Discover the concepts related to ecommerce, organized by subject or alphabetical order. These concepts are a great starting point to broaden or deepen your knowledge in the commerce area.

subjects

BOPIS, which stands for "Buy Online Pickup In Store," is a sales strategy that allows customers to order products online and pick them up in person at a physical store. Convenience, quicker delivery dates, and a smoother, more secure checkout process are all benefits of this kind of shopping. It is a strategy that integrates both online and in-store shopping experiences. It usually refers to purchases that customers can pick up the same day they made the purchase.

BOSS (Buy Online Ship to Store)

BOSS stands for 'Buy Online Ship to Store'. Many businesses provide this service, which allows customers to order things online and have them shipped to a retail store for pickup. This is an excellent alternative for customers who want the ease of online shopping but the security of being able to pick up their items in person. Important to say that even if the product that the customer wants isn’t in stock at that specific moment the person can make an order and secure the product.

CAC

Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, is a metric commonly used to analyze the total cost of acquiring a new customer, considering the resources and costs associated with all elements of the acquisition process.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CRM stands for "Customer Relationship Management" and represents the set of tools and relationship strategy implemented by a company. This term is commonly used to describe or define the platform that a company uses to manage this relationship. There are plenty of platforms available and their most common features are organizing customers (B2C or B2B) databases with customisable information about them and delivering bespoke messaging (through email, SMS and social media, for instance).

CRO

CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization. It refers to the process of improving the conversion rate through the analysis of the website’s performance and the customer’s behavior, among many other techniques. For example, if the conversion isn’t working as expected, CRO helps to understand the reasons for why that is happening and develop action plans to accomplish better results. Some CRO best practices are: Collect information and make tests to measure what changes are needed and how to carry them out. To have the necessary data, you can use analysis tools and even conduct surveys with your customers; Improve your web page, use CTA (call-to-action) elements, create good landing pages and make sure that the website is mobile-friendly; Make sure to always track your results.

CTA (Call To Action)

A Call to Action (CTA) is an element that aims to make the audience take an expected action. The main objective is to influence the audience on what to do and what next steps to take, help visitors and users make decisions and make sense of your content or publication. It can take many forms, such as a button, landing page, image, or link. It's important to enhance emotion, connect with your audience, and clarify the reason for action. One of the best ways to implement a CTA is to make it implicit rather than direct.

CTR (Click Through Rate)

CTR, which stands for "Click Through Rate," is a metric used to determine how effective an internet advertisement is. This statistic aids marketers in evaluating the efficacy of their advertising strategies. It can be used to measure the success of a campaign and provide insights on what adjustments need to be made in order to increase the effectiveness of a campaign. Through CTR, it becomes easier to identify which campaigns are performing better and attracting the user's attention. In this way, it is possible to have a perception of which strategies work and which ones need improvement.

Churn and Bounce Rate

The Churn rate indicates how much revenue or customers your business has lost, considering the percentage of people who decided not to be a customer or a subscriber during a specific period or even employees who decide to leave their jobs. On the other hand, the bounce rate represents the number of people who access a website and then leave it without interacting with its content. It’s necessary to monitor these metrics. To make this possible, it's important to use a good CRM to track the customer journey from beginning to end.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of the total number of people who took an expected action. For example, on websites, the conversion rate indicates the percentage of users that have taken actions (conversions) across your website. Some examples of conversions are: number of purchases, clicks on a call-to-action button, downloads, engagement with advertisements, and many others.

Copywriting

Copywriting is an advertising and marketing strategy used to create persuasive content and get people to take a specific action, increasing conversions and sales. Content can be written across multiple channels such as emails, websites, and advertisements. The elements of a good copy: Urgency Connection Specificity Social approval Scarcity

Curbside Pickup

Curbside Pickup is a way of selling that is similar to a delivery service, allowing customers to make purchases online and pick up their packages from a designated location. It differs from in-store pickup because the customer does not have to leave their vehicles to get their order, as someone from the staff is responsible for delivering it.

