst other things.
You can calculate the CPA by following this formula:
CPA = MC / A
CPA = cost per action. For example, £20 per action.
MC = the marketing cost.
A = the number of actions.
CPC: Cost Per Click
Cost per click (CPC) is an online advertising revenue model used by Google Ads, for example, to bill advertisers based on the number of times visitors click on a display advert.
CPM: Cost Per Mille
This means ‘cost per thousand’ (mille is Latin for ‘thousand’) and is an alternative way of charging to CPC. It charges per 1,000 ad impressions (views) of the display ad, regardless of whether or not a viewer clicks on the ad.
CRM: Customer Relations Management
This is a system for managing your company’s interactions with current and potential customers. The goal is to improve relationships to grow your business. CRM technology helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.
Interactions managed by CRM systems can include sales calls, customer service interactions, marketing emails, and more.
CRO: Conversion Rate Optimisation
CRO refers to the process of improving your website to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action (‘convert’) - this could be signing up to a newsletter, filling out a form, clicking a link, or making a sale.
Optimising the conversion rate is achieved through a number of techniques - AB testing, user research, using heatmap tools, reviewing analytics and more. CRO should be an ongoing process in ecommerce businesses to make sure they’re squeezing everything they can out of their website performance and improving the user experience.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is used to style and visually lay out the content on a web page. It is a stylesheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in HTML. It is used to separate the content and presentation of a webpage, making it easier to maintain and modify the design of the website. CSS allows developers to control the layout, colour, font, and other visual elements of a webpage.
CTA: Call To Action
A call to action (CTA) is a marketing term that refers to the next step a marketer wants its audience to take. For example, it can instruct a website visitor to click the buy button to confirm a sale, or it can simply move the audience further toward becoming a consumer of that company's products or services, by subscribing to a newsletter, reading more, or downloading some information.
To be effective, a CTA should be obvious and should immediately follow the marketing message.
CTR: Click-Through Rate
In the context of emails, CTR is the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in your email. It's a key metric to measure the engagement and effectiveness of your email campaigns.
CTR can also be used in the context of Google Ads and other advertising - this refers to how often people who see an ad click on it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions (ad views). A higher CTR generally indicates a more effective ad, suggesting users that see the ad are clicking on it as it’s something they’re interested in.
CVR: Conversion Rate
Conversion rate, also known as CVR, is a marketing metric that tells you how many users are converting on your website.
CVR is calculated by dividing the number of conversions (desired actions) by the total number of interactions (for example, website visits) and then multiplying by 100 to express it as a percentage.
CX: Customer Experience
CX in ecommerce is the sum of all interactions a customer has with a brand online which forms their view of the brand. This includes their experience of moving around a website, discovering products, the shopping cart experience, checkout process, order fulfillment, customer service, and post-purchase support.
D2C: Direct To Consumer
This is when brands sell their products directly to consumers, as opposed to via wholesale or retailers, removing any network of third-parties.
DNS: Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) could be referred to as the phonebook of the internet. We access information online through domain names, like byradiant.com. Web browsers interact through Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. DNS translates domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load internet resources.
Each device connected to the Internet has a unique IP address which other machines use to find the device. DNS servers mean that we don’t have to memorise IP addresses in order to access the information on the internet!
DNVB: Digital Native Vertical Brand
Businesses that trade exclusively on digital platforms like Shopify, removing intermediaries and relying on digital and traditional marketing.
Ecommerce: Electronic Commerce
A catch-all term that references the commerce that now takes place via websites.
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning
ERPs are types of software that integrate and centralise a business’ data and operations to streamline processes and increase insights. Examples of ERPs include SAP and NetSuite.
ESP: Email Service Provider
In this context, we’re not talking about extra-sensory perception, the alleged paranormal ability. No! We are in fact referring to email software like Klaviyo or Mailchimp.
In reality, modern ESPs do a lot more than manage email activity for businesses. It’s more accurate to refer to them as marketing platforms. Beyond automated and personalised email flows, they can help with more sophisticated activity like pop ups, embedded forms, SMS and push messaging, and AB testing.
FBA: Fulfilment by Amazon
This is when you sell on Amazon, but Amazon takes care of storing, picking, packing and shipping your products to customers along with 24/7 trusted customer service in the local languages of Amazon’s stores.
FBM: Fulfilment by Merchant
Fulfillment by Merchant, is an ecommerce fulfillment method where sellers take full responsibility for storing, packaging, and shipping their products directly to customers.
GA: Google Analytics
Previously known as UA (universal analytics) and more recently upgraded (some would say) to GA4, Google Analytics is a free tool that lets online business owners have complete understanding of customers across devices and platforms. Google Analytics helps understand the customer journey and improve marketing ROI.
GMV: Gross Merchandise Volume
GMV, or Gross Merchandise Value, is a key metric in ecommerce that represents the total value of all goods sold on a platform or channel over a specific period, before deducting any fees, discounts, or returns.
