Amazon acronyms

We regularly get asked by clients and partners what different terms and acronyms mean. So we’ve created a useful guide to all the terms and acronyms used in the world of Amazon.

ASIN – Amazon standard information number – Amazon’s internal tracking identifier for each listing in their catalog. It’s similar to a UPC but is exclusive to Amazon.

FNSKU – Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit – Per Amazon, the FNSKU is how Amazon identifies a product as unique to the seller that the seller has sent it to an FBA warehouse. Every product processed through an FBA warehouse is given this unique identifier.

BSR – Best Seller Rank – often used interchangeably with sales rank, gives an idea of how well an item is selling compared to others.

Category – The placement within Amazon to categorize products. There are main categories as well as sub-categories. Some categories are restricted to new sellers, and others are open to all sellers.

1P = First Party – A wholesale relationship with Amazon where it buys your products and sells to Amazon customers

3P = Third Party – Using Amazon’s marketplace to sell to consumers shopping on its platform

3P Seller = Third-party Seller – companies that are selling your products but are not associated with your brand

#3PK – When a listing on Amazon comes with multiples of an individual product. For example, a 3PK of toothpaste would come with three tubes in a single purchase. This is often referred to as a multi-pack as well.

A+ – this is additional information and allows extra imagery to be added to products on Vendor Central. This is when a listing has a ‘From the manufacturer’ section above the product description.

ACOS – Average cost of sales – Used related to Amazon sponsored product ads and is a metric of how well your ads are performing relative to their cost.

COGs – Cost of Goods Sold

Bundle – When a listing on Amazon combines multiple DIFFERENT products to create ONE new product listing

CPC – Cost-per-click – digital marketing metric measures the amount of money paid for each click in a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign.

CPM – Cost per thousand impressions – refers to the cost of advertising one thousand times (known as “impressions”).

CTR – Click-through rate – a digital marketing metric that measures the ratio of total impressions to clicks in search and display advertising, email marketing, and other online mediums.

FBA – Fulfillment by Amazon – this is Amazon’s fulfillment option where Sellers send their products to Amazon fulfillment centers, and Amazon then takes care of the picking, packing, and shipping when a customer places an order

FBM – Fulfilled by Merchant – Also known as MF (Merchant fulfilled), refers to shipping products directly to the end customer yourself.

Amazon Attribution - This beta measurement solution provides brands that sell on Amazon with sales impact analysis across media channels off Amazon. Advertisers and brands can uncover insights to optimize their media campaigns and grow product sales with on-demand reporting.

Amazon Brand Registry - This Amazon service is designed to help build and protect a vendor’s brand & create a better experience for their consumers. It does this by providing powerful search tools that let you find & report suspected violations (counterfeit products) and using brand information to remove suspected infringing or inaccurate content proactively.

AMS = Amazon Marketing Services – this is Amazon’s PPC advertising platform for Vendors, allowing the creation of Sponsored Products, Headline Search Ads, Product Display Ads, and Lock Screen Ads (the US Only) (Now known as ‘Advertising console’ within ‘Amazon Advertising’)

DSP = Demand Side Platform (formerly AAP = Amazon Advertising Platform) – this is an advertising platform allowing advertisers to drive traffic from other websites or mobile apps to Amazon

EAN – European Article Number – 13 digit number system for identifying retail products.

EBC = Enhanced Brand Content – this replaces the product description on listings and adds extra information and images. This is for products that are on Seller Central and enrolled in the Brand Registry.

BOGO – Buy One Get One – This is used for shopping deals. Often used in sale ads. For example: “Triscuits are BOGO free this week at Target,” meaning you buy one box, you get one free. Sometimes used BOGO 50% meaning: Buy One Get One 50% Off.

ASP – Average Selling Price – This refers to the average price that a seller on Amazon sellers sells their items for. It is calculated by taking the total sales for a time period divided by the number of items for the time period.

