Glossary

First Party describes Amazon’s direct relationship with manufacturer brands and distributors that receive purchase orders from

Third-Party describes sellers trading goods on Amazon’s marketplace without selling these items to Amazon first refers to Seller Central.

Third-Party Logistics

Third-Party Seller

A-to-Z guarantee customer protection

 Amazon Advertising

 Advertising Cost of Sale. Describes the ratio of your ad budget to your ad revenue. ACoS divided by total ad spend divided by total ad revenue.

Actuals

Average Cost per Unit. The average weighted cost price for which Amazon has ordered a product in a given time period.

Anything In The Buy Box

Amazon Marketing Services now known as Sponsored Ads.

Amazon

Amazon Logistics

Amazon Carton Content Code. External Container ID to label cartons to be sent to Amazon and generated via Vendor Central.

Accounts Payable

Application Programming Interface. Allows computers to communicate with each other often used between Amazon and its suppliers.

Product page with enhanced content features on Amazon e.g. feature comparison tables enhanced imagery etc.

Annual Percentage Rate

Amazon Standard Identification Number. A unique 10-character alphanumeric identifier for a product on Amazon for example B07ZB5C3ZM. It is linked to a unique SKU/EAN/ISBN code and is used as a reference to manage catalogue attributes prices and inventory of a product.

Advanced Shipment Notification. A document that notifies Amazon about the time and characteristics of a pending shipment.

 Average Selling Price. Calculated by net sales divided by volume sold.

Add to Cart

Amazon Warehouse

Amazon Web Services

Business to Business

Business to Consumer

Brand Analytics. Dashboard for brand owners registered with Amazon’s Brand Registry to understand the wider performance of their brand not account on the Amazon marketplace.

Business as Usual

 Buy Box. Refers to the Amazon product detail page area where customers can choose to add products to their shopping cart.

Best Deal. A type of price discount on Amazon that runs several days or weeks.

Buy One Get One. A promotion type for sellers.

Bill of Landing. Document issued by a carrier that serves three purposes 1 serves as a receipt for the goods delivered to the carrier for shipment 2 defines the contract of carriage of the goods from the point of origin to the point of destination according to the responsibilities of the service provider listed on the bill of lading 3 under certain conditions provides evidence of title for the goods.

Dashboard for brand owners registered with Amazon’s Brand Registry to understand the wider performance of their brand not account on the Amazon marketplace.

Programme for brands to verify their brand to access enhanced analytics and brand protection features.

Part of Amazon Advertising. Brands can create a free store showcasing their products with customisable images logos and content.

A numerical code to identify an Amazon product category.

Brand Specialist

Best Seller Rank

Multiple single items that can be identified with different EAN/ASIN codes sold together as a single offering.

Refers to the area on the Amazon product detail page where customers can choose to add products to their shopping cart.

Buy with Prime. A service that allows brands to sell through their online shop using Amazon’s order processing for end customers.

Compound Annual Growth Rate

Carrier Appointment Request Portal

A landing page for product groups within the Amazon store. Examples include Home & Furniture Grocery Beauty etc.

Describes a penalty that Amazon charges for non-compliance with standardised processes or late/inaccurate product deliveries.

Describes a product listed under a parent ASIN e.g. chocolate bar. The child ASINs are the variations under this parent ASIN e.g. dark/white/milk flavour.

Amazon’s instant messenger that lets employees and brands meet chat and place business calls inside and outside their organisation.

Amazon’s programme to visibly mark eco-friendly and sustainable products on its marketplace.

Centre of Excellence

Costs of Goods Sold. The value of goods sold during a selected time period.

The dollar amount Amazon has refunded to customers.

Cost per Click. Measures the dollar amount Amazon Advertising charges vendors and sellers when customers click on their ads.

Case Pack Quantity.

Customer Service

Click-through Rate. Calculated as the number of clicks divided by number of impressions.

Conversion Rate

Customer Experience

Delivery-To-FC. Calculated as Units received with booking or transit defects / total units received at an Amazon warehouse.

Direct Fulfilment

Direct Import

Deal of the Day. A type of promotion for vendors to discount a product for up to 24 hours during key deal events e.g. Prime Day Black Friday Cyber Monday etc.. Nowadays also known as “Top Deal”.

Detail Page. The product page for an ASIN on Amazon.

Detail Page Views. The number of impressions of a detail page in a selected time period.

Demand Side Platform. Amazon’s display advertising programme.

