Amazon Glossary

A 7-Day Deal is a time-bound Amazon promotion type features on the Best Deals page.

A+ content is enhanced product detail content, available to all Amazon Brand Registered brand owners, that includes embedded images, comparison charts, or videos in the description of the product.

The A9 algorithm is Amazon’s closely guarded algorithm that uses search keywords to determine product relevancy, display order, and ranking in search results.

Amazon’s Account Health Rating is a metric that highlights each seller’s history of policy violations or complaints to ensure sellers deliver a great customer experience.

Overbillings due to inaccurate product accounting.

Ad clicks occur when potential consumers click on an Amazon Sponsored Ad.

Ad impressions indicate the number of times an Amazon Sponsored Ad loaded on a website listing or page.

Amount of money spent solely on advertising.

Advertising cost of sales (ACoS) is a key Amazon Marketing Services campaign metric that measures the ratio of ad cost to sales revenue. ACoS = Ad Spend ÷ Revenue. If you spent $2 on advertisements that results in $20, your ACoS would be 10%.

Aged inventory surcharge is charged on inventory units stored in Amazon fulfillment centers for 181 days and above.

An aggregator is a company that acquires multiple brands across multiple categories within the Amazon ecosystem.

All product search (APS) is unfiltered keyword-based search of all products across all categories on Amazon.

Formerly called Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), Amazon Advertising is a service in which sellers only pay for ads when shoppers click on them.

Amazon Attribution is a program that shows marketers how their non-Amazon marketing channels perform on Amazon via metrics such as clicks, detail page views, add to carts, and sales. The program also provides Brand Referral Bonuses for sales from off-Amazon traffic.

Amazon Brand Analytics gives registered brand owners a detailed report of Amazon search terms, customer demographics, item comparison, alternate purchases, market basket, and repeat purchase behavior.

Currently in its second version, Amazon Brand Registry is the official registration of an Amazon brand, which helps protect intellectual property and creates a trusted customer experience on Amazon.

Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP) allows sellers to programmatically buy ads to reach new and existing on- and off-Amazon audiences. With DSP, sellers can buy space for ads on a given website through multiple sources via automated, centralized software.

When Amazon fulfills customer orders from their warehouses as opposed to the Merchant fulfilling orders themself which is called MFN.

Amazon Global Logistics simplifies international shipping for sellers, providing door-to-door service from China to Amazon’s fulfillment centers in the US, UK, and EU.

Formerly known as Exclusives, Amazon Incubator is a program that allows sellers to pay a fee to partner directly with Amazon in exchange for perks, such as increased brand support, protection, and product exposure.

Amazon Live enables sellers to showcase products in their carousel with live video, product highlights, live promotions, and chat to engage audiences during streaming.

Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) is a web API that helps Amazon sellers automate and manage listings, orders, payments, and reports to increase efficiency and improve customer response times.

Amazon payout is the amount Amazon pays the seller for sales after discounts and various fees are deducted.

Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service that gives Amazon users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium.

The Amazon referral fee is the money that Amazon takes for facilitating the sales relationship between buyer and seller. Amazon applies this pre-sales tax deducted payment to every item.

Amazon Retail Analytics offers physical retail stores insight about their product performance, promotions, and ad campaigns.

Amazon search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing product listings to help them rank higher in Amazon product search, which can significantly boost the number of shoppers that purchase your products or trust your brand.

Amazon Sponsored Brands ads allow brands to promote a custom headline, brand logo, and up to three products per ad and send shoppers to a store page or a custom landing page on Amazon.

Amazon Sponsored Display ads use product or interest targeting to deliver relevant ads to shoppers with particular interests, driving them to Amazon product detail pages.

Amazon Sponsored Products ads are keyword-targeted ads that promote individual listings that appear in search or on Amazon product detail pages, driving shoppers to a product listing page, custom landing page, or store.

Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) are unique 10-character alphanumeric identifiers used for and within Amazon. Sellers can break down ASINs into parent products with one overall item or style and child products with multiple color, size, and pack size options.

Amazon Storefront, also known as Amazon Brand Store, is a feature that brand registered sellers can use to create a branded online storefront on Amazon, through which they can showcase their products.

Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD) is a logistics service that provides storage, distribution, and inventory management for sellers, integrating with Amazon’s Fulfillment Network for efficient supply chain management.

The Andon Cord Team is Amazon’s team of product review specialists who pull products off Amazon websites — either manually or via automated statistical pulls — if there is a problem with the product.

