Glossary
A
A/B testing is a comparison between two versions of a webpage.
Abandonment is when customers don't finish the order process and leave without buying anything.
Adobe Commerce Live Search is a native, AI-powered on-site search built on Adobe Sensei—delivering fast, relevance-ranked results and search-as-you-type without a third-party tool.
Affiliate marketing is when you receive monetary rewards for promoting someone's products.
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is an open protocol for securing AI-agent payments, using signed mandates to prove what a user authorized to buy and pay.
Agent-ready ecommerce means a store AI agents can reliably act on—via machine-readable data, APIs, accurate pricing and inventory, and clear permissions.
Agentic Commerce lets AI agents discover products, check live data, and execute actions like ordering, quoting, and checkout on behalf of buyers or merchants.
Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), from OpenAI and Stripe, is an open standard for agent-led discovery and checkout while merchants keep fulfillment.
Agentic payments are payment flows initiated by AI agents under delegated authority, requiring strong identity, authorization, limits, and auditability.
An AI agent is a software system that interprets a goal, plans steps, uses tools, and acts with limited human oversight—in ecommerce, across discovery to checkout.
AI agents for ecommerce handle discovery, support, merchandising, quoting, and orders by combining language models with commerce data and APIs.
An AI brand mention is when an AI answer names a brand without necessarily linking or citing it—useful for entity awareness, not proof of a source.
AI catalog enrichment uses AI to generate, normalize, classify, and complete product attributes, descriptions, and taxonomy across large catalogs.
An AI citation is a source reference in an AI-generated answer supporting a claim—stronger than a mention, it means the AI selected your content as evidence.
An AI commerce assistant helps customers or staff with product questions, recommendations, orders, and service—assisting rather than executing transactions.
An AI crawler is a bot used by an AI company to discover and process web content for search, retrieval, or model use—managed via robots and server rules.
AI personalization uses machine learning and customer data to tailor products, search, content, and offers to an individual or segment in real time.
AI product data enrichment uses AI to add or improve structured product info—attributes, specs, categories, and compatibility—across large catalogs.
AI product discovery uses machine learning and language models to help shoppers find products from natural-language intent and structured product data.
An AI product feed is structured product data prepared so AI shopping systems can reliably access identifiers, attributes, pricing, inventory, and images.
An AI search audit evaluates how visible and understandable a brand is across generative search—reviewing citations, mentions, entities, and technical access.
AI search optimization improves content, entities, structured data, and technical access so AI systems can understand, retrieve, and cite information.
AI search visibility is how often a brand, product, or site appears, is mentioned, or cited across AI assistants, answer engines, and generative search.
AI share of voice measures how often a brand appears in AI-generated answers versus competitors across a defined set of prompts, tracked over time.
An AI shopping agent helps shoppers find, compare, and select products — and may build carts or start checkout—using structured product and price data.
AI-powered merchandising uses machine learning to optimize product ranking, assortment, recommendations, and promotions using commerce data.
AI-referred traffic is site traffic arriving from links inside AI assistants, answer engines, and generative search—showing which AI platforms drive visits.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is structuring content to directly answer specific questions, so it's surfaced by featured snippets, voice assistants, and AI answers—not just ranked.
Answer-first search presents a synthesized response before or instead of a list of links, shifting optimization toward citations, mentions, and inclusion.
Assisted conversions are actions made prior to the conversion.
Average order value is a sum shoppers normally spend on the website
Average time on site is the time users spend on your site
B
B2B is an exchange of resources between two different businesses.
A B2B account hierarchy is the tree structure that organizes a business account into parent companies, divisions, and branches, with pricing and permissions inherited down the levels.
A B2B buyer portal is a secure, self-service area where business customers log in to order, see their contract pricing, track shipments, reorder, and manage their team online.
A B2B buying agent supports or automates supplier discovery, RFQs, approvals, and orders within contract pricing, budgets, and procurement rules.
B2B customer accounts are company-level accounts that group multiple users, roles, and permissions under one business entity, tied to shared pricing, catalogs, and approvals.
A B2B marketplace is an online platform where multiple business sellers transact with business buyers under one storefront, adding company accounts, contract pricing, and quotes.
B2C is when businesses sell their products or services only to consumers.
Backend for Frontend (BFF) is a pattern where each frontend gets its own dedicated backend layer, shaped around exactly what that client needs.
Billing address is the address attached to the bank card in order to verify the payment
Bottom-of-the-funnel is content intended for clients at the bottom stage of the sales funnel.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that left a landing page within 15 seconds.