GMV = Number of Transactions x Average Order Value (AOV)
GTM: Go To Market
GTM refers to a comprehensive plan a business uses to launch a product or service to the market, encompassing everything from market research to sales and marketing strategies, aiming to effectively reach and engage target customers.
HTML: HyperTextMarkup Language
HTML is a markup language used to structure the content of a web page. HTML provides the structure and content of a web page, while CSS (referenced above) provides the visual design.
LTV: Lifetime Value
Not loan-to-value, which is a mortgage-related term, in ecommerce it refers to lifetime value - a metric that estimates the tidal revenue a business can expect to receive from a customer through their relationship. It’s important to understand - retaining a customer is more cost-effective than acquiring a new one - and can help you make decisions about marketing and client retention strategies.
MTA: Multi-Touch Attribution
It’s become increasingly difficult in recent years for businesses to attribute specific marketing activity and different customer touchpoints to a sale. MTA assigns credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey, not just the last interaction, to understand the effectiveness of different marketing channels and campaigns.
Traditional attribution models, like last-click attribution, only credit the last interaction, neglecting the influence of other touchpoints. MTA provides a more holistic view of the customer journey, allowing marketers to optimise their strategies and allocate budgets more effectively.
OOH: Out Of Home
This is advertising that takes place ‘outside the home’, traditionally referring to billboards, ads in bus shelters, posters, and in recent years digital screens in public spaces.
OOS: Out of Stock
When a product is not available for purchase, it is typically marked in this way. Customers are often able to sign up for alerts on websites which will notify them when the product becomes available again.
POS: Point Of Sale
In ecommerce this refers to sophisticated systems in stores that can also be deemed ‘retail management systems’ - perhaps a more appropriate term, since this software is not just for processing sales but comes with many other capabilities, such as inventory management, membership systems, supplier records, bookkeeping, issuing of purchase orders, quotations and stock transfers, hide barcode label creation, sale reporting. Shopify has its own POS system for merchants, and third party systems are also available.
(For more information, check out our articles - What is POS and Shopify POS Vs Square)
PR: Public Relations
This precedes ecom, but is perhaps more important than ever as Google evolves into providing more answers that result in fewer clicks through to websites.
PR is the practice of managing and sharing information from a business or person to the public in order to influence perception of that business or person.
P2P: Peer to Peer
A P2P marketplace is an online platform where individuals can directly buy, sell, or rent products or services from other individuals, bypassing traditional retailers or intermediaries. Some good examples of P2P spaces are Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook Marketplace.
PCI DSS: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created by 5 major credit card companies in 2004, and is a widely accepted set of policies and procedures intended to optimise the security of credit, debit and cash card transactions, protecting cardholders against misuse of their personal information.
PCI DSS was designed to prevent cybersecurity breaches of sensitive data and reduce the risk of fraud for organisations that handle payment card information.
PDP: Product Detail Page
Also known as the product page, this is the page on an ecommerce website that showcases an individual product. It normally features images, videos, reviews, specifications, dimensions, colours, variants and price.
PLP: Product Listing Page
Also known as the collection page, this refers to pages where categories of products are listed - for example, a skincare website might have serums, night moisturisers, handcare and bodycare as collections each listed on separate product listing pages.
PPC: Pay Per Click
This is an advertising model used by Google Ads and others, in which an advertiser (e.g. a Shopify store owner) pays a publisher (Google) whenever an advert displayed on the publisher’s network is clicked by someone browsing the internet.
QA: Quality Assurance
Here at Radiant, we have a robust Quality Assurance process which ensures the work we do is of the highest quality. Our QA Engineers test the work deployed by our development team to ensure it functions correctly, meets requirements, and provides a positive user experience, encompassing various aspects like functionality, usability, performance, and compatibility.
QR Code: Quick Response Code
QR codes made a comeback during the pandemic when they became a fashionable way to order food in restaurants, for example. They look a bit like barcodes and can be scanned by phone cameras to access web pages. QR codes have become a focus of advertising strategy to provide a way to access a brand's website more quickly than by manually entering a URL.
ROAS: Return On Ad Spend
Return on ad spend is an important performance indicator in marketing. It refers to the amount of revenue that is earned for every £ spent on a campaign. It shows the profit achieved for each advertising expense and can be measured both on a high level and on a more granular basis.
ROAS = revenue attributable to ads / cost of ads (ad spend)
Say you ran an ad campaign and spent £1,000 on ads that you can attribute £3,000 revenue to. Using the above formula, you can determine an ROAS of £3.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication
This is a web feed that allows websites to publish regularly updated information like blog entries, podcasts and video series.
SaaS: Software As A Service
Cloud-based software, typically available to use via a licence or on subscription, that allows users to connect to and take advantage of its features. Examples of SaaS would be Netflix, Salesforce, Slack, Shopify or Klaviyo.