Annual Vendor Negotiations are yearly meetings between Amazon and vendors to discuss and set terms for the upcoming year.

This is when a software collects data from another software. In SoStocked you may hear of SoStocked doing an “API pull every day”. This is SoStocked getting all of the latest information “pulled” from Amazon.

Also called Auto Campaigns, these are simple campaigns that are mostly controlled by Amazon.

Substitutes, Complements, Loose, Close
These are specific types of targeting that Amazon uses within automatic campaigns. Different targeting types will connect your ad to different search terms, depending on relevancy.

Average cost-per-click is calculated by dividing the total cost of your clicks by the total number of clicks. Also Called: Average Cost Per Click, Average Cost-Per-Click, Avg. CPC.

Best Seller Rank (BSR), which is updated hourly, highlights an item’s sales rank within its category or subcategory.

The beta version of a product or software is the version in development prior to full public release. In beta, people outside the development team test the product or software’s quality, look for problems, and suggest improvements.

A black hat is a person who uses unethical tactics to either boost their own product sales or suppress the sales of competitors or both.

A broker is a licensed professional who assists in clearing customs and ensuring compliance with import regulations, facilitating the smooth entry of goods into the destination country.

Browse nodes represent the subcategory collections of items for sale (such as shampoo being a node within the beauty browse structure). Amazon uses a hierarchy of nodes to organize item collections on the marketplace.

Browse refinements enable sellers and shoppers to organize or refine shopping results by specific options, such as color, size, or brand.

Bullet points, which should be fewer than 1,000 characters total, provide information about a product’s key features and benefits. Amazon Search doesn’t always index them, but they always appear on product detail pages, so sellers should ensure they’re readable and informative.

B2B refers to transactions conducted between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer.

B2C refers to transactions conducted between a business and a consumer or end-user.

The Amazon Buy Box is a section of a product listing that includes buttons to “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now.” Buyers who rank first in search results are shown in the Buy Box and typically get the sale.

Buy with Prime enables non-Amazon sellers like Shopify stores to integrate Amazon checkout and fulfillment services on their websites, offering Prime members fast, free shipping and easy returns using their Amazon Pay details, no matter where they shop online.

A category is a general grouping for Amazon products, such as Appliances, Books, Electronics, and Home & Kitchen.

Amazon fees for noncompliance with vendor guidelines.

Click-through rate is a metric that shows the rate at which users saw an ad compared to how many times they clicked through to the product listing.

Number of times your ad is clicked within a selected date range.

Number of Clicks divided by number of Orders. Also Called: Click/Order Ratio

Conversion rate, also known on Amazon as the Unit Session Percentage, is a metric that shows how many units were sold, compared to the number of shoppers who viewed a product listing. If you sold 20 units for every 100 shoppers who viewed your listing, for example, your conversion rate is 20%.

COSMO is an AI system transforming ecommerce search by deeply understanding customer intent through analysis of shopping behaviors and purchase histories, delivering highly relevant product suggestions to enhance search accuracy, and personalization on Amazon.

The Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS) refers to how much it costs a seller to purchase and maintain each product they sell.

Cost per click (CPC) refers to how much it costs the seller each time a potential buyer clicks on an ad, which varies depending on ad competition, time of day, and ad placement. Average CPC gives sellers the average cost they were charged across ad clicks.

Cubic meter, is a measurement of volume. Shippers use CBM to calculate chargeable weight. CBM = multiply length x width x height (in meters).

The Monday following Black Friday. From Black Friday through Cyber Monday is one of the two highest traffic periods of the year for Amazon.

Turning on or off advertising automatically based on day or time of day.

A demand-side platform (DSP) is software that allows an advertiser to buy inventory from ad exchanges and manage advertising campaigns. A DSP accesses data from multiple sources and performs real-time analytics to evaluate impressions as they are offered and place bids accordingly.

Direct to consumer (D2C) is a type of business-to-consumer (B2C) retail sales strategy where a business builds, markets, sells, and ships a product directly to the customer.

Automatically adjust your bid amount for keywords based on different strategies. Also Called: Bid Types, Bidding Strategies, Dynamic Bidding Strategies

Enhanced brand content (EBC) allows brand registered sellers to add rich content such as images, formatted text, or product descriptions to their product listings.

A European Article Number, also known as an International Article Number, is a barcode system, used in global trade to identify specific products in specific packaging from specific manufacturers.

