Here's Your Updated List of Digital Commerce Abbreviations and Acronyms

For the past month or so, I've been working on updating my list of ecommerce acronyms and abbreviations which first appeared in my book and which, as many of you know, I update every year. Here's my 2020 directory with about 30 new entries from 2019. I believe this is now the largest such list online. Because of the sheer number of listings I am still working on adding definitions. If you think of something that isn't listed and should be included, please add it in the comments section and I'll add it to the list.

1PL- First Party Logistics

3 PL- Third Party Logistics. Use of third-party businesses to outsource elements of your distribution, warehousing and fulfillment services.

A/B Testing (Also called Split Testing). A method of conducting controlled, randomized experiments with the goal of improving a website metric.

ABC- Always Be Closing

AIDA- (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)

Alt Text- Alt text is a text description that can be added to an image’s HTML tag on a web page.

API- Application Programming Interface. A set of tools, functions and procedures which allow software applications to communicate with one another

ARPA- Average Revenue Per Account

AOV- Average Order Value. The average total of every order placed on your ecommerce store over a defined period of time.

AR- Augmented Reality. Technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world.

AS- Article Submission

ASO- App Store Optimization

ATO- Assembled to Order

B2C/B2B/B2G/B2E- Business to Consumer, Business to Business, Business to Government, Business to Education.

BANT- Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline

BH- Black Hat

BPA- Business Process Optimization

BPM- Business Process Management

BR-Bounce rate. The percentage of visitors to your store who navigate away from your website after viewing only one page.

CAC- Customer Acquisition Cost. The cost of acquiring one person who purchases from your website

CAPTCHA- Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart

CDN- Content Delivery Network

CF- Citation Flow

CLV- Customer Lifetime Value. A prediction of the net profit attributed to your company’s entire future relationship with a customer.

CMS- Content Management System. Used to manage content on ecommerce stores.

COB- Close of Business

COS- Content Optimization System

CPC- Cost per click (also, Pay per Click). The price paid when a user clicks on your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign.

CPA- Cost per Action. An online advertising model in which you pay for a specific action such as a sale, a click or a form submission.

CPG- Consumer Packaged Goods

CPL- Cost per Lead. The amount you pay for leads that are delivered to you through your ad campaign.

CPM- Cost per Thousand Impressions. The amount of you pay another website for delivering one thousand views of your advertisement.

CR- Converstion Rate. The number of visitors to your website that make a purchase compared to your total number of website visitors.

CRM- Customer Relationship Management. The management of all of your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.

CRO- Conversion Rate Optimization. The systematic process of increasing the percentage of your website visitors who make purchases on your store.

CSE- Comparison Shopping Engine

CSR- Customer Service Representative

CSS- Cascading Style Sheets

CTA- Call to Action. A prompt on your website that invites visitors to take a specified action.

CTR- Click-through Rate. The ratio of users who click on a specific link out of the total number of users who have viewed that page

CVC- Card Verification Code

CX- Customer Experience. The perception your website’s visitors have of your business after engaging with it online.

DDU- Delivered Duty Unpaid, An international trade term indicating that the seller is responsible for making a safe delivery of goods to a named destination.

DFO- Data Feed Optimization

DKI- Dynamic Keyword Insertion

DLR- Deep Link Ratio

DMA- Designated Market Area

DMoz- Directory Mozilla

DNS- Domain Name System

DR- Domain Ranking

DSP- Demand Side Platform

DS- Directory Submission

EAI- Enterprise Application Integration

eCP(x)- Effective Cost 

EDI- Electronic Data Interchange

EPC- Earnings per click

ERP- Enterprise Resource Planning. A process used by companies to integrate the main functional areas of their businesses processes into a unified system

 ESP- Email Service Provider

FAB- Features, Advantages, Benefits

FBML- Facebook Markup Language

FTP- File Transfer Protocol

GA- Google Analytics

GAS- Guaranteed Article Submission

GWT- Google Webmaster Tools

 H1- Level 1 Heading Markup

 H2- Level 2 Heading Markup

HIPPO- Highest Paid Person's Opinion

Href- Hypertext Reference

HTML- Hypertext Markup Language. Standardised coding language for creating a webpage

IAB- Interactive Advertising Bureau

IBL- Inbound Links

ICP- Ideal Customer’s profile

ILV- Inbound Lead Velocity

IM- Instant Messaging

IM- Internet Marketing

ISP- Internet Service Provider

KPI- Key Performance Indicator. Evaluates or measures the success of an organization or of a particular activity.