The International Article Number is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type in a specific packaging configuration from a specific manufacturer.

Enhanced Brand Content. The seller equivalent of Aplus Content that is available to Amazon vendors.

Estimated Delivery Date

Electronic Data Interchange. A method to send digital information between companies mainly used to receive and process purchasing orders.

European Fulfilment Network. Enables brands to sell across European marketplaces while only delivering to Amazon in their home country.

End of Day

Fulfilment by Amazon. Programme for 3P sellers who let Amazon handle and ship their products to end customers.

Fulfiled by Merchant. Refers to 3P sellers shipping products directly to the end customer.

Fulfilment Center. Describes Amazon’s warehouses.

Free Cash Flow

Frustration-Free Packaging. An Amazon programme aimed at eliminating excessive and difficult-to-open packaging.

Forward-Looking Order Workflow. Amazon purchase orders with a shipping window for a future week for best-selling products.

Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit. Identifies products fulfilled by Amazon.

Free on Board. Relates to the Direct Import model with Amazon under which vendors are responsible for all costs until the goods are on the vessel at the designated port.

Refers to products that are blocked for sale by 3P sellers on the Amazon marketplace.

Global Data Synchronization Network. A tool that allows catalogue updates with Amazon.

General Ledger. Describes the P&L of the main product category e.g. Home Consumer Electronics Beauty etc.

Equivalent to the number of impressions of a product detail page.

Gross Merchandise Sales

Gross Merchandising Value

Global Trade Item Number GTIN. A 14-digit code that uniquely identifies products items and services.

First half of the year

Second half of the year

Hazardous materials. Refers to highly flammable toxic or pressurised items that must therefore be handled with special care to protect the health of employees and customers.

Heavy Bulky

Hands Of The Wheel

Half Year to Date

Item Data Quality. Used to spot product listings with missing titles bullet points or other content features that need improvement.

Describes the number of views of a product page.

International Commercial Terms

Importer of Record

Intellectual Property

Inbound Preferred Carrier Programme

Items Per Inner Pack

Inner Packs Per Master Pack

Inbound Shipment Appointment

International Standard Book Number. A 13-digit number assigned to identify products in a catalogue. Similar to EAN/SKU.

Inbound Crossdock. An Amazon warehouse that accepts freight from vendors/sellers and ships product to various fulfillment centers. IXDs do not ship customer orders.

Joint Business Plan. Describes the commercial alignment between Amazon and 1P vendors to review their performance and create a plan for growing their business together over a set period of time.

 Key Performance Indicator. A measurable value that shows how effective you are at achieving business objectives.

Key Value Item

Lost Buy Box

Lost Business Opportunity

Lightning Deal. A type of discount on Amazon that is limited to 4-6 hours of running time.

Lost Featured Offer. Expected to replace the Lost Buy Box metric in Amazon analytics dashboards in the future.

Refers to the process of improving the content of a listing to improve its organic ranking in the Amazon search results.

License Plate Number. A unique identifier assigned to a particular inventory unit in Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

Licence Plate Receive. Receive process where items are received by scanning a barcode SSCC / AMZNCC on the outside of the package thus eliminating the need to scan each item.

Large Scale Product Launch. A vendor-specific programme where Amazon increases inventory coverage for new items with no return policy but in exchange for advertising investments.

Less than Truck Load

Minimum Advertised Price. Used by brands to ensure a product is not sold under a minimum set price only applicable in the US.

The locale or domain in which Amazon is active. Examples are Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de etc.

Multi-Channel Fulfillment. A service that allows brands to use Amazon warehouses to store and ship products sold outside of Amazon.

Matching Compensation. Refers to Amazon’s request to support low-margin products with investments to keep them listed in the catalogue.

Marketing Discretionary Funding or Market Development Funding. A trade term offered by Vendor Managers during annual negotiations.

Merchant Fulfilled. Refers to sellers shipping products directly to the end customer.

Minimum Featured Price

Machine Learning

Machine Learning Algorithm

 Manufacturer on Amazon Policy

Month over Month

Minimum Order Quantity. Describes the minimum amount Amazon needs to order.

Marketplace

Master Packs Per Pallet

Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price

Month to Date

Marketplace Web Services

 North American Fulfillment Network

North American Remote Fulfilment

 North American Selection Policy

Non-Disclosure Agreement

The ratio between your average selling price and cost price which also considers any accruals and C-COGS a vendor has with Amazon. Calculated as Average Selling Price

Expresses the volume received by Amazon multiplied by the vendor’s cost price.