Data Driven

The Data Driven methodology refers to the processes and operations that are oriented by the use of reliable data and analysis of important information, in which the decision making is based on strategic planning and data interpretation. It allows companies to improve their productivity and results and to keep updated on the market trends, offering a clearer picture of the customers, products, competitors and everything that is related to them.

Drop Shipping

Dropshipping is a method of fulfillment in retail, in which the company does not keep a stock of the products it sells. When a customer buys a product, the order is passed directly to a third party who delivers it.

EAN

EAN stands for European Article Numbering and is a code made of a combination of numbers and letters in a specific order. The EAN Code is a type of barcode that encodes a product number, and it's used to ensure traceability and to automate production management. It helps to identify the products that are available in the inventory and reduce the risk of making mistakes while processing the products.

EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization)

EBITDA stands for earning before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which means it represents the value that is left after adding interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization from a given company NET Income. EBITDA is commonly used by companies, investors and individuals to evaluate businesses as it represents the performance of an operation isolated from their costs of capital used to support the business. As any kind of business KPI, this should not be evaluated alone, but together with other factors - such as Net Income, LTV, CAC, WACC and other factors depending on the business strategy and maturity.

Ecommerce

Also known as electronic commerce, it is the process of buying and selling products and services online. Conducted by individuals and companies, Ecommerce can be classified into four main types: Business to business (B2B): when the online transactions don’t involve the final consumer, but companies that are doing business; Business to consumer (B2C): when the company sells products or services directly to the final consumer; Consumer to consumer (C2C): when no company is involved in the transaction, only consumers who decide to sell to each other – this usually takes place on third-party websites such as eBay and OLX; Consumer to manufacturing (C2M): when the consumer influences and determines the production, allowing the manufacturer to react to the demand; Direct to consumer (D2C): when the producer or manufacturer sells their products directly to consumers.

Endless aisle

Endless Aisle is a solution that allows customers to shop in-store for products that are out of stock or not available at that specific store. They can buy what they need from totem platform or digital devices such as tablets or smartphones provided by the store. These products can be picked up at the store later or delivered directly to customers' homes. For this reason, Endless Aisle is also known as “buy in store, ship to customer” feature.

GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)

GMV stands for "Gross merchandise value" and represents the financial volume of sales of a given product by a company.

Gross Revenue

Gross Revenue is the sum of all the amount received in sales, without considering any expenses. For example, if a toy manufacturer sells a toy for $100, the gross revenue is $100 (even though the cost to produce the toy was $60).

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is the coding language used to build the structure of a web page and its content. Through HTML it is possible to write and design a webpage with headings, texts, photos, videos, etc.

LTV

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is a metric that represents the revenue you get from a client during the time that they remain a customer to your business. To evaluate LTV, it is crucial to analyze other important indicators, like Churn Rate and frequency of purchases.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Minimum Viable Product or MVP is a development technique that seeks to test whether a product works in the market environment. The MVP is a version of the product with just the basic features, as the goal is to test quickly to collect feedback as soon as possible and validate if the idea has adherence or not.

Metaverse

Metaverse's goal is to change the way people interact with technology. It is not related to a single type of technology, but to an entire virtual and shared environment in which people can socialize, work, play and even shop together. Although not a new concept, having its origins in the year 1838 with "binocular vision", the Metaverse is increasingly popular these days. As an example of the growing attention, Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. Regarding to this, it's important to mention the evolution of decentralized Web as we can see below. Metaverse is part of the next wave of computing in Web 3.0.

NET Income

NET Income, which is also commonly referred to as a business bottom line, is the figure that represents how much is left in a given company's pocket after all sales have been made and expenses, taxes and interests are paid. It could be referred to also as total earnings - considering that the number is positive, of course. If the figure is negative, it can be referred to as total losses, which represents that this business is not completely healthy, as the final results from total sales is not profitable.

NET Profit Margin

NET Profit Margin is the ratio that represents how much is left in a given company's pocket after all sales have been made and expenses, taxes and interests are paid. Thus, it is a percentage calculation of the Net Income over the total revenue generated from a business. This number represents the profitability ratio of a given company - for each dolar made in revenue, what would be the percentage that stays in the companies after deducting COGS, Expenses, Taxes and Interests. Last but not least, this statement result could be positive or negative, representing how healthy is the operation of a business. However, as any kind of business KPI, this should not be evaluated alone, but together with other factors - such as EBITDA, LTV, CAC, WACC and other factors depending on the business strategy and maturity.

