Are you new to buying and selling online or to dropshipping? Don’t be afraid! We’re here to help you understand the most important terms in ecommerce and dropshipping by giving you a list of them. Our goal is to make sure you don’t feel completely lost when starting an online store and looking for suppliers and products to sell.
We could have started this ecommerce and dropshipping glossary with the most important terms, but we chose to put them in alphabetical order instead. Why is an easy question to answer. If you want to find a certain word, it will be easier to do so.
If you’ve been in the market for a while but are still new to some things, like dropshipping, this article is also for you. It can be used by both small and large online stores, as well as manufacturers.
Want to see how much you know? You should do so!
Now let’s look at the new words we added to our e-commerce and dropshipping glossary that we think anyone who runs an online store should know.
A Glossary of Terms for Ecommerce and Dropshipping for Every Business
A
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know, starting with the letter “A.”
- Abandoned Cart is a term for when a potential customer adds an item to their shopping cart in your online store, but then leaves the site without buying or completing the order.
- Abandoned Cart Recovery: If a customer leaves an item in their shopping cart, you can send them automatic reminders. You can do this by, for example, using programs that take care of this process for you by sending an email or some other kind of notice to the customer. It reminds them to finish their order, which can help you make more money.
- You can test a lot of different things with A/B testing, like an online store, a product, or a newsletter. You compare two versions of the same content to see which one works better and has a higher conversion rate.
- Affiliate marketing is a way to market based on how well it works. The owner of an online store sends products to an influencer or online publisher who posts content on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, or a blog. The influencer posts about the product and gets paid for doing so. There are more ways they can work together and agree to do something for the promotion in exchange. By sending new customers to a service, the influencer can get a recurring commission of a certain percentage or a fixed amount, to name a few options.
AIDA: It’s a way to sell something. An acronym in English ma
de up of the following words:
- Attention: bring a product, a brand, or any content to people’s attention.
- Make people interested, or get people interested.
- Want: Make people want what you have or feel like they need what you have.
- Action: It’s a call to action that makes people want to do something, like buy something.
API stands for “Application Programming Interface.” This is the code that lets two programs talk to each other and use each other’s systems. APIs let you give more people access to your resources without giving up control or security. These are “a simplified way to connect your own infrastructure through cloud-native app development. They also let you share your data with customers and other external users.” There are Private, Partner, and Public APIs that we can talk about. (s)
B
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “B”
- Business-to-Business, or B2B, is a term for businesses that sell goods to other businesses.
- Business-to-Consumer, or B2C, is a term for companies that sell directly to consumers.
- Black Friday is a holiday for online shopping that started in the US but has become popular all over the world. On this day, stores offer big sales and discounts. Most of the time, it’s the day after Thanksgiving.
- Blog: A blog is a section or menu on a website where the owner can share articles that they have written. If the writer took care of SEO for the article, Google will give the page a higher ranking. Writing articles and sharing them is a way to get the word out about a product and help people understand how it works.
- Bounce Rate: This is the number of people who went to a website but didn’t click on anything before leaving.
- Branding is the process of making a unique brand that people can always recognize. Branding is how you use your name, logo, message, and certain design elements in your advertising. It has to draw people in and keep them coming back. This is what sets you apart from the other people on the market. It gives a unique vibe to your business.
- Brick-and-mortar means that the retailer has a real store where people can go and buy their products in person.
- Bulk Management: Bulk means a large quantity. When a retailer manages a lot of product information or keeps a lot of products in stock, they do it in bulk.
C
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “C”
- Compare at Price: This is what shows up as an older, higher price in your shop when you want to give customers a discount. They can look at the old price and the new price, which is less, and decide what to do.
- Conversion (rate): “In simple terms, a conversion is when an anonymous website visitor makes a purchase and becomes a customer. So, the result of a call to action is called a “conversion.” Also, “Conversion Rate is a marketing term that is measured in percentages. It is the rate at which people become paying customers on a site. This is calculated by dividing the number of people who became paying customers by the number of people who visited the site. (s)
- CPC stands for “cost per click,” which is the amount paid when someone clicks on an ad.
- Cross-selling is when a store offers a customer a related product based on what they are interested in or have already put in their shopping cart. In this way, you can make more money.
- Cascading Style Sheets is what CSS stands for. CSS is what web designers use to make, describe, and style how a website looks. It gives HTML pages a layout and a way to look.
- CTA stands for “call to action,” which is a marketing term for asking your target audience to do something. It’s like a step-by-step guide, a button, an image, or text that says “Get it now,” “Subscribe now,” and so on.
- Click Through Rate, or CTR, is the number of people who look at a web page and then click on an ad that appears on that page. The click-through rate shows how well an ad was able to get users interested. The better the ad did at getting people interested, the higher the click-through rate.” (s)
- Customer/Consumer: A customer is someone who comes into your store to look at your products with the intent of buying something from you.