New Item Setup. Describes the listing process of a product.

New product. Refers to a newly listed item.

New Product Development

New Product Launch

Non-Replenishable. An item that cannot be restocked.

Reflects whether an ad-attributed purchase was made by an existing or new customer.

Net Sales

 Order to Cash. Describes the process that entails all aspects of handling the sale to Amazon. This includes shipping goods to Amazon creating invoices receiving payments and reporting on the end-to-end process.

Obsolete

Order Inventory Health

Offer Minimum Order Quantity

Out of Stock

Operational Excellence

Ordered Product Sales equivalent to Ordered Revenue

Refers to the orders placed by end customers that have not yet shipped by Amazon. It’s based on the average selling price at the time of the order. Calculated as ASP * Volume Ordered.

Equals Ordered Revenue divided by ASP.

Over the Counter

One-Time Password

Amazon estimates with a 70perecent probability that future weekly customer demand will be at or below this value.

Amazon estimates with an 80perecent probability that future weekly customer demand will be at or below this value.

Amazon estimates with a 90perecent probability that future weekly customer demand will be at or below this value.

Describes the ASIN under which the variants of a product are grouped together. The parent ASIN could be a chocolate bar while the child ASINs are the flavour variations e.g. dark/white/milk flavour.

Predictive Buying System

Product Costs of Goods Sold. Expresses the quantity sold multiplied by the cost price of a vendor. PCOGs equal Shipped COGS in Vendor Central.

Percentage

Product Detail Page. The webpage a shopper views when browsing an item on Amazon.

Provisions for Receivables. Describes an accounting tactic where Amazon prioritises its own cash flow and only pays vendor invoices when the sum of outstanding amounts from trade terms chargebacks and financial disputes is less than the actual invoice amount from the vendor.

Perfect Inbound. Describes the number of shipments that Amazon fulfilment centres can process quickly without delays or problems.

Perfect Inbound Defect Rate. Measures the number of inbound defects as a perecent of all received units at Amazon fulfilment centres.

Pan European Inbound Consolidation Service. A logistics programme that helps vendors reduce the number of fulfilment centers they need to supply.

Private Label. Describes products sold by Amazon under their own brand name but made by other manufacturers.

Procurement Lead Time

Purchase Order

Point of Contact

Proof of Delivery

Price Protection Agreement. Protects Amazon against a reduction in value of the units currently on hand and in transit.

Pay Per Click. A type of Amazon Advertising where a brand pays when an ad gets clicked.

Pure Profit Margin. Describes the ratio between the average selling price and cost price. In other words it is the amount of money Amazon makes from the sale of a product before costs. Calculated as Average Selling Price

Procurable Product OOS. Describes the out of stock OOS rate on all products that are procurable. Procurable Product OOS divided by OOS Glance Views GVs on Procurable ASINS / Total GVs.

Product Price Variation. When the cost price of a vendor invoice does not match the cost price of the Amazon purchase order.

Product Quantity Variation. When the product quantity of a vendor invoice does not match the number of received items at the Amazon warehouse.

Planned Replenishment

Amazon’s subscription service for free delivery which also entails services like Amazon Music and Video.

Progressive Number. A tracking number that is issued by a carrier for its freight.

First Quarter Jan-Mar

Second Quarter Apr-Jun

Third Quarter Jul-Sep

Fourth Quarter Oct-Dec

Fifth Quarter. Refers to a hectic first quarter right after the Christmas period colloq..

Quality Assurance

Quarterly Business Review

Quantity Discount. Applicable for sales with Amazon Business.

Quantitative Ingredient Declaration

 Return on Ad Spend. Describes how much revenue a brand gets in return for its advertising budget. Calculated as ROAS equals 100 x total ad revenue divided total ad spend.

Return on Investment

Removal of Offer. Refers to the removal of the Buy Box while active Subscribe and Save customers will continue to receive orders.

Rapid Retail Analytics

Recommended Retail Price

Source to Pay

Strategic Account Services. A programme that gives sellers access to a designated Amazon account manager to help them increase sales and optimise their business.

 Standards for Brands Selling in the Amazon Store Policy

Seller Central. The admin interface used to market and sell products directly to Amazon customers.

Standard Carrier Alpha Code

Supply Chain Programme

Sales Discount. Describes amounts related to promotional activities that Amazon conducts at the customer checkout.