Similar to NARF or Pan EU except that rather than fulfilling from UK to the rest of Europe (where inventory is stored in Amazon UK) or when storing in Germany can also fulfil to UK now.

First-party selling (1P) is when the Amazon marketplace acts as the retailer and the brand acts as the wholesale supplier. Also called Vendors

A freight forwarder serves as a middleman connecting Amazon sellers with carriers (such as shipping lines, airlines, and freight trains) for the international transportation of goods.

Amazon Certified Frustration-Free Packaging (FFP) is recyclable, consolidated product packaging.

FACOS encompasses all expenses associated with warehousing and shipping orders, covering tasks such as receiving, inventory storage, as well as order fulfillment activities like picking, packing, and shipping. It also includes costs related to reverse logistics or handling returns from customers.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a fulfillment option where sellers outsource shipping to Amazon, who then stores, picks, packs, ships, and delivers products to customers.

Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) is a fulfillment option where merchants store and ship their own products, while advertising them for sale on Amazon.

A fulfillment center is an Amazon warehouse where incoming orders are received, stored, packed and shipped out to customers. Sellers who use FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) store their inventory at Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

The Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit (FNSKU) is an alphanumeric Amazon identifier used to generate a product barcode that marks a product as unique to a seller before its sent to the Amazon fulfillment center. Each “Fulfilled by Amazon” SKU added to Amazon will have its own FNSKU Barcode.

This means that a shipment occupies the entire space of a container, without having to share it with other shippers.

Gated product categories are normally regulated by federal institutions to protect consumers. Example: personal care, supplements

A gated product is regulated by an external organization and Amazon requires documentation to let the seller sell the item on the platform. Example: Hazmat products

Gray hat techniques are questionable — but not explicitly forbidden — tactics that some sellers use to improve sales and SEO.

When Amazon shows your ad to a potential customer, this is called an “impression.”

This is an ASIN status in which the listing is suppressed from the Search Results Page (SRP) due to inventory or catalog errors on Amazon’s backend

Inventory management refers to the process of ordering, storing, using, and selling a company’s inventory, including managing and storing raw materials, components, and finished products.

Amazon’s Inventory Performance Index (IPI) is an indicator of a shop’s inventory health, represented by a number between 0 and 1,000, that helps sellers optimize inventory and prevent lost sales and fees.

Item Type Keywords (ITKs) are primarily used in the U.S. as a means of assigning ASINs to specific browse nodes. ASINs with a “skin-care-products” ITK value, for example, are automatically assigned to the Skin Care browse nodes.

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a specific measurement, such as page traffic or overall profits, that sellers and brands set to determine the success of campaigns, sales, or business.

Broad Keyword Matches indicate the widest possible reach for a keyword. These keywords are matched not only to the specificed keyword, but also to related terms, including synonyms, misspellings, and variations of the keyword.

Exact Keyword Matches narrow target results as specifically as possible so that shoppers will only see results for their exact keyword or phrase. As with the other match types, misspellings, plurals and singulars are allowed.

Negative Keyword Matches are terms deemed irrelevant to a campaign or product search. Sellers can filter these terms out by marking them as negative keywords.

Phrase Keyword Matches that filter searches based on a particular keyword or phrase. If the search term is “laser pointer,” for example, Phrase Keyword Match results might serve up results for both “black laser pointer” and “laser pointer toys,” among others.

Keywords are the terms customers use to search for products on Amazon. Sellers include relevant keywords in their products’ catalog data to guide customers to their listings.

An extension of CoGS, landed cost is the sum of expenses associated with shipping a product to its final destination.

Latency refers to the time between a change being made to an ASIN and when that change goes live on an Amazon store, which can take up to 72 hours, depending on website traffic volumes and other technical factors.

The launch date is the date a product goes live on an Amazon online store, which has a YYYY-MM-DD format. Products with future launch dates are not searchable.

The time between the initiation and completion of a production process.

Less-than-truckload, also known as or less-than-load (LTL), is a shipping service for relatively small loads or quantities of freight. LTL is predominantly used for small freight products or low-order goods.

A promotion in which a limited number of discounts are offered on an item for a short period. Lightning Deals can be found throughout Amazon, and are available on Today’s Deals or Prime Day page.

Listing attributes are fields that sellers can edit in Seller Central to describe the details of their products, including color, shape, or size.

When unauthorized sellers list counterfeit or unauthorized versions of a product under another seller’s listing.

