Ecommerce glossary

The terms that come up when you're buying ecommerce tools, in plain English — stripped of the vendor spin so you can read a feature list and know what's actually being promised.

By Marcus TaylorUPDATED JUN 16, 2026

Abandoned-cart flow

An automated email or SMS sequence that fires when a shopper adds something to their cart and leaves without buying. It's the highest-return automation in ecommerce because it reaches people at the moment of clearest intent — they were one click from ordering.

Browse abandonment

A step earlier than an abandoned cart: a shopper viewed a product but never added it to the cart. A browse-abandonment flow sends a gentle nudge to recover would-be buyers, though intent is lower than for a cart.

ESP (Email Service Provider)

The platform you use to send marketing email. For ecommerce, what matters is whether it's store-aware — plugged into your orders, carts and catalogue so it can trigger behavioural flows — or just a generic list-and-send tool.

Omnichannel

Coordinating marketing across more than one channel — typically email and SMS — so they work together rather than double-messaging the same customer. The store-aware platforms run both from one place off the same customer data.

Flow / automation

A pre-built sequence of messages that fires automatically off a customer action — subscribing, abandoning a cart, placing an order. Flows out-earn one-off broadcast campaigns because they reach each person exactly when they're most likely to act.

Segmentation

Splitting your contact list by behaviour or history — repeat buyers vs one-timers, big spenders vs browsers — so you can send each group a relevant message. Store-aware platforms segment on purchase data; generic tools can't.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

A unique code for each distinct product variant you sell — a specific size, colour or pack. Stock, sales and reordering are all tracked at the SKU level, so SKU count is a rough proxy for how complex your inventory is.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

A system that ties together the operational side of a business — inventory, purchasing, orders, accounting — into one source of truth. Stores graduate to an ERP when stock, channels and finances get too tangled for separate tools.

Inventory sync

Keeping stock counts accurate and consistent across every place you sell — your own store plus marketplaces like Amazon — in real time. Without it you oversell items you no longer have, which is the problem inventory tools exist to solve.

Fulfilment

Everything that happens between an order being placed and it arriving — picking, packing, labelling and shipping. It can be done in-house or handed to a third party. Shipping tools streamline it; a 3PL takes it over entirely.

3PL (Third-Party Logistics)

A provider that stores your stock and handles picking, packing and shipping on your behalf, so you never touch a box. Stores move to a 3PL when order volume makes in-house fulfilment the bottleneck.

Carrier rate shopping

Comparing live shipping prices across carriers for each order and picking the cheapest or fastest option automatically. Shipping software does this at the point of buying a label, which can shave a meaningful amount off fulfilment costs.

Contact-based pricing

How most ecommerce email tools charge — by the number of contacts on your list, regardless of how many you actually email. It means the bill scales with list size, so it's worth modelling the cost at the list size you'll have in a year.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)

The work of getting a higher share of your existing traffic to buy — through better product pages, checkout, popups and on-site testing — rather than buying more traffic. Often the cheapest growth lever a store has.

AOV (Average Order Value)

The average amount a customer spends per order. Raising it — through bundles, upsells or free-shipping thresholds — grows revenue without needing more customers, which is why it's a core ecommerce metric.

LTV (Lifetime Value)

The total profit a customer generates across their whole relationship with your store, not just their first order. Email and SMS marketing exist largely to raise LTV by turning one-time buyers into repeat ones.