Electronic Commerce, as Wikipedia puts it "consists of the buying and selling of products and services over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks."
As simple as it may sound in a sentence, there are so many other factors, services, knowledge, strategies and technologies involved that it can get mind boggling at times. So we decided to take you back to the basics and bring you the ABC of eCommerce. Have a look at these common terminologies which we hope will help you in gaining better understanding of this modern age system of running a business which is here to stay for a long long time.
A
Affiliate Marketing: Revenue sharing venture between a website owner and an online merchant.
Ad Sense: It is a service provided by Google that puts advertisements on other websites based on niche and target audience. Google pays website owners for publishing their ads.
Address Verification Service: AVS, is an extra security measure that could substantially reduce the number of disputed transactions you have to deal with in eCommerce.
B
B2B: Short for business-to-business, the exchange of services, information and/or products from one business to another, as opposed to between a business and a consumer.
B2C: Short for business-to-customer, the exchange of services, information and/or products from a business to a consumer, as opposed to between one business and another.
B2G: Short for business-to-government, B2G is the exchange of services, information and/or products from one business to a government agency.
Banner Ads: A graphical web advertising unit, typically measuring 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall.
C
Coupon Code: It is a code that consists of letters or numbers that a buyer can enter into a promotional box that usually appears at the checkout page to obtain a discount on their purchase, such as a percentage, free shipping or other discounts.
Conversion Marketing: A phrase that is used to describe the act of converting a visitor who browses a website into a paying customer.
D
Domain Name: A name that locates an organization, individual or any other entity on the internet.
Digital Goods: A term that is used to describe any goods that are stored, delivered and used in electronic format...intangible.
Digital Cash: A system that allows a person to pay for goods or services by transmitting a number from one computer to another. Like the serial numbers on real dollar bills, the digital cash numbers are unique as well.
E
eRetailing: Electronic commerce used specifically for retail purchases, including grocery and supermarket items.
Electronic Funds Transfer: Often abbreviated as EFT, it is a paperless act of transmitting money through a computer network.
F
Feed Reader: It is a news aggregation website where headlines are collected and presented in a magazine or newspaper style. The feeds are manually selected by the user from different websites or blogs.
FTP: It allows you to transfer files between two computers on the internet. FTP is a simple network protocol based on internet protocol and also a term used when referring to the process of copying files when using FTP technology.
G
Google: Although we don't need to describe this term...but what the heck...its ABC right? Google is a widely used search engine that uses text-matching techniques to find web pages that are important and relevant to a user's search.
Goods: These are the things that you obtain in exchange for money, they could be new or second hand, and could be bought from an individual shop on the internet or a marketplace like Etsy, eBay or Amazon.
H
HTTP: Short for 'Hyper Text Transfer Protocol', the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted and what actions the web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands.
HTML: It stands for 'Hyper Text Markup Language', is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML is the basic building-blocks of web pages. A markup language is a set of markup tags, and HTML uses markup tags to describe web pages.
I
ISP: 'Internet Service Provider', it refers to a company that provides internet services, including personal and business access to the internet.
Inventory: The raw materials, work-in-progress goods and finished goods that are a portion of business assets as well and are ready or will be ready for sale.
IP Address: A code make up of numbers separated by three dots that identifies a particular computer using the internet.
J
JPEG: 'Joint Photographic Experts Group' that is commonly used as a standard method for compressing digital photographic images.
JavaScript: A popular scripting language that is implemented as a part of a web browser in order to provide enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites.
K
Keywords: Originally keywords are words that are used to reveal the internal structure on an author's reasoning. But in eCommerce, it helps search engines index content based on certain 'keywords' and plays major role in SEO.
Klog: Short for knowledge blog, it a type of blog that is usually used as an internal/intranet blog that is no accessible to the general public. It serves as a knowledge management system; it may also be used to describe a blog that is technical content oriented.
L
Link Building: The process of establishing relevant, inbound links to your website which helps the site achieve higher ranking with the major search engines and drive targeted traffic to your site.
Live Support: A web service that allows businesses to communicate or chat in real time with visitors to their website.
M
Merchants accounts: A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards. So a merchant account is an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card and/or debit card transactions.
N
Niche: The word niche is used in a number of technologies to refer to a specific topic, subject or category.
O
Opt In Emails: Unlike spam promotional emails, opt-in-emails are only sent to people who choose to receive promotional or informational emails or newsletters. Such emails are targeted and often personalized and carry information about specific topics or promotions that users are interested in. Typical opt-in-emails contain newsletter, product information or special promotional offers.
Open Source: It refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.
P
Pay Per Click (PPC): It is an advertising model used by websites, where advertisers par their host only when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system.
Payment Gateway: An eCommerce application service provider that authorizes payments for online retailers and eBusinesses; a service that automates the payment transaction between the shopper and merchant. It ensures that information passes is secured by encrypting sensitive information such as credit cards.
Q
QR code: Short for quick response code, a QR code is a type of two-dimensional (2D)nbarcode that can be read using a QR barcode reader or camera-enabled smartphone with QR reader software. A QR code is able to carry information in both the vertical and the horizontal direction, which is why it is called a 2D barcode.
R
Reciprocal Links: It can be considered as an agreement between two webmasters to provide a hyperlink within their own website to each other's site. Some websites make it mandatory to provide reciprocal links, while some rely on ethics.
RSS: Also called web feeds, RSS is a content delivery vehicle. It is the format used when you want to syndicate news and other web content. When it distributes the content it is called a feed. You could think of RSS as your own personal wire service.
S
Shopping Cart: It is a software that assists people in shopping online. A software that typically calculates the total for an order, including shipping, handling charges, and other applicable taxes.
Secure Electronic Transaction: SET, short for Secure Electronic Transaction, is a standard that will enable secure credit card transactions on the Internet. It consists of a set of security protocols and formats that enable users to employ the existing credit card payment infrastructure on an open network in a secure fashion.
T
Technorati:An Internet search engine that indexes and searches blogs.
Trackback: TrackBack is a type of peer-to-peer communication system that was designed to send notification of updates between two Web sites via a Trackback Ping.
U
URL: Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.
V
Viral Marketing: A form of marketing also popularly known as word-of-mouth marketing that relies and encourages people to pass along a message (hopefully positive) about a product, service or organization.
Vendor: Another name for a seller, merchant or supplier.
W
Web Host: A Web host is in the business of providing server space, Web services and file maintenance for Web sites controlled by individuals or companies that do not have their own Web servers.
Web analytics: Web analytics is a generic term meaning the study of the impact of a website on its users. It is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. Its not just a tool that helps you analyze, but can be used very productively to business research and market research.
X
XML: Short for Extensible Markup Language, designed especially for Webdocuments. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations.
Y
YouTube: A popular free video-sharing Web site that lets registered users upload and share video clips online at the YouTube Web site.
Yahoo Answers: A popular and helpful website where members pose questions and answer the ones they have knowledge of. It carries point system, encouraging users to provide with best answers possible. An interesting crowdsourcing resource for finding the right answers.
Z
Zip Code Targeting: Zip code targeting is the geographical targeting of advertisements based on the visitors zip code.
So that sums up our ABC of eCommerce. If you know some more terms that can help not only a newbie on eCommerce but also experienced entrepreneurs, then do share them with us and our readers in the comment section below.
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The process of establishing relevant, inbound links to your website which helps the site achieve higher ranking with the major search engines and drive targeted traffic to your site.
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A popular and helpful website where members pose questions and answer the ones they have knowledge of. It carries point system, encouraging users to provide with best answers possible.
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