Listing optimization is the process of refining product listings to get the best possible search results. Also called search engine optimization (SEO), listing optimization uses keyword research to help improve product rankings.

A tool that provides sellers with insights and metrics on the quality of their product listings to optimize visibility and sales.

Listing spam is catalog data that violates the terms of the seller program or that is irrelevant to the product it describes.

The removal of a product listing from Amazon’s search results due to policy violations, poor performance, or other issues.

Different versions of a product listed under a single parent listing, such as variations in color, size, or features.

Logistics describes the coordination, movement, and storage of resources from one location to another.

Long-term storage fees (LTSF) are fees that Amazon charges for inventory that sellers have stored in Amazon FBA storage facilities for more than 365 days.

Specific, less commonly searched phrases that are more targeted and often have lower competition in search engine optimization.

Inventory that remains in a fulfillment center for an extended period, often incurring higher storage fees.

A targeted marketing audience that shares characteristics with a seller’s existing customer base, used to expand reach.

A situation where a seller loses the featured offer status on a product listing, often impacting visibility and sales.

A fee for standard-size products with inventory levels consistently below 28 days of supply relative to customer demand, applied only when both long-term and short-term historical days of supply are under 28 days.

Amazon has introduced new Low-Price FBA fees to replace the FBA Small and Light program, aiming to offer better value for sellers of low-priced items.

Type of campaign where you are able to select the individual keywords/targets you wish to bid on.

The price recommended by the manufacturer for retail sale, often serving as a benchmark for discounts.

The gradual reduction in profit margins due to factors like increased costs, price competition, or changes in market conditions.

A marketplace is a place — in-person or digital — where goods are bought and sold. Amazon has multiple marketplaces, which are typically tied to a geographic region, such as the U.K. marketplace or the U.S. marketplace.

A marketplace facilitator, such as Amazon, contracts with third-party sellers to promote their goods or services through on a marketplace. A marketplace facilitator tax (MFT) is the sales tax that Amazon collects and remits on behalf of the seller with each sale.

A larger box used to ship multiple smaller product units, often utilized for efficient storage and transport.

Broad Match, Phrase Match, and Exact Match. Match types allow Amazon sellers to fine-tune which shopper search terms their ads may be eligible to be shown against.

The maximum you can spend per click so that you do not lose money on the sale. Max CPC = Break Even CPA / (Click/Order Ratio)

A unique identifier assigned to Amazon sellers to manage their listings and account activities.

A method of inventory management where minimum and maximum stock levels are set to trigger reorders.

A policy set by manufacturers that stipulates the lowest price at which a retailer can advertise their products.

Minimum order quantity is the fewest number of units of a particular product that a consumer is allowed to purchase in a single order. Manufacturers usually set these numbers for Amazon sellers.

With MCF, Amazon stores your inventory in its fulfillment centers. When items sell on Amazon, on your own site, or on another ecommerce site, Amazon picks, packs, and ships them to your customers.

The management and distribution of products across multiple sales channels, such as Amazon, eBay, and a company’s website.

A logistics approach where shipments are sent to multiple destinations, often to optimize delivery times and costs.

Coordination of inventory across multiple storage locations to optimize supply chain efficiency.

The percentage of feedback ratings received by a seller that are negative, impacting seller reputation.

Keywords excluded from advertising campaigns to prevent ads from appearing in irrelevant searches.

The total profit after all expenses have been deducted from total revenue, indicating the actual earnings.

A customer complaint regarding an order that was not received, often leading to investigations and potential refunds.

Items that are no longer sellable or usable due to various factors like market changes or new product versions.

Off-Amazon traffic/advertising is any traffic, such as visitors, links, audience, or reach, that comes to Amazon from any site outside the Amazon marketplace.

A retail strategy that integrates various sales channels (online, in-store, mobile) to provide a seamless customer experience.

A program where Amazon associates can earn commissions by promoting products through their content on Amazon’s platform.

A key performance indicator that measures the percentage of orders with defects such as negative feedback, A-to-Z Guarantee claims, or chargebacks.

The percentage of customer orders that are fulfilled without backordering or stockouts, indicating inventory management efficiency.

An order ID is a unique identifying code applied to every Amazon order — even orders with multiple items.

The duration from when an order is placed with a supplier until it is received and ready for sale.

The total revenue generated from B2B orders placed, not necessarily reflecting shipped or completed transactions.

Number of units purchased as the result of advertising

Income derived from the sale of products via organic traffic.