Net Revenue

Net revenue is gross revenue, minus any cancellations, returns, discounts and taxes.

North Star Metric

A North Star Metric (NSM) is a key metric chosen by a company with the aim of leveraging results and focusing on what really matters. Using a North Star Metric is a way to measure the company's progress with a focus on sustainable business growth. It can be classified as an Output metric as it is the result of different smaller activities that can be measured by other metrics – Input metrics – and which together aim to achieve a specific result and make an impact. Some examples of North Star Metrics from famous companies are the time people spend on the platform watching movies and TV shows (Netflix) and the number of active users per month (Facebook).

Omnichannel

Omnichannel is an approach that aims to provide a great shopping experience to customers through the integration of multiple channels and at all stages of the purchase journey. The focus is on creating a seamless journey for customers, allowing them to switch between channels effortlessly while maintaining continuity. Thanks to Omnichannel, customers can shop on Ecommerce websites, online marketplaces, social networks, by telephone and in brick-and-mortar stores. Among the advantages of Omnichannel, we can highlight the: Easiness of reaching your customers wherever they are; Increase of customer retention and customer satisfaction; Opportunity of bringing offline and online channels together; Improvement of your business efficiency; Increase of revenue; Growth of upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

P&L (Profit and Loss)

P&L stands for Profit and Loss and refers to a financial tool used to analyze the performance of a company and its profitability. A P&L Statement is a report that shows how much profit or loss was generated by a company and it summarizes its revenues, costs and expenses in a specific period of time.

PPC

PPC – or pay-per-click – is an advertising model in which the advertisers pay a fee to the host of the chosen advertisement platform every time someone clicks on one of their ads.

Persona

Basically, a persona is a fictional character created based on real data about a company's customers. It works as a strategy to better understand how to deal with the public, what decisions to make and how to interact with them, considering their characteristics, behavior and needs.

Prototype

A Prototype is a simulation of the final product, focused on how the product will look like and how users will interact with it. Although you don’t release a prototype to the market, you can receive feedback when testing it with users. A prototype is a cheap and fast way to collect feedback and evaluate the user's experience, before developing the final product.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is a scannable barcode composed by an alphanumeric combination – usually eight digits long – that allows retailers to track their inventory levels and determine the difference between their products. Different products have their own SKUs and the combination is usually based on product characteristics such as price, size, color and many others.

Sales Funnel

A Sales Funnel is the journey that a customer goes through from discovering the company or product to the moment of purchase. Understanding this marketing concept has many benefits, such as knowing which channels, strategies, and other activities are best for achieving better results and optimizing each stage of the funnel. This helps the company send the right message at the right time.

Stockout

Stockouts, also known as out-of-stocks, occur when a specific item or product runs out of inventory, making the purchase not possible. In other words, it happens when demand is higher than the inventory available.

UI (User Interface)

The concept of User Interface (UI) is related to the elements that are presented to the user to improve their interaction with software and applications, websites and even physical products. It consists of all that enables and facilitates navigation on the company's platform and the presentation of its product or service, such as adequate page layouts, images, sounds, buttons, icons and texts. Its main objective is to create a good interface to improve the user experience, making it more accessible, satisfactory and usable.

UX (User Experience)

The concept of User Experience (UX) is related to the experience of those who interact with a company and its products, systems or services, whether in the online environment or in the physical one. Understanding in depth User Experience will make contact of people with your product or service as pleasant, relevant, intuitive and effective as possible.

Upselling

Upselling is a sales technique that aims to increase the average order value by recommending upgrades, more expensive products or premium ones, compared to what the customer was intending to originally purchase. Well-suited upselling strategies would ultimately increase the amount of revenue that a seller or store would receive from the customer, exposing them to more strategic products to the business.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is a developing version of the internet in which data will be interconnected in a non-centralized way and websites and applications are going to process information in a smarter and modern way. This third version of the internet is possible thanks to technologies like machine learning (ML) and Big Data.