A brand entity is the machine-understood representation of a brand, built from consistent names, attributes, relationships, structured data, and references.
Brick and mortar refers to businesses with physical stores
Brick-and-click is when a business has both physical and online shops.
Bundling is when goods, which are connected to each other, are sold at a lower price than if you buy them separately.
Buyer persona is a semi-fictional character that represents a company's ideal customer.
C
Call-to-action refers to actions required from customers to make.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers that caches a website's content close to users, so it loads from the nearest location instead of a distant origin server.
Chargeback is a refund for the disputed transaction.
Checkout extensibility is Shopify's framework for customizing checkout safely through supported apps and extensions, replacing brittle checkout.liquid edits with upgrade-safe building blocks.
Churn rate is the percentage of customers that stopped using a service during a given time period.
Citation-grade content makes factual claims easy to verify, extract, and reference, using clear definitions, evidence, sources, and dates—not vague copy.
Click-through rate, or CTR, is the ratio between interactions with an ad link to the total number of people that saw it.
Closed-loop marketing is the collection of data from multiple channels to create relevant content for customers.
A commerce MCP is an MCP server that exposes commerce data and actions—catalog search, pricing, inventory, carts, and orders—to AI agents.
Competitive analysis is an assessment of strong and weak sides that current and potential competitors have.
Composable Commerce is an ecommerce architecture approach where a business builds its digital commerce stack by assembling best-of-breed components—such as storefront, search, checkout, CMS, PIM, OMS, payments, and personalization—and connecting them through APIs.
CMS, or Content management system, is a software to create, edit, and publish content for your website.
Conversational commerce uses chat, messaging, voice, or AI assistants to help customers discover products, ask questions, and complete tasks.
Conversion is the number of required actions divided by the total number of visitors.
Conversion rate optimization refers to actions taken on the website to increase the conversion rate
Cookies are small text files with data on previous activities on the website.
Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for real-world page experience—loading speed (LCP), responsiveness (INP), and visual stability (CLS)—that directly influence search rankings.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) is software that configures complex products, applies the correct pricing rules, and generates accurate quotes—fast and without manual errors.
Cross-selling is an additional purchase, which is offered at the checkout.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the cost of sales and marketing for business to acquire a new client.
Customer lifetime value, or CLV, is how much money an ordinary customer will spend on your products during a lifetime.
Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving when you can buy electronics at a reduced price.
D
Delegated commerce lets a buyer authorize a system, like an AI agent, to perform defined purchasing actions within permissions, budgets, and approvals.
Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a system that centralizes a company's digital media—images, video, logos, documents—in one organized, searchable library and distributes it to every channel.
A discount code is a unique discount on a certain item.
Domain name is a part of network address that identifies a website.
Dropshipping is a delivery of goods from a supplier to the buyer without storing them before in the warehouse.
E
Ecommerce is the process of buying or selling products online.
Ecommerce platform is a software for business owners to manage their online sales operations.
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the computer-to-computer exchange of business documents like purchase orders and invoices in a standardized format, with no manual re-keying.
Email marketing is a promotion of company's products or services using email.
Engagement rate is the metric that shows the level of involvement in the company's content.
Enterprise ecommerce is online selling built for large, complex organizations—high volumes, multi-region catalogs, and deep ERP, PIM, and CRM integration that smaller stores never need.
Entity consistency means presenting the same core facts, names, and attributes about an entity across your site and trusted sources, reducing ambiguity.
Entity optimization makes a brand, product, or concept easier to identify consistently, using naming, structured data, internal links, and accurate facts.
Entity resolution determines when different names or records describe the same real-world entity, merging duplicate data about customers, products, or brands.
Entity SEO helps search engines understand real-world entities—brands, products, people, concepts—and their relationships, beyond keyword targeting.
ERP integration connects an ecommerce store to the ERP that runs the business, syncing products, pricing, inventory, orders, and customers so storefront and back office behave as one system.
Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a design pattern where a system's flow is driven by events — signals that something happened, like an order being placed — which components emit and react to independently rather than calling each other directly.
Event-triggered email is a scheduled email dedicated to a certain event.
Evergreen content is the type of content that will always remain relevant despite the change of trends.
F
Faceted navigation SEO is managing category-page filters so they help shoppers without generating thousands of thin, near-duplicate URLs that cause crawl and index bloat.
First-party data is information a business collects directly from its own customers—purchases, behavior, sign-ups—making it the most accurate, reliable, and privacy-safe data it owns.
G
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is optimizing content to get cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews—not just to rank in traditional search.