SEM: Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
While the industry term once referred to both organic search activities such as search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid advertising, it now refers almost exclusively to paid search advertising.
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation
You can have the most beautiful online store offering world-class products, but without any website traffic to discover and buy from your brand, it's pointless. SEO ensures your online store is optimised for search engines and customers, helping you achieve sustainable growth. Check out Radiant’s SEO services.
SERP: Search Engine Results Page
When you type a query into Google, the results are displayed on the SERP (search engine results page). In 2025 this has a mix of organic search results, paid results (ads), and other elements like featured snippets, knowledge panels, Shopping, images, maps, videos, ‘people also ask’ and rich snippets (enhanced results that have information like star ratings and reviews for products).
SKU: Stock Keeping Unit
A SKU is a code made up of letters and numbers, used by retailers to identify and track items in their inventory. Each product variation has its own SKU.
SLA: Service Level Agreement
SLAs are agreements between a service provider and a customer that clearly defines the services to be provided, and how those services will be measured.
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer
SSL is a security protocol that provides privacy, authentication, and integrity to Internet communications. Websites with SSL security have HTTPS in their URL instead of HTTP. SSL has now evolved into TLS (transport layer security).
SSL can only be implemented by websites that have an SSL certificate (technically a ‘TLS certificate’). An SSL certificate is like an ID card or a badge that proves someone is who they say they are. SSL certificates are stored and displayed on the Web by a website's or application's server.
UGC: User-Generated Content
UGC is original content (which includes images, videos, reviews, or testimonials) created by users and website visitors, rather than by brands or companies, and often shared on social media or other online platforms. It’s great for brands as it can act as free marketing, demonstrating to potential customers that the brand is trustworthy thanks to positive reviews from existing customers.
UI: User Interface
A user interface is the user-facing design of a webpage or application. User-friendly UI is important for ecommerce merchants to provide intuitive navigation - and a pleasant shopping experience - for customers.
UX: User Experience
UX is how an end-user experiences shopping on a website. Every touchpoint adds to a user's perceptions of a brand, website, and product. That means that from the moment users arrive on your site, they start to form a sense of how easy, useful, and efficient your ecommerce experience is.
VPN: Virtual Private Network
A VPN, which stands for ‘virtual private network’, protects its users by encrypting their data and masking their IP addresses. This hides their browsing activity, identity, and location, allowing for greater privacy and autonomy.
0PD: Zero-Party Data
This refers to information intentionally shared by individuals with a company. The difference between this and first-party data, is that first-party data is collected through actions like website interactions, whereas zero-party data is willingly volunteered, including preferences or personal information, making it highly valuable.
The defining feature of zero-party data is that the customer actively chooses to provide the information, not passively having it collected through tracking or website activity.
1PD: First-Party Data
This is data that is gathered directly from your customers or visitors through various interactions.
As companies know it’s from a valid source, this data has a higher level of trust. It tends to be more accurate than other types of data.
2PD: Second-Party Data
Next, we have second-party data - this refers to another company’s first-party data that is shared with your company. Both parties exchange the data with mutual consent, through partnerships or collaborations.
As second-party data consists of another company’s first-party data, it is considered to be of higher quality and accuracy than third-party data from external sources.
3PD: Third Party Data
This is information collected and sold by a party other than the end user, or the company that initially collected the data. Third-party data is often bought from external sources like data brokers or organisations that collect and sell information, and can include a wide range of demographic and behavioural data about individuals.
(For more in-depth information on this, take a look at our blog on different data types.)
1PL: First Party Logistics
1PL or First Party Logistics is when a person or company storing their goods themselves and transporting them to the end user. The 1PL is mostly applied within small production companies with local distribution. These companies are therefore completely self-sufficient in their logistics services.
2PL: Second Party Logistics
2PL or Second Party Logistics is often the first step in outsourcing logistics tasks including transport. Companies that offer 2PL services can be considered a logistics operator since, in addition to transport, they are also responsible for the storage of goods.
3PL: Third Party Logistics
3PL or Third Party Logistics consists of outsourcing a large part or even the entire logistics process of a company to an external logistics operator. The 3PL acts as an intermediary between the client and its customers, organising transport activities and storage facilities.
4PL: Fourth Party Logistics
With 4PL or Fourth Party Logistics, supply chain management is provided. Think for example of consulting, planning, management, or warehousing. A 4PL operator does not carry out physical transport or warehouse activities, these are outsourced to a 3PL operator. A 4PL operator therefore manages the client's entire supply chain and takes the initiative in designing and optimising the supply chain.
Let us know if there are any ecommerce terms we’ve missed, and we’ll add them! And if you need any support with your Shopify store, whether you want to improve your SEO to rank higher in the SERPs, increase your LTV or AOV, get in touch and we can have a discussion about how we can help improve your website and ecommerce results.
