Key E-Commerce Terms to Know

In e-commerce, especially if you’re a business, there are terms you need to know. Knowing these key e-commerce terms will help you manage your online store better, and improve your website. Don’t let unfamiliar jargon hold you back from creating the best e-commerce store that you can.

1. Cart Abandonment Rate

This measures the amount of people who put items in the cart and then leave, against people who put items in the cart and then checkout. It’s basically completed vs. uncompleted orders. If you know this, you can try and create ways to prevent cart abandonment from happening.

2. Cookies

Cookies are little hypertext files that your website sends out, and users’ browsers store. Every time a user visits your website, this information is sent back to the server. E-commerce uses cookies for targeting specific advertisements, as well as saving old shopping carts (this is also known as persisting the shopping cart).

3. Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce is a new phenomenon. It’s when consumers use mobile devices or tablets to purchase things online. An abbreviation for mobile commerce is mCommerce.

4. SEO – Search Engine Optimization

We talk about SEO, or search engine optimization, all the time. This term is not only important for e-commerce, but for all websites. Search engine optimization is using specific SEO tools, such as keywords, to get your site noticed by search engines. Being picked up by search engines is very important for the success of your e-commerce website.

5. Unique Users

Unique users are the total number of users who visit your website. If you know how many unique users you get, then you can work out how to increase that number.

Knowing these e-commerce terms are important for managing an online store. Once you learn the ins and outs of these terms, you can make improvements to your website. As e-commerce grows, the more important knowing these e-commerce terms becomes.