Whether you are navigating your Amazon Seller Central page or participating in discussions about your Amazon business in a Facebook group, you are going to run into your fair share of Amazon seller acronyms. Most sellers know that the “UPC” of a product is found on the product’s bar code, but many may be unaware of what UPC actually stands for. In this article, we’ll define many of the most commonly seen Amazon seller acronyms to help you stay on top of everything related to your Amazon business.
Amazon Seller Acronyms Glossary
3PL – Third Party Logistics. Amazon sellers with extremely large inventories sometimes enlist the help of 3PL companies to help them with logistics such as product quality control, preparation, and shipment to Amazon’s warehouses.
ACoS – Advertising Cost of Sale. ACoS is a metric that measures the performance of your advertising campaign. The equation to solve for ACoS is (total amount of money spend on advertising) divided by the (total sales generated from advertising). So if you spend $20 on ads and this leads to $100 in sales, your ACoS comes out to .20 (or 20%). This can be a useful tool in determining how well your advertising campaigns are performing.
ASIN – Amazon Standard Identification Number. This is the 10-digit identifying code unique to Amazon that is used by the site to identify a product ASINs can be viewed in the Inventory section of your Seller Central or under the “product details” section on an Amazon product page.
B2B – Business to Business. This is a transaction made between two businesses, such as one made between a wholesaler and a retailer.
B2C – Business to Consumer. This is a transaction in which a business is selling a product directly to the consumer, which is the case in most standard Amazon transactions.
BOLO – Be on the Lookout. This phrase is often used on message boards or social media groups to let other sellers know to be on the lookout for a new change in policy or a great deal on something.
BSR – Best Sellers Rank. The BSR is publicly listed under the “product details” section of an Amazon product page. It shows potential buyers where this product ranks in sales among all other products in its particular categories and subcategories.
COGS – Cost of Goods Sold. This number covers the total amount that you paid for your products including materials, labor, and fees. It is important to know when filling out taxes.
CPC – Cost Per Click. The CPC on a specific ad campaign tells you how much money you are paying for each click that you are receiving on your ad. CPCs can vary greatly from keyword to keyword, and paying attention to this metric will be important to make sure that you are converting sales at a high enough rate to justify your CPC costs.
CTR – Click Through Rate. The CTR of an advertisement tells you how many of the people who saw your ad actually clicked on it; so if 11 out of 100 people who saw your ad clicked on it, your CTR will come out to 11%. Consider making adjustments to your advertisement if the CTR is low to make it more engaging to potential customers.
EAN – European Article Number. This is the 13-digit number system used in Europe to identify retail products.
FBA – Fulfilled by Amazon. One of the biggest perks to selling on Amazon for many Amazon sellers is the FBA program; sellers ship their products to Amazon’s fulfillment centers and let Amazon take care of the logistics of shipping individual products when they are sold.
FBM – Fulfilled by Merchant. Sellers that use the FBM business model handle their own logistics of storing products and shipping them out as they sell.
FNSKU – Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit. This barcode is unique to Amazon, and it allows Amazon fulfillment centers to keep track of which products belong to which sellers for the fulfillment process.
ISBN – International Standard Book Number. This is a 13-digit identity number assigned to individual books. ISBNs were only 10 digits long up until 2006 when the change was made to 13 digits.
MOQ – Minimum Order Quantity. Most manufacturers and wholesalers require buyers to purchase a certain number of units in order to fulfill the order, which is listed as the MOQ.
MSRP – Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. The MSRP is generally the non-sale price of an item, though many products on Amazon are routinely sold for under the MSRP.
MTD – Month To Date. A statistic (such as sales) listed as MTD covers from the first day of the current month to today’s date.
ODR – Order Defect Rate. An important metric that Amazon uses to measure account performance, calculated as the percentage of orders that have received negative feedback, an A-to-Z guarantee claim, or a service credit card charge-back. Amazon sellers are expected to keep their ODR under 1%. FeedbackWhiz offers account monitoring to help you stay on top of any issues that may come up with your account.
OOS – Out Of Stock. A product is OOS when there are no units currently available for sale.
PPC – Pay Per Click. This form of advertising allows you to only pay when someone actually clicks on your advertisement. The amount you will have to pay per click will vary from keyword to keyword.
Q1 – First Quarter. The first quarter of the sales season covering January, February, and March.
Q2 – Second quarter. The second quarter of the sales season covering April, May, and June.
Q3 – Third quarter. The third quarter of the sales season covering July, August, and September.
Q4 – Fourth quarter. The fourth quarter of the sales season covering October, November, and December. For many Amazon businesses, the fourth quarter is the busiest of the year as it includes Black Friday and the holiday season in December.
ROAS – Return on Ad Spend. ROAS is a metric that measures how much of a return you are getting on the money you are spending on advertisements. The equation to solve for ROAS is (conversion value) divided by (total cost), with your conversion value being the amount you make on converted sales. So if you spend $10 on ads and sell $50 worth of product, your ROAS is 5; you are earning $5 for every $1 you spend.
ROI – Return on Investment. ROI can cover many different aspects of your business, but it is always solved with the following equation: (amount gained minus amount spent) divided by (amount spent), multiplied by 100. If you sell a product for $100 and invested a total of $50 in manufacturing, advertising, and shipping the product, your ROI would be 100%; (100 minus 50 = 50), divided by 50 = 1, 1 x 100 = 100%. The higher the ROI, the better the product is performing.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a process in which keywords, headlines, links, quality content, and other web design elements are used to help a website organically show up higher in search engines for targeted search terms.
SKU – Stock Keeping Unit. An internal identification code used to differentiate products in your inventory. Amazon will auto-generate a SKU if the seller does not assign their own, but many sellers use SKUs to help them sort out their inventory.
TOS – Terms of Service. It is important to keep up to date with Amazon’s TOS to make sure that your store stays in compliance with whatever updates are made.
UPC – Universal Product Code. This is the 12-digit number displayed as a barcode on the majority of retail products in the United States.
YTD – Year To Date. A statistic (such as sales) listed as YTD covers from the first day of the current year to today’s date.
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