- The Monday after Black Friday is Cyber Monday. The store gives customers tempting discounts and runs specials to get people to shop online.
D
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “D”
- When you have an online store, a datafeed file is a file that has all the information about the products you want to sell. It can be a file that changes all the time, like a URL, so that your products are always up-to-date. With this file, it’s easy to take care of a lot of product data at once.
- When will you want it? If you can’t find the supplier you want to work with on dropship-empire Marketplace, but that supplier can give you a product datafeed file, you can bring this file to dropship-empire in any format, such as CSV, XML, XLS(X), JSON, or TXT, and automate the product management processes.
- Discount Code/Coupon Code: This is a number or letter code that online stores give to potential customers so that if they buy something from the online store, they can get a discount or another product for free. When they check out, they have to type this code into a certain field.
- Domain name: “A domain name is a unique name that is part of an organization’s or other entity’s Internet network address. When you go to a website, you can find the domain name in the address bar of your web browser. (s)
- Dropshipping is a way to do business and sell things online. The store’s online store doesn’t have a real inventory of the items they sell. There’s no need to buy stock up front. When retailers use the standard way of dropshipping, the supplier sends the product straight to the customer. The customer sends money to the online store, and then the online store sends money to the supplier.
E
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know, starting with the letter “E.”
- E-commerce: “E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods or services over the internet, as well as the transfer of money and data to make these transactions happen.” E-commerce usually means selling physical goods online, but it can also mean any kind of business transaction that takes place over the internet. (s)
- Ecommerce Platform: An ecommerce platform is a piece of software that lets businesses that sell things online set up and run an online store. It gives you the tools you need to handle sales, marketing, order fulfillment, and other important tasks.
F
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “F”
- Facebook Ad: In a nutshell, we can say that businesses can make money by making ads on Facebook. These are banners that people can click on and use as posts. It sends them to the website of the advertiser. This content is in the Facebook News Feed on desktops and mobile devices. On desktops, it’s on the right side of the page where the feed is.
- Filtering: Let’s keep in mind that we are a retailer who is looking at products on dropship-empire Marketplace and managing them. You can choose what kind of search results you want to see when you look for products on dropship-empire Marketplace by using filters. When you add a lot of products at once to your dropship-empire catalog, you can set filters if you don’t want to sell all of your chosen supplier’s products.
- Fulfillment: When a customer places an order in your online store, you have to get the product ready to ship to the customer. It could include picking up items from a warehouse, putting labels on packages, and other things.
G
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “G”
- Google Ad is Google’s service for advertising. Businesses have to pay a certain amount of money for their ads to show up at the top of Google search results when someone looks for something related to their business.
H
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “H”
- HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a markup language that people who want to make content online, like articles, should know. It makes it easier to format text. It is made for things like displaying and styling web pages or web applications.
K
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “K”
- Keywords are the words that describe a particular website, page, post, or other online content. They help sites rank well and are good for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you use good keywords, it will be easier for people to find your site. Tags are another name for them.
L
Ecommerce & dropshipping glossary – Must-know definitions beginning with the letter “L”.
- Landing page: This is where people end up when they click on a link. It can be the home page or any other single page on your site. These are there to make sure that visitors do what is wanted, like buy a product or sign up for the company’s newsletter.
M
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “M”
- MAP stands for “Minimum Advertised Price.” This is the lowest price you can advertise products in your store for. It strikes a balance between value and how well something sells.
- Margin is the difference between the price a supplier charges retailers for their products and the price a retailer charges for those same products. It can be given as a fixed amount or as a percentage. The wholesaler or dropshipper can ask the supplier for a price margin to add to the wholesale or dropshipping price of the goods.
- Meta Description: “One of a web page’s meta tags is the meta description. With this meta information, webmasters can get a quick idea of what a page is about and how good it is. When a page is shown as a snippet in the SERPs for a certain search query, the page description is usually shown. (s)
- MSRP, also called SRP or RRP, is the price that the supplier recommends the store use. You should talk to your supplier and ask if you can sell the product for less than this price.
N
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “N”
- It is a separate, small, but profitable part of the market. It can be used in a lot of different ways, but in e-commerce, it is most often used to talk about a certain group of products, or product types. It fills some needs and makes people happy.
O
Ecommerce & dropshipping glossary – Must-know definitions beginning with the letter “O”.
- “Think of this as the next generation of cross-channel and multi-channel retailing.” Omni-channel means having a presence on multiple channels and platforms, such as a storefront, a mobile app, a website, a catalog, etc., and letting customers buy, interact, and engage across all of these channels at the same time or even switch between them. Giving the customer the convenience and freedom to buy something through your shopping app and then pick it up in your store, as well as the option to handle a return through your website.” (s)
- Open Rate: This is the number of people who opened the email you sent them as a percentage. To figure out this percentage, divide the number of emails that were opened by the total number of emails that were sent.
