eCommerce, web
and marketing terms,
explained.

A permanent redirect from an old URL to a new one, telling browsers and search engines the page has moved. Essential when a site is rebuilt or migrated.

A cart or checkout a shopper started and left before paying. Stores win some of these back with reminder emails, WhatsApp messages or ads aimed at people who got that far.

The image, video and text of an ad. On Meta it is usually the biggest single factor in how an ad performs.

A defined way for two pieces of software to talk to each other, for example a store sending orders to a courier or an accounting tool.

How credit for a sale is shared between the ads, emails and visits that came before it. Different tools use different rules, so their numbers rarely match.

Total revenue divided by the number of orders over the same period. Bundles, free shipping thresholds and upsells are the usual ways to raise it.

An online store for trade buyers, usually with logins, price lists per customer, minimum order quantities and invoices on credit terms.

A link to your site from another site. Links from relevant, trusted sites are one of the signals search engines use.

A saved copy of a site's files and database that can be restored if something breaks or is lost. It only counts if a restore has been tested.

The ROAS at which the profit from ad-driven sales exactly covers the ad spend. Below it, the ads lose money even if they bring in sales.

A tag that tells search engines which address is the main version of a page when the same content is reachable at several URLs.

The buyer pays the courier in cash or by UPI when the parcel arrives instead of paying online. Common in India, and the main reason stores worry about returned parcels.

Ads built automatically from your product feed, showing each person the products most relevant to them. Meta calls these Advantage+ catalogue ads.

A network of servers in many places that keeps copies of a site's files, so visitors download them from somewhere close by. Cloudflare is a well-known one.

Continuous integration and delivery: automated checks and deployments that move code from a developer to the live server in small, tested steps.

Software that lets your team edit pages, posts and images without touching code. WordPress is the best known.

A lightweight PHP framework for custom web applications, known for being small and fast to run.

The notice that asks visitors whether they accept cookies and tracking, and records their choice so tags respect it.

The share of visits that end in the action you want, usually an order. It is the number most store improvements are judged by.

Changing a site step by step, based on data and testing, so more of the visitors you already have go on to buy or enquire.

Meta's way of sending purchase and lead events from your server rather than the browser, so fewer events are lost to ad blockers and browser limits.

Google's measures of real-world page experience: how fast the main content loads, how quickly the page responds to a tap, and how much the layout jumps around.

What it costs in ad spend to get one purchase, lead or sign-up.

Cost per thousand impressions: what an ad platform charges for showing an ad a thousand times.

Suggesting a related product alongside the one in the cart, such as a case with a phone.

An app built for a single store rather than published on the App Store, used for integrations or features specific to that business.

A brand that sells to buyers through its own website and channels rather than only through retailers or marketplaces.

The system that points a domain name at the server that hosts the site and at the services that handle its email.

The address people type to reach your site, such as yourbrand.com. Register it in your own business name so you always control it.

A single tracked action, such as add to cart, begin checkout or purchase, sent to an analytics or ads tool.

The steps from first visit to purchase, such as product view, add to cart, checkout and payment, measured to see where people drop out.

Google's advertising platform for search, Shopping, Display and YouTube campaigns.

Google's current analytics tool, which records visits and actions on a site as events and reports where buyers came from.

The free business listing that appears in Google Maps and local search results, with address, hours, photos and reviews.

Google's free tool that shows which searches a site appears for, which pages are indexed and what problems Google found.

A tool for adding and managing tracking tags, such as analytics and ad pixels, from one dashboard instead of editing site code each time.

A tax invoice that carries the seller's GST number and the tax charged, which registered business buyers in India need to claim input credit.

A setup where the shop front is a separate custom site and the eCommerce platform only runs products, cart and orders in the background through an API.

A picture of where visitors click, tap and scroll on a page. Microsoft Clarity offers heatmaps and session recordings for free.

The server space where a website's files and database live and from which pages are sent to visitors.

A word or phrase people type into a search engine. Pages are planned around the ones that match what you sell.

A popular PHP framework for building custom web applications such as portals, dashboards and booking systems.

Shopify's template language. Theme developers use it to pull products, collections and settings into the page HTML.

SEO aimed at searches with a place in them or done nearby, centred on the Google Business Profile and local reviews.

An audience the ad platform builds of people similar to a list you give it, such as your existing customers.