LB- Link Building

LPO- Landing Page Optimization

LSA- Latent Symantic Analysis

LSEO- Local SEO

LTKW- Long Tail Keywords

MAP- Marketing Automation Platform

MMS- Multimedia Messaging Service

MOM/QOQ/YOY- Month over month, quarter over quarter, year over years. Ways to measure relative business growth.

MQL- Marketing Qualified Leads

MRR- Monthly Recurring Revenue

MTO- Meta Tags Optimization

MVT- Multivariate Testing

NAP- Name/Address/Phone Number

NM- Niche Marketing

O2O- Online to Online

OBL- Outbound Link

OCM- Omnichannel Marketing

OOS- Out of Stock

OPM- Outsourced Program Management

ORM- Online Reputation Management

OS- Open Source

OS- Operating System

OWBL- One-way Backlink

PBN- Private Blog Network

PCI Compliance. Refers to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard which was created to increase controls around cardholder data and reduce credit card fraud.

PDF- Portable Document Format

PHP- Hypertext Preprocessor

PIM- Product Information Management

PLA- Product Listing Ads

POD- Proof of Delivery

POS- Point of Sale- The place where a transaction actually occurs between seller and buyer

PPC- Pay per Click

PV- Page View

QR Code- Quick Response Barcode. A feature or characteristic of your products or company that distinguish it from others of a similar nature and make it more appealing to consumers.

QS- Quality Score (Google)

RDF- Resource Description Framework

RFQ- Request for Quotation

ROAS- Return on Ad Spend. Measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign

ROI- Return on Investment. The ratio between your net profit and the cost of your investment.

RON- Run of Network

ROS- Return on Sales. A ratio used to evaluate your company’s operational efficiency.

ROS- Run of Site

RPU- Revenue per User. A ratio used to express the amount of revenue your ecommerce business generates on a per-user basis.

RSS- An RSS feed is a type of online feed that allows your customers to receive regular updates from your website or blog

RT- (Retweet)

RTB- Real Time Bidding

RTD- Real-Time Data

SaaS- Software as a Service. Software as a service (SaaS) is a software and licensing delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted

SEM- Search Engine Marketing. Search engine results pages (SERPs) are the pages displayed by search engines such as Google in response to a query by a searcher.

SEO- Search engine optimisation is the practice of increasing your website’s presence in search results organically

SER- Search Engine Ranking

SERPs- Search Engine Results Pages. The pages displayed by search engines such as Google in response to a query by a searcher.

SKU- Stock Keeping Unit

SLA- Service Level Agreement

SMM- Social Media Marketing. Using social networking websites as a marketing tool for your campaigns.

SMO- Social Media Optimization

SMS- Short Message Service

SNS- Social Networking Service

SOW- Statement of Work

SOV- Share of Voice

SSL- Secure Sockets Layer

TCO- Total Cost of Ownership

TLD- Top Level Domain

UCE- Unsolicited Commercial Email

UGC- User Generated Content

UI- User Interface

URL- Uniform Resource Locater

USP- Unique Selling Proposition. A feature or characteristic of your products or company that distinguish it from others of a similar nature and make it more appealing to consumers.

UV- Unique Visitor

UX- User Experience

VAR- Value Added Reseller

VAT- Valued Added Tax

VM- Viral Marketing

VTC- View Though Click

VTR- View-Through Rates

W3C- World Wide Web Consortium

WAI- Web Accessibility Initiative

WAO- Web Analytics Optimization

WML- Wireless Markup Language

WMS- Warehouse Management System

WYSIWYG- What You See Is What You Get

XML- Extensive Markeup Language

BAES- Bernhart Associates Ececutive Search, LLC