P
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “P”
- Payment Gateway: “A payment gateway is the front-end technology that reads payment cards and sends customer information to the merchant acquiring bank for processing.” When you have an online store, you will have to decide which payment gateway you will use to process payments.
- Pop-ups are the small windows that appear when you are about to leave a website, for example. Most of the time, this is where the site owner will offer a coupon code or a good sale or ask you to sign up for their newsletter.
- POS stands for “point of sale,” which is the place where sales are made. In the past, they were made up of cash registers and a way to read debit and credit cards. Modern POS systems, on the other hand, can offer merchants more complex features like inventory management, customer relationship management, financials, warehousing, etc. (s)
- Price margin is the difference between the price a supplier charges retailers for their products and the price a retailer charges for those same products. It can be given as a fixed amount or as a percentage. The wholesaler or dropshipper can ask the supplier for a price margin to add to the wholesale or dropshipping price of the goods.
- Private Label: A private label is when a manufacturer lets a store sell its products without putting the manufacturer’s name on them. The products can be sold by others under their own brand names.
- Product ID: It’s a number that helps find things. Each product has a unique product ID. There are letters and numbers in it. Product ID also keeps track of the different kinds of a single product in a group. All kinds of a product are the same in this way.
R
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “R”
- Reseller or retailer: “A company that buys goods or services to sell them, not to use themselves. In the world of web economics, a reseller may also be an affiliate marketer who promotes a service with a different name. (s)
- ROI stands for “return on investment.” It’s a way to measure how profitable an investment was. It has to do with how the company worked. Traders can also compare how profitable and efficient different investments are.
S
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “S”
- Software as a service, which is what Saas stands for, is a way to get software to people. In this model, there is a center, base, or third-party provider, and people can use applications, which are smaller services, for their business. Software as a Service (SaaS) has to be subscribed to, but it is easier to keep up with.
- SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is a marketing term. SEO makes it easier for people to find a site through search results. It’s a free service that works like metadata and is based on keywords and texts that describe the site’s content. Also, it can be used for pictures and videos. You can use it to improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic and attention in search engines.
- SERP stands for the page that shows the results of a search. It is a page that will come up when you search for something on Google. SEO helps you move up the SERPs so that your website’s position in the results is better, like moving from the second page to the top of the first page.
- SKU stands for “stock keeping unit,” which is a term for the products you have in your online store without looking at the different kinds. These are items that need to be stored in a warehouse. Each one is unique and has its own number.
- Supplier: Someone who sells goods to retailers at wholesale or retail prices is a supplier. Not all of the products that a supplier sells are made by that supplier. They sell to businesses.
T
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “T”
- Target marketing: “Target marketing means dividing a market into segments and focusing your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments. These key segments are made up of customers whose needs and wants are most similar to your product or service. It can be the key to getting new customers, making more money, and making your business a success. (s)
- Tracking Number: When a customer orders a product, a unique tracking number is given to the order. This number helps the customer, the store, and the delivery company find the package as it is being sent out.
U
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “U”
- Upselling is when an online store offers a related product to the one the customer is looking at or has already put in their shopping cart. It is a better product than the one they already bought. It helps the store make more money.
- UI stands for “User Interface.” The user interface is where people and computers meet and how they talk to each other. When making an interface, designers pay attention to how it looks and feels. This is called UI design.
- USP stands for “Unique Selling Proposition.” This is a feature of a product or service that sets it apart from others on the market that are similar. When it’s time to market, people can use it to their advantage.
- UX stands for “User Experience.” A user’s experience is how he or she interacts with a website and what they learn from it. When making a website and figuring out how to structure it, companies keep the customer in mind so that the user experience is good. It’s important that everything is clear, easy to understand, and easy to find.
V
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “V”
- Variant: A product has more versions, or variants, if it comes in more sizes, colors, materials, and so on.
- VAT stands for “Value Added Tax.” It is a general sales tax that is based on how much value a product or service has gained. It is added to almost every product and service when the seller makes it more valuable. Most of the time, the VAT is a percentage of the price of the item, which is paid by the customer.
W
Ecommerce and dropshipping terms you need to know that start with the letter “W”
- Wholesale is a way of doing business where the retailer buys a lot of products from the supplier before selling them. The store will have its own stock of real products.
This is the price that online store owners pay to the wholesale supplier for a product. This price is less than what the product would sell for in online stores.
Did this list of terms for ecommerce and dropshipping help? Keep an eye out for more!
Check out the ecommerce and dropshipping glossary we made for you to learn more about… Do you want to know more about dropship-empire? You can chat with us or send us an email. dropship-empire is a platform for B2B dropshipping and wholesale that helps retailers and suppliers get in touch with each other. dropship-empire helps online merchants automate the process of managing product data.