Google AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries in Google Search that synthesize sources, may cite links, and change how brands compete beyond rankings.
Google Analytics is a service to analyze the traffic of a website.
Google keywords are words and phrases typed into Google search engine's bar.
GraphQL is an API query language and runtime that lets a client (for example, a storefront, mobile app, or any frontend) request exactly the data it needs—no more and no less.
Gross Profit is a metric that measures a company's financial health.
Growth hacking is when you gain a lot of customers and don't invest a lot of resources into it.
H
Hashtag is a hash that comes before keywords on social media.
Headless Commerce is an ecommerce architecture where the front end (the “head”) is decoupled from the back end commerce platform.
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and region a page targets, so the right version reaches the right user and variants aren't treated as duplicates.
Hyvä is a modern, lightweight frontend theme for Adobe Commerce (Magento) that replaces the heavy legacy stack with Tailwind and Alpine.js—making stores dramatically faster.
I
Inbound marketing is a methodology to attract customers using content and SEO
Infographics are presentations of information in a graphic format for better understanding.
iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) is a cloud platform that connects systems like ecommerce, ERP, and CRM through pre-built connectors and workflows, instead of custom point-to-point code.
Intelligent product recommendation systems are tools that suggest products for customers to buy.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) is a Core Web Vital measuring how fast a page responds to clicks, taps, and key presses throughout a visit—lower means more responsive.
Inventory is finished goods available for the purchase.
K
Keyword stuffing is when pages are filled with unnecessary keywords in order to appear in different search results.
A knowledge graph is a structured network of entities and relationships that search and AI use to connect brands, products, people, and concepts.
KPI is a way to measure the performance of an organization or department.
L
Landing page is a web page that contains a special offer.
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is a Core Web Vital measuring loading speed—how long the largest visible element, usually a hero or product image, takes to render.
Lead is a person or business that may eventually become a client.
Lead Nurturing is the process of turning potential clients into customers.
Lifecycle stages are steps users need to take to become the company's client.
Listing fee is fee charged for placing your products on other platforms
LLM Optimization (LLMO) is shaping a brand's online presence so large language models like ChatGPT and Claude represent it accurately and recommend it when answering relevant questions.
llms.txt is a proposed root-level file that gives large language models a concise, curated index of important site content in a machine-friendly format.
Logistics is the process of planning and transportation of goods.
M
MACH Architecture is a modern ecommerce and digital experience approach based on four principles: Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless.
Machine readability is how reliably software can parse and use content—in ecommerce, improved by clear HTML, structured data, feeds, and consistent entities.
Machine-readable product data is structured product info software can parse without visual interpretation—identifiers, attributes, specs, and availability.
Magento PWA Studio is Adobe's official React-based toolkit for building Progressive Web App storefronts on Adobe Commerce—fast, app-like, and headless, powered by the Magento backend.
Margin is a company’s profit divided by its revenue.
Marketing automation is the usage of software to automate marketing activities
Marketplace is an area, where people can trade things.
Merchant account is an account for business purposes.
A merchant agent acts for a seller—handling recommendations, quotes, merchandising, and order coordination — within the merchant's business rules.
Microservices architecture is a way of building software where a large system is split into many small, independent services, each responsible for a single business capability.
Middle-of-the-funnel is content for clients at the middle stage of the sales funnel.
Mobile commerce is when you buy or sell goods using your smartphone or tablet.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI apps connect to external tools and data—in commerce, catalogs, ERP, PIM, and order systems.
Monthly recurring revenue, a.k.a MRR, is a revenue business expects to get each month.
Multi-Source Inventory (MSI) is a native Adobe Commerce (Magento) feature for managing stock across multiple locations—warehouses, stores, suppliers—with per-source tracking and smart order routing.
N
Native advertising is a paid ad that is presented in a form of the publisher's typical content.
Net promoter score, or NPS, is the level of customer loyalty to the company.
O
OCI (Open Catalog Interface) is SAP's standard for connecting a supplier's catalog to a buyer's SAP procurement system, letting buyers shop with live pricing and send the cart back as a requisition.
Off-page optimization is a website optimization to obtain a higher position in search results.
Omnichannel management is the management of multiple sales channels at the same time.
An OMS (Order Management System) tracks and coordinates orders from placement to delivery across every channel, unifying inventory and routing each order to the best fulfillment location.
On-page optimization refers to actions taken within a website to get higher positions in search results.
Open rate is the percentage of users that opened an email out of the total number.
Fulfillment is the whole process of goods delivery.
Organic traffic refers to visitors, who entered your website by clicking on search results.