The visitors who arrive at a website through unpaid search engine results, driven by SEO efforts.

A situation where a product is unavailable for purchase due to depleted inventory, potentially leading to lost sales.

A measure of a seller’s efficiency and accuracy in processing and shipping customer orders.

Over-the-top (OTT) advertising is marketing media (usually TV content) streamed using an internet connection rather than traditional cable or satellite.

The average time taken by a vendor to deliver products from the order date to the arrival at the fulfillment center.

A label affixed to a pallet containing goods, providing essential information such as contents, destination, and tracking details.

The process of arranging goods on pallets for efficient storage and transportation.

Parent ASINs are the generic product designation given to a category of items (such as Levi’s 501 jeans) to demarcate item relationships and allow one detail page to hold all variations (child ASINs, such as Levi’s 501 jeans size large) of the product, rather than having individual pages for each variation.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of internet marketing where advertisers pay a fee each time a potential customer clicks on one of their ads.

Pay to play is a situation in which a seller or consumer would be required to pay a fee to take part in a particular business activity.

Financial reports provided by Amazon to sellers, detailing transactions, fees, and payouts.

A metric indicating the percentage of orders delivered on time, complete, and without damage or errors.

The process of selecting and packaging products for shipment to customers.

The fee charged by Amazon for the labor involved in selecting, packing, and shipping products to customers.

An advertising strategy where ads are placed in specific locations, such as product pages or search results, to reach targeted audiences.

Different ad types may appear in different locations across Amazon.

Income derived from the sale of products via advertising.

The percentage of orders canceled by sellers before they are fulfilled, affecting the seller’s performance metrics.

A status given to suppliers who consistently meet certain criteria, such as quality and delivery performance, often receiving favorable terms.

Specific packaging and labeling standards that products must meet to be eligible for Amazon’s fulfillment services.

A measure of how sensitive the demand for a product is to changes in its price, influencing pricing strategies.

The main keywords targeted in a product listing or ad campaign, critical for SEO and visibility.

A Prime Certified Warehouse is a storage facility certified with Amazon Prime, which is required to have an on-time delivery rate of at least 92%, a valid tracking ID for at least 94%, and a seller-initiated cancellation rate of less than 1.5% of Premium shipping orders.

Prime Day is an Amazon sale that happens once a year — or on special designated days — and includes discounts on thousands of products.

A private-label product is manufactured by a contract or third-party manufacturer and sold under a retailer’s brand name. The retailer specifies the product details, including what goes in it, how it’s packaged, and what the label should look like, then pays others to produce and deliver it to their store.

An interface that allows developers to access Amazon’s product data and integrate it into their applications or websites.

A marketing strategy where multiple products are sold together at a discounted price, often to increase sales volume.

A tool used to categorize products based on attributes, helping to organize listings and improve searchability.

The product description, which lives on the product detail page, is free-form text that describes the product, including what the product is, how it works, and how it benefits customers.

The product detail page includes complete information on a given product and typically includes photos, color options, size options, price, return policies, reviews, and other details intended to help the customer make an informed purchasing decision.

Printed materials included in product packaging, often used for branding, customer engagement, or promotional purposes.

Profit is the leftover monies earned after expenses have been subtracted from revenue. Profit = Revenue – Expenses

Discrepancies in the expected and actual pricing.

Discrepancies between expected and actual inventory levels.

A quick response (QR) code is the trademark for a type of two-dimensional barcode that contains data for a locator, identifier, or tracker and guides a user to a website or application. QR codes were first designed in 1994 for the Japanese automotive industry.

A Receiving Discrepancy occurs when the quantity or condition of goods received at an Amazon fulfillment center differs from what was expected based on the shipment plan or initial shipping details.

A Removal Order on Amazon refers to a request made by a seller to have their inventory removed from Amazon’s fulfillment centers and returned to them or disposed of, typically due to reasons such as overstock, end of season, or liquidation.

Placement Type: anywhere an ad is shown other than Product Pages or Top of Search.

Retail arbitrage is an eCommerce business model centered around buying inventory at a discount from offline and online retailers, then reselling it online for a profit.

Retargeting refers to the practice of serving ads to users who have shown interest or engaged with a website or brand previously, with the goal of re-engaging them and encouraging conversion.

Return on ad spend (RoAS) is the amount of revenue earned for every dollar spent on an ad campaign.

Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of profitability, which is expressed as a percentage, used to gauge or rate how an investment has performed. Sellers can determine ROI by comparing the cost of their investment (in the development of a product, for example) against their net profit.