CPP – Cost per purchase

CRaP– products that Amazon (through all its algorithmic genius) Can’t Realize any Profit

BISS – This is a category on Amazon that is restricted to most sellers. It is the “Business, Industrial & Scientific Supplies”

BL – Big Lots – Discount store frequented by many FBA sellers

BTS – Back To School – a season where Amazon sellers often buy products from retail stores and mark them up on Amazon

Browse Nodes – a hierarchical structure used for categorizing products at different levels to be more specific, allowing for products to be easier to find

CDN$ – Canadian Dollar – this comes into play if you sell on the Amazon.ca platform.

DPVR – Detail page view rate

DTC – Direct-to-Consumer – bypassing traditional practices, such as selling through resellers and taking control of the consumer experience from the very beginning of the sales cycle by selling directly to their customers.

EFN = European Fulfillment Network – this is Amazon’s option for selling on other EU marketplaces but fulfilling all orders from fulfillment centers in the home country

eTailing – the selling of retail goods on the Internet. Short for “electronic retailing.”

FC – Fulfillment Center – Refers to one of Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses/centers.

FIFO – first in, first out – to ensure that the order in which messages are sent and received is strictly preserved and that each message is processed exactly once.

Fulfillment Fee – The cost Amazon charges sellers to pick, pack, and ship products sold through the FBA program.

Net Profit – The amount of profit you have left in your business after taking out all operating expenses, including the cost of goods and Amazon fees

GTIN = Global Trade Identification Number – a universal identifier used internationally to find product information across databases

HBA – Health & Beauty Aids – One of our favorite niches on Amazon. This could be part of either the beauty category or the health and personal care categories.

HTF – Hard to Find – This is often associated with a BOLO post and comes into play when an item is rarely seen in stores anymore.

HSAs = Headline Search Ads – these are a part of the Advertising Console and are the banners at the top and down the side of search results pages on the Amazon site (Now known as ‘Sponsored Brands’)

ISBN – International Standard Book Number – An ISBN is a 13-digit number assigned by standard book numbering agencies to identify individual books. ISBNs used to be ten digits until the end of 2006

KPI – Key Performance Indicators – Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers to store their products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. We directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products.

LBB = Lost Buy Box – Clicks on a detail page where Retail loosed the BuyBox to 3P sellers

Lightning Deals – these are promotions in which Sellers/Vendors can offer large discounts on their chosen products. These offers only last a few hours.

LTH – Long Term Hold – Storing inventory to be sold later. For example, I was buying Christmas lights on December 28th and waiting to sell them until the following December.

LSA = Lock Screen Ads – these are a part of the Advertising Console, currently only available in the USA, which allows ads for products to be targeted at kindle users on their lock screens

MAP – Minimum advertised price – This most often comes into play with wholesale sourcing. You agree not to list this price below when you purchase a product from a wholesaler/distributor.

MCI = Multi-Country Inventory – this provides the option for FBA sellers to specify which countries they wish to send stock to and have orders for that marketplace fulfilled from the local inventory

MF – Merchant Fulfilled – Items you ship directly to the customer yourself, rather than FBA.

MOQ– Minimum Order Quantity – The minimum amount you can order. This typically applies to orders from a wholesaler or distributor.

MSRP – Manufacturer’s suggested retail price

MTD – Month to Date – Often seen when sharing sales or a certain metric since the beginning of the month.

Multi-pack – When a listing on Amazon includes multiples of the SAME product, and they are then sold as one unit

OTC – Over The Counter – When you are selling HBA items, you want to make sure they are OTC and never prescription

ODR – Order Defect Rate – The percentage of orders that customers report a significant issue. Per Amazon, an ODR is: ODR is the percentage of orders that have received negative feedback, and an A-to-z Guarantee claim or a service credit card chargeback. It allows us to measure overall performance with a single metric.

OOS – Out of Stock – Refers to an item being out of stock in a retail store or Amazon themselves being out of stock on an item.