Selective Distribution Agreement. Used by suppliers to maintain control over the resale of its products by only selling to distributors meeting specific criteria.

Selective Distribution Network. Describes the distributors that are part of an SDA.

Search Engine Optimisation

Seller Fulfiled Prime. Refers to sellers that ship products from their own warehouses and comply with Amazon’s strict SLA.

This metric is based on the cost price of a product at the time of Amazon purchasing it multiplied by the shipped volume during the selected time period. Expressed as a dollar value and calculated as Vendor Cost Price * Volume Shipped to end customers. Shipped COGS equals Amazon PCOGs.

The revenue Amazon makes by shipping a vendor’s products. It’s based on the average selling price to the end customer at the time of shipment and multiplied by the sold volume during the selected time period. Calculated as ASP * Volume Shipped to end customers.

Equals shipped revenue divided by ASP.

 Sell-in agreement. Margin funding for Amazon that is granted as a percentage or dollar amount per shipped item to Amazon warehouses.

Ships in Own Container. Describes products that don’t need an Amazon overbox.

Stock Keeping Unit. A unique code to identify a product.

Service Level Agreement

Small and Light. Fulfilment programme that results in low shipping costs for qualified products that fit into an envelope.

Subscribe and Save. Amazon’s loyalty programme to entice customers to make repeat purchases of replenishable products on its marketplace in exchange for a small discount.

Sell-out Agreement. Margin funding for Amazon that is granted as a percentage or dollar amount per sold item to end customers.

Sourceable Replenishment Out of Stock. This metric measures the instances when products are shown as unavailable for purchase on the product detail page even though they can be sourced from a 1P vendor. Factors that affect SoROOS include temporary sales suppression due to repeat customer complaints or safety concerns Andon Cords manual buyer suppressions and lack of inventory.

Selling Partner API. A suite of REST-based APIs that provides Amazon selling partners programmatic access to their Amazon Seller or Vendor Central account data.

Small Parcel Delivery

Service Provider Network

Sales Rank. The ranking of an item in a product category.

Suggested Retail Price

Serial Shipping Container Code. External Container ID to label cartons to be sent to Amazon which can be passed via Electronic Data Interchange EDI.

A curated brand store typically paid for by vendors.

Sell-Through Rate. Calculated as the number of units shipped compared to the number of units at Amazon at the start of the period plus any units received during the same time period. Sell Through Rate divided by Shipped units

Ship Window. The date range in which a PO needs to be delivered to an Amazon warehouse to avoid chargebacks.

Trailing 12 Months

Turkey Five. Refers to the five days stretching from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday otherwise known as Thanksgiving weekend.

Describes sellers trading goods on Amazon’s marketplace without selling these items to Amazon first.

Truck Load

Terms of Service

Trailing Twelve Months

Ultra Fast Track UFT. The percentage of time that an ASIN can be shipped to the customer from a fulfilment centre versus the selection Amazon intended to carry.

United Nations Standard Product and Services Code. Amazon uses this code to categorise products.

Universal Product Code. 12 numeric digits that are uniquely assigned to a product item for tracking it in-store.

User Experience

Products available in different colours sizes and forms grouped on a detail page.

Value Added Tax

Vendor Central. The admin interface used by manufacturers and distributors who work directly with Amazon as a first-party vendor 1P.

Vendor Confirmation Rate

Describes brands that sell directly to Amazon instead of to end customers. Amazon places the orders and takes care of pricing and inventory management.

Vendor Flex. A supply chain programme through which vendors supply products to end customers out of their warehouse.

Vendor Funded Business Discounts.

Vendor Funded Managed Coupons. Set up and managed by Amazon’s Subscribe and Save team.

Vendor Initiated Allocated Offer

An Amazon programme where sellers can register their products to receive reviews from verified product testers.

Vendor Improvement Plan. Outlines the metrics that the AVS Brand Specialist is targeting to improve with a vendor.

 Volume Incentive Rates. Refers to rebates that are granted either as a fixed or tiered percentage. They incentivise Amazon to buy additional volume from vendors.

Vendor Lead Time

Vendor Manager

Value Market Share

Used or returned items sold at a discount to Amazon customers to prevent waste and reduce the liquidation of imperfect products.

World Customs Organisation

Work In Progress

Weeks of Cover. A metric used to measure how many weeks of demand Amazon currently holds in inventory for a product.

Week over Week

Year over Year

Year to Date