Glossary

The e-commerce dictionary

Every term that matters, explained in plain English — no jargon, no assumed knowledge.

Metrics

AOV (Average Order Value)The average amount spent per order, calculated as total revenue divided by number of orders. Raising AOV (e.g. with cross-sell) lifts revenue without new traffic.

LTV (Lifetime Value)The total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their relationship with your store. Comparing LTV to acquisition cost tells you if growth is sustainable.

Conversion rateThe share of visitors who complete a desired action, usually a purchase. Small improvements compound because they apply to all your traffic.

Cart abandonmentWhen a shopper adds items to their cart but leaves without buying. Reducing friction at checkout is the most direct way to recover these orders.

Bounce rateThe percentage of visitors who leave after viewing a single page. High bounce on key pages often points to speed, relevance or trust problems.

Analytics

Cohort analysisGrouping customers by a shared trait (like signup month) and tracking their behaviour over time. It reveals retention patterns a single average hides.

RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary)A segmentation model scoring customers on how recently and often they buy, and how much they spend. It highlights your best and at-risk customers.

Conversion funnelThe sequence of steps from visit to purchase (view → cart → checkout → buy). Funnel reports show where shoppers drop so you know what to fix first.

First-party dataData you collect directly from your own store and customers, with consent. It's more durable and reliable than third-party data as tracking rules tighten.

Marketing

Server-side trackingSending conversion events to ad platforms from your server rather than the browser. It's more complete and resilient to ad-blockers and browser limits.

Consent ModeA framework for adjusting how tracking behaves based on a user's consent choices, so measurement respects privacy preferences.

UpsellEncouraging a customer to buy a higher-value version of a product. Done well, it raises order value while genuinely serving the shopper.

Cross-sellRecommending complementary products alongside what a shopper is buying, like offering socks with shoes. It lifts AOV and improves the experience.

Catalog

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)A unique code identifying a specific product variant (e.g. a size and colour). Clean SKUs are the backbone of accurate inventory.

Product variantA specific version of a product defined by options like size or colour, each with its own SKU, price and stock.

Gift cardStored-value tender a customer can buy and redeem later. Handled properly, it's tracked on the ledger and can be partially spent.

Headless commerceAn architecture that separates the storefront (front end) from the commerce engine (back end), connected by APIs, for maximum front-end flexibility.

StorefrontThe customer-facing website where shoppers browse and buy. Speed, search and trust signals on the storefront directly drive conversion.

Business models

DropshippingSelling products you don't hold in stock; a supplier ships directly to the customer. Low upfront cost, but thinner margins and less control.

DTC (Direct-to-Consumer)Brands selling directly to shoppers rather than through retailers, owning the customer relationship and the data end to end.

B2B (Business-to-Business)Selling to other businesses, often involving accounts, negotiated pricing and repeat ordering.

B2C (Business-to-Consumer)Selling directly to individual consumers — the most common e-commerce model.

Payments

Merchant of recordThe entity legally responsible for a transaction, including tax and chargebacks. With CIQRA Pay, you remain the merchant of record for your sales.

Payment gatewayThe service that securely authorises and processes card payments between your store, the customer's bank and yours.

3DS / SCA3-D Secure and Strong Customer Authentication add a verification step to online card payments, reducing fraud and meeting EU requirements.

ChargebackA forced reversal of a card payment initiated by the cardholder's bank, usually for disputes or fraud. Merchants can incur fees and lost revenue.

PCI DSSThe Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — the security rules for handling card data. Meeting it is essential for any store taking cards.

PCI DSS SAQ AThe lightest PCI compliance path, available when card data is fully handled by a certified processor and never touches your servers — as with CIQRA Pay.

Tax

VAT (Value Added Tax)A consumption tax applied across the EU and many other regions. For most consumer sales it's charged at the customer's country's rate.

OSS (One-Stop-Shop)An EU scheme letting cross-border sellers report and pay VAT for all EU countries through a single return, instead of registering in each one.

Place of supplyThe rule that determines which country's tax applies to a sale, based on where the customer is and what's being sold.

International

Presentment currencyThe currency prices are shown and charged in to the shopper, which may differ from your store's base (settlement) currency.

Platform

Multi-tenantAn architecture where one platform serves many independent stores (tenants). Done right, each tenant's data is strictly isolated from the others.

Row-level security (RLS)A database feature that restricts which rows a query can see. CIQRA uses it to enforce tenant isolation at the database, not just in application code.

Core Web VitalsGoogle's metrics for loading, interactivity and visual stability (LCP, INP, CLS). They affect both search ranking and conversion.

Structured dataMachine-readable markup (like JSON-LD) that describes your pages to search engines, enabling rich results such as ratings and prices.

Start building on CIQRA

Spin up a store in minutes. Bring your own gateway or turn on CIQRA Pay — your data stays in the EU.

Start free Talk to sales