P-COGS – Shipped Units * Cost Price

PAN EU – a form of FBA where Sellers send their products to one Fulfillment Center, and Amazon distributes the products to different Fulfillment Centers around Europe based on where they think the most sales will come from. Sellers need to be registered for VAT in the different countries in Europe when using this option.

PDAs = Product Display Ads – these are a part of AMS and are product ads that appear on other product listings, typically just under the Buy Box

PDP – Product Detail Page – a web page on an eCommerce site that presents a description of a specific product in view.

P&L – Profit & Loss Statement – Also known as the income statement.

PL or WL – Private Label – Putting your brand name on a generic product and branding it as your own.

PO Confirmation (Acceptance) rate – the rate you accept or backorder the units ordered. Amazon is looking for your PO Acknowledgement to accept or backorder at least 80% of the quantity for each item they order.

POC – Proof of Concept – a demonstration, the purpose of which is to verify that certain concepts or theories have the potential for real-world application. POC is, therefore, a prototype that is designed to determine feasibility but does not represent deliverables.

PPC – Pay per click advertising – This relates most often to using Amazon-sponsored product ads.

Vendor Central – is the web interface used by manufacturers and distributors. If you sell via Vendor Central, you’re called a first-party seller. You’re acting as a supplier, selling in bulk to Amazon.

Verified Review – a review left by a seller who has genuinely purchased the product. A ‘review’ could be from anybody, and they may not necessarily have bought the product.

PPM = Pure Product Margin – calculated by the following formula (Revenue – P-COGS) / Revenue

Q1: 1st Quarter Of The Year — January — March

Q2: 2nd Quarter Of The Year — April — June

Q3: 3rd Quarter Of The Year — July — September

Q4: 4th Quarter Of The Year — October — December — The last quarter of the year. More often, the Amazon sellers make the BIGGEST sale of the year this last quarter.

QB – Quickbooks – Service to help manage accounts.

SKU – Stock Keeping Unit – This is a number and letter combination used to identify items in a seller’s inventory and efficiently manage inventory.

Retail Revenue – Shipped Units * Sales Price (excl. VAT)

Reply – Replenish-able product – An item that a seller can replenish from a supplier and sell continuously. This term can be used in just about any sourcing method.

RepOOS = Replenishable Out of Stock – Clicks on a detail page where Retail items are not available in % of all clicks.

RFP – Requests for Proposals – Amazon.com cannot participate in your organization’s Request for Proposal (RFP) process. All purchases from Amazon.com are governed only by the terms, policies, and guidelines posted on our website.

RoaS – Return On Advertising Spend – a marketing metric that measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign.

ROI – Return on Investment

RTB – real-time bidding – a method that allows advertising inventory to be sold and bought on an adequate per-impression basis through programmatic auctions, which are reminiscent of financial markets.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – When you are creating listings on Amazon, it is important to remember search terms so that your product will rank on Amazon (and even Google) and buyers can find the listing

SC = Seller Central – the platform used for selling on Amazon as an individual or smaller business

Scouting – Looking for products to resell online.

SFP = Seller Fulfilled Prime – this is a way for Sellers to have the prime badge on their listings while maintaining complete control over inventory as the stock is kept and despatched from their warehouses

SP = Sponsored Products – these are a part of the Advertising Console and are ads that appear within search results that show your product with ‘Sponsored’ above it.

SS – Seller Support – Basically, customer service for Amazon sellers.

UPC – Universal Product Code – A 12 digit number displayed with the barcode on most retail products.

Wholesale – This is a business model where you buy directly from the brand owner and then resell the product on Amazon. You can often get the product for 30%-50% off the retail price.

YOY – Year over a year – a method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those of a comparable time on an annualized basis.

YTD – Year to date – Often used when sharing sales numbers or a certain metric since the beginning of the calendar year.

We are sure we have missed some out, so if you believe you should be on the list, just let us know, and we will be sure to add them in.