NTN ECOMM key terms

A business model in which a company sells products or services directly to individual consumers rather than to other businesses, typically through a website, mobile app, or marketplace.

A platform where many independent sellers list products and buyers purchase from them in one place, with the operator usually handling discovery, payments, and sometimes fulfillment on the sellers' behalf.

A fulfillment arrangement in which the seller takes the order and payment but a third-party supplier ships the product directly to the customer, so the seller holds little or no inventory.

A model where customers pay on a recurring schedule, such as monthly, to receive ongoing products or access to a service, generating predictable repeat revenue instead of one-off purchases.

An approach that connects a retailer's website, mobile app, physical stores, and service channels so customers can browse, buy, return, and get help through any of them without losing context.

The sequence of pages and steps a shopper completes to confirm a basket, enter delivery and payment details, review the total, and place an order.

When a shopper adds items to a basket but leaves the site before completing the purchase, measured as the share of started checkouts that never become orders.

An architecture that separates the customer-facing storefront from the back-end commerce engine, letting teams change the front-end experience without rebuilding catalog, pricing, and order systems.

Software used to create, edit, organize, and publish website content such as pages, banners, and articles without requiring hand-coded HTML.

Practices that improve how well a site's pages rank in unpaid search results, including keyword research, page structure, technical speed, and earning links from other sites.

The average marketing cost required to win one new customer or one conversion, calculated by dividing total campaign spend by the number of acquisitions it produced.

Revenue generated for every unit of currency spent on advertising, calculated by dividing campaign revenue by campaign cost.

Showing ads to people who previously visited a site or interacted with a brand, aiming to bring them back to finish a purchase or take another action.

An automated message sent to a shopper who left items in a basket without buying, usually reminding them of the contents and offering help or an incentive.

The practice of selecting, arranging, and presenting products so shoppers find what they want and buy more, covering category structure, ranking, imagery, and on-site placement.

A measure of how much the quantity sold changes when price changes; elastic products lose many sales from a small increase, while inelastic ones lose few.

Adjusting prices in response to live signals such as demand, competitor prices, inventory levels, or customer segment, often automated through rules or algorithms.

Encouraging a shopper to choose a higher-priced or upgraded version of the item they are considering, increasing revenue per order.

Recommending related or complementary products on the product page, in the basket, or at checkout to increase the number of items in an order.

A system that stores and governs product data such as titles, attributes, images, and descriptions, so accurate and consistent content can be published to every sales channel.

A service that securely transmits payment details from the storefront to the acquiring bank and returns the authorization result, encrypting card data while it is in transit.

A set of industry security standards for any organization that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data, covering encryption, access control, monitoring, and regular testing.

A cardholder dispute that reverses a payment, usually after a claim of fraud or non-delivery, which the merchant can contest with evidence such as tracking and delivery confirmation.

An extra verification step where the cardholder's bank challenges the buyer during checkout, shifting liability for certain fraud losses away from the merchant.

Replacing sensitive card numbers with substitute values that systems can use to reference a payment without ever holding the real card data.

Software that coordinates orders after checkout, routing them to fulfillment locations, tracking status, managing inventory and returns, and syncing updates to channels and customers.

An order accepted for a product that is currently out of stock, with the item promised for shipment once new inventory arrives.

The final stage of fulfillment, moving a parcel from a local hub or store to the customer's door; it is usually the most expensive and least predictable part of shipping.

The processes for moving goods back from customers, covering returns, exchanges, repairs, and recycling, including authorization, transport, inspection, and restocking or disposal.

Using retail store inventory to fulfill online orders, shortening the delivery distance and reducing markdowns on stock sitting in stores.

A loyalty metric based on asking customers how likely they are to recommend the brand on a 0-10 scale, then subtracting the share of detractors from the share of promoters.

A written commitment defining expected service levels, such as how quickly support tickets are answered or orders shipped, along with consequences when targets are missed.

The share of customers who stop buying or cancel during a period, calculated by dividing customers lost by the number present at the start of that period.

The percentage of visitors or sessions that complete a desired action, most often a purchase, calculated as conversions divided by total visits.

Total revenue divided by the number of orders in a period, showing what a typical order is worth and how bundling or upsells affect customer spend.

Assigning credit for a sale or conversion to the marketing touchpoints a customer encountered, using models such as last click, first click, or data-driven distribution.

Grouping customers by a shared start period or behavior, then tracking their metrics over time to see whether retention and spending improve or decay.

The total value of goods sold through a platform over a period before deductions such as returns, discounts, or fees, used to gauge the scale of a marketplace.

The expected net profit a customer generates over the whole relationship with a business, used to judge how much can responsibly be spent to acquire similar customers.