Reversals occur when Amazon reverses a previously approved FBA reimbursement claim, reclaiming the reimbursed amount from the seller, often due to revised decisions on claim validity, uncovering missing inventory, or reimbursement errors.

Rufus is an AI shopping assistant that uses Amazon’s product data and web information to answer customer queries, offer product comparisons, make personalized recommendations, and facilitate product discovery within the Amazon shopping environment.

Sales rank is a measurement, which is updated hourly, that shows a product’s average sales ranking compared to other similar products or product lines on Amazon.

Search constraints are limitations placed on search queries to restrict the ASINs that the Amazon algorithm serves up. A query for “red dresses,” for example, will only show results assigned with a “dresses” browse node and a “red” refinement selection.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of refining and optimizing website or product pages to increase their rank within search engines like Google. SEO, which can be equal parts science and art, is vital to getting potential customer traffic to product and service pages.

Seller Central is Amazon’s one-stop interface for those who sell products on Amazon that provides the seller’s account information, product data, and sales details.

Seller Fulfilled Prime is an Amazon Prime program that enables sellers to deliver products to domestic Prime customers directly from their warehouse.

A seller ID is a unique, regional identifier that Amazon assigns to every Seller Central account.

A service-level agreement (SLA) lays out the products or services that a provider will deliver to a customer; the point of contact for end users; the method of resolution for any problems that might occur; and the measurements by which parties will monitor and approve services.

Sessions is a metric that describes the number of times users visit an Amazon page within a 24-hour period.

Shopping results are what customers see when they search on Amazon. Since the product discovery and shopping landscape is subject to continuous experimentation, the look and feel of shopping results can vary.

Amazon 1P shortages occur when first-party vendors face inventory issues, causing potential delays or unavailability of products on Amazon due to supply chain disruptions, manufacturing delays, forecasting inaccuracies, or unexpected demand increases.

Split testing is a technique where a seller creates two or more variations of a promotion, an email, or product copy, then distributes those variations to consumers or users to test which performs better.

A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of written instructions that describes the step-by-step process that users must take to properly perform a routine activity.

A stock keeping unit (SKU) is an identifier that sellers assign to products to enable them to organize and manage inventory effectively.

Supply Chain by Amazon is an automated service that manages the entire process of getting products from manufacturers to customers globally, ensuring consistent stock, faster shipping, and reduced costs.

The target advertising cost of sales (ACoS) refers to the goal that sellers set for how much money they want to spend on and receive from specific advertisements. This metric will change depending on how aggressive the seller wants to be with their advertising.

Terms of service (TOS) are the legal agreements between a service provider and the person using that services that outline the terms by which the person must abide. Amazon’s TOS, for example, lays out what sellers must do to sell on the platform.

Third-party logistics (3PL) is the process of outsourcing ecommerce logistics — such as supply chain management, warehousing, and fulfillment — to a third-party business, which free the merchant to focus on other elements of their business.

A third-party (3P) seller uses the Amazon marketplace to sell directly to shoppers and handles customer service for all of their products. 3P sellers’ items are displayed as “Sold by Merchant and Fulfilled by Amazon” or “Fulfilled by Merchant.”

Title is a required catalog attribute that describes what the ASIN or product is.

Placement Type: Results in first row, first page of search results.

TACOS is a metric that measures the overall ad spend as a percentage of total sales, helping Amazon sellers evaluate the effectiveness and impact of their advertising efforts on overall revenue.

Combined PPC and Organic Revenue, divided by Ad Spend.

A universal product code (UPC) is an identifying machine-readable barcode that most U.S.-based retailers use to designate and organize products, assigned by GS1

Value-added tax (VAT) is a tax that territories of the European Union assess and collect with each sale of goods or services.

Vendor Central is Amazon’s invitation-only interface for manufacturers and distributors, also known as first-party sellers, who sell products to Amazon so that Amazon can resell them to consumers.

Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program that solicits and highlights insightful reviews from top customer reviewers, also known as “Vine Voices,” who order items for free and share product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions.

A virtual assistant (VA) is a part- or full-time helper hired to perform tasks for an online business, which frees up owners to concentrate on higher-level functions.

Warehousing is the process of temporarily storing physical bulk inventory for sale to individual consumers or distribution to other locations.

A white hat is a person who operates within the rules and expectations of a marketplace to drive sales, without relying on tricks or unethical practices to undermine others.