Outsource is when companies hire employees from a third party on an hourly basis.
P
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is when advertisers pay publishers and platform holders for each user, who clicked on their paid links.
Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance refers to requirements to improve the security for payment cards data.
Payment gateway is a service that authorizes credit card or direct payments.
PIM (Product Information Management) is a system that centralizes all product data—descriptions, specs, images, attributes—as one source of truth and feeds it consistently to every sales channel.
Point-of-sale (POS) system is an area where customers can pay for goods or services.
PPC is a model of advertising when you pay each time users click your ad link.
Programmatic checkout lets a cart be created, updated, and completed through APIs rather than a UI—core to headless, embedded, and agent-led commerce.
A PunchOut catalog connects a supplier's online store directly into a buyer's procurement system, so buyers shop with live contract pricing and send the cart back as a requisition.
Q
Query fan-out expands one user query into multiple related subqueries so AI search can gather broader evidence across aspects before producing an answer.
R
Recurring payment is a scheduled form of payment.
Responsive design is when web pages adapt to the user’s behavior and environment such as screen size, platform, and type of the device.
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) retrieves relevant data before a language model answers, grounding assistants in product, policy, and order data.
ROI (Return on Investment) is the rate of return to the company's investments.
3
301 Redirect is a notification that the webpage has been moved to a new address.
S
Schema markup is the Schema.org vocabulary used to implement structured data—tags like Product, Offer, and AggregateRating that label page content for search engines and AI.
A self-service portal is a secure online area where customers place orders, track status, access invoices, and manage their account themselves—without contacting a rep or support.
Semantic search matches queries to meaning and intent rather than exact keywords, helping users find products through natural language and synonyms.
Semantic SEO builds topical meaning and entity relationships around a subject—using coverage, internal linking, and structure—not isolated keywords.
SEO is the process of optimizing a website for search engines.
Search engine results page, or SERP, is a search engine's response to the user's query
Server-side tracking collects analytics and marketing data through a business's own server instead of the user's browser—improving data accuracy, performance, and privacy control.
Service Level Agreement, or SLA, is a document of commitment between a service provider and a client.
Shipping is the process of transporting goods.
Shopify B2B is the native wholesale feature set in Shopify Plus—company accounts, customer-specific catalogs and pricing, and payment terms—for selling to businesses alongside DTC.
Shopify Functions let developers customize Shopify's back-end logic—discounts, shipping, payments, validation—with custom code that runs natively on Shopify's infrastructure at speed.
Shopify Hydrogen is Shopify's React-based framework for building custom headless storefronts, with components and tools pre-wired to the Storefront API and Shopify's backend.
The Shopify Storefront API is a GraphQL API that exposes a store's commerce data—products, cart, checkout—so developers can build fully custom, headless storefronts on Shopify's backend.
Smarketing is an alignment between sales and marketing teams to achieve better performance.
Social media are websites that allow people to communicate and share pieces of content.
Social proof is an idea that consumers will adapt their behavior according to actions of other people.
Stock keeping unit (also known as SKU) is a unique code that retailers provide for each item in their stores.
Structured data is a standardized format (usually Schema.org) that labels page content so search engines and AI understand exactly what it means—enabling rich results and AI citation.
T
Top-of-the-funnel relates to content for clients at the top stage of the sales funnel.
Transaction is an exchange of goods or services for payment.
U
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard for interoperability between commerce platforms, AI agents, and businesses across B2C and B2B.
Upselling is when you're offered an improved version of a product or service.
User Experience refers to impressions users get from your website.
User interface, or UI, is a part of application users interact with.
User roles and permissions control what each user inside a B2B company account can see and do—browse, order, approve, or administer—based on their assigned role.
V
Vector search retrieves items by comparing embeddings — representations of meaning — to power semantic product search, similarity, and AI discovery.
A vendor portal is a secure online area where suppliers or third-party sellers manage their own listings, pricing, stock, orders, and payments—where a buyer portal serves the customer, this serves the seller.
Viral content is content that people tend to share rapidly through social media.
W
Web analytics is the number of page views and site visitors.
Website Builder is a set of tools provided by certain companies to create websites based on their platforms.
Wholesale is when you buy goods in large quantities and resell them partially to different stores
A WMS (Warehouse Management System) runs operations inside a warehouse—receiving, tracking exact item locations, and directing picking, packing, and shipping for speed and accuracy.
X
XML Sitemap if a file containing data about indexing pages of the website.
Z
Zero-click search is when users get what they need on a search or AI results page without visiting a site—via snippets, panels, and AI answers.
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