Paid advertising across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, run from Meta Ads Manager.

The short summary under the headline in search results. It does not set rankings directly but affects whether people click.

A snippet of code from Meta that reports what visitors do on your site, such as viewing a product or buying, back to Meta Ads.

The page title shown as the blue headline in search results and in the browser tab.

Extra custom fields on products, collections, customers or orders, used to store and show information Shopify does not have a standard field for.

A courier's notice that a delivery attempt failed, for example because the buyer was not home. Acting on it quickly is one of the ways stores reduce RTO.

A checkout that remembers a returning buyer by phone number and fills in the address and payment details, so the order takes a couple of taps instead of a full form.

Monitoring and responding to reviews and mentions of a business online, and encouraging happy customers to leave reviews.

Shopify's theme architecture that lets you add, remove and reorder sections on most pages from the theme editor, not just on the home page.

A drag-and-drop editor, such as Elementor, for building page layouts in WordPress without writing code.

The service that takes the payment on your site and sends the money to your bank account, for example Razorpay, PhonePe or Cashfree in India.

A Google Ads campaign type that uses one budget across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube and more, with Google choosing where the ads appear.

An add-on that extends a WordPress site with a feature such as forms, SEO settings or a store. Each one needs updating and adds code to the site.

Advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, as with most search ads.

An order paid online at checkout, by card, UPI, net banking or wallet, before it ships. Many Indian stores offer a small discount to move buyers from COD to prepaid.

One version of a product that differs by an option such as size, colour or material, with its own price, stock and SKU.

A layout that adapts to the screen it is viewed on, so the same site works on a phone, a tablet and a desktop.

Showing ads to people who have already visited your site or engaged with your brand, such as those who viewed a product but did not buy.

A shipped parcel that comes back to the seller undelivered, usually because a COD buyer refused it or could not be reached. The seller normally pays shipping both ways.

A fee model where the agency earns an agreed share of the revenue its ads bring in, usually above a baseline written down at the start, instead of only a flat fee.

Revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. A ROAS of 3 means three rupees of sales for every rupee spent.

Structured data added to a page so search engines understand what it describes, such as a product, a review or an FAQ.

What the person searching actually wants: to learn, to compare, or to buy. A page ranks best when it matches that intent.

The work of making a site easier for search engines to understand and more useful to searchers, so it appears for relevant searches without paying per click.

A service that connects one store to many courier companies, compares rates, books pickups and tracks parcels from one dashboard. Shiprocket is one example.

An add-on installed from the Shopify App Store, or built privately for one store, that adds features the platform does not have on its own.

The Shopify settings for selling to more than one country, with local currencies, languages, domains and pricing for each market.

An agency or developer registered in the Shopify Partner Program. Shopify places partners in tiers, such as Select, based on their work with merchants.

Shopify's plan for larger businesses, with extra features such as more checkout customisation, automation tools and options for running several stores.

The design layer of a Shopify store: templates, sections and styles that decide how pages look. It can be a ready-made theme or one built for the brand.

Stock keeping unit: the code that identifies one exact product variant, such as a shirt in one size and colour, for stock and order records.

The certificate that lets a site load over HTTPS, encrypting what visitors send and showing the padlock in the browser.

A private copy of a site where changes are built and tested before they go to the live site.

Moving a store from another platform, such as WooCommerce, to Shopify with its products, customers, orders and old URLs redirected.

User interface is how a screen looks; user experience is how easy and pleasant it is to get something done on it.

Offering a buyer a better or bigger version of what they are already buying, before or just after checkout.

A service that checks a site every minute or so and raises an alert when it stops responding.

Tags added to the end of a link, such as utm_source=instagram, that tell analytics where a visit came from.

A slice of a physical server with its own guaranteed resources and full control, between cheap shared hosting and a dedicated machine.

A site that does work for its users rather than only showing information: logins, records, workflows, payments, reports.

A message one system sends to another the moment something happens, such as a payment provider telling your site that an order has been paid.

The regular care a live site needs: software updates, backups, security checks, small content changes and fixes when something breaks.

A free plugin that turns a WordPress site into an online store.

An open-source CMS used for everything from blogs to large business sites, extended with themes and plugins.

A file that lists a site's pages for search engines, helping them find new and updated content.