eCommerce Glossary
E-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet.
eCommerce
A/B testing (or split testing)
A/B split testing is a simple process that lets you compare two versions of a webpage so you can determine the most effective strategy. You show Version A and Version B to groups of would-be customers during the same time frame to learn which approach nets the higher conversion rate.
eCommerce
Address verification service (AVS)
A service that credit card processors implement to verify that the billing addresses of your customers match the addresses on their credit card statements.
eCommerce
Affiliate marketing
A marketing strategy in which your ecommerce business partners with online publishers so that they will promote and endorse your products and send customers to your website. Typically, the affiliate receives a fee for every website visitor or sale generated from the promotion.
eCommerce
Assisted conversions
This Google Analytics report summarizes and ranks the importance of marketing channels in a consumer’s conversion journey. It helps you identify the channels responsible for generating leads and visits to your website so you can nurture would-be customers and convert them.
eCommerce
Attribution model
In Google Analytics, you want to find out which channels—direct, organic search, referral, email, paid search, other advertising, social, and display—account for your sales. Here are seven common attribution models: Last interaction model: The last channel that the customer interacted with before buying receives 100% of the credit for the conversion. Last nondirect click model: […]
eCommerce
Authorization
The process when your customer’s credit card issuer gives permission and allows a payment transaction to proceed.
eCommerce
Average order value
This is the typical amount that your customer spends when visiting your digital storefront. Learn how to increase your average order value here. Here’s how to calculate average order value: [Sales Revenue] / [Number of Orders Taken] = Average Order Value
eCommerce
Average time on site
The typical amount of time your visitor spends on your website within a specified time frame.
eCommerce
Billing address
The address used on a customer’s credit card statement.
eCommerce
Bounce rate
The percentage of visits to a website where visitors leave after viewing a single page.
eCommerce
Bundling (or product bundling)
The grouping of related products or services as a package or solution, often offered at a reduced price, to encourage conversion.
eCommerce
Business to business (B2B)
Online transactions in which an online business sells products or services to other businesses.
eCommerce
Business to consumer (B2C)
Online transactions between a merchant and a consumer.
eCommerce
Buy-to-detail rate
A Google Analytics metric that looks at the number of products purchased relative to the number of times the customer viewed product detail pages. Here’s how to calculate buy-to-detail rate: [Unique Purchases of a Product] / [Product Detail Page Views] = Buy-to-Detail Rate
eCommerce
Call to action (CTA)
Call to action (or CTA) is an advertising and marketing tactic that involves providing instruction to the target audience to persuade them to take an action, such as “visit now,” “learn more now,” “subscribe now,” and “get access now.”
eCommerce
Cart abandonment rate
Cart abandonment rate is an online shopping metric that shows the rate of potential customers who leave a site before completing their purchases compared to all the shopping carts created. Learn how to improve yours here. Here’s how to calculate cart abandonment rate in two steps: Step 1: [Completed Purchases] /[ Shop Carts Created x […]
eCommerce
Cart-to-detail rate
A Google Analytics metric that looks at products added to a customer’s cart relative to views of product detail pages. Here’s how to calculate cart-to-detail rate: [Times a Product Is Added to Cart] /[ Product Detail Page Views] = Cart-to-Detail Rate
eCommerce
Chargeback
A reversal of a completed credit card transaction—typically because a customer disputes a charge and the merchant’s bank refunds the value of the transaction.
eCommerce
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
This measure reflects the effectiveness of the message and content in your email in getting recipients to click through and find out more about your business or offer. Here’s the how to calculate click-to-open rate: [Unique Clicks] / [Unique Opens] x 100 = Click-to-Open Rate
eCommerce
Cohort analysis
An analysis of customer behaviors, during a specified time frame, of a subset of your ecommerce customers that have been segmented from all your visitors based on shared characteristics.
eCommerce
Conversion
When you transform an online store visitor into a paying customer.