Ultimate List of Amazon Terms and Abbreviations: Part 1

We’ve been helping brands boost their sales on Amazon for more than 5 years. With this experience, we’ve learned that Amazon is full of complex terms and acronyms! For example, what is TACoS and does adding guac cost extra? Consider this list the first half of your ultimate guide to understanding Amazon terms.

Pro tip: if you're looking for certain words or phrases, use Ctrl + F to quickly search the page.

List of Amazon Terms and Abbreviations: A-G

1st Party / First Party Seller / 1P:
First-party sellers refer to brands and distributors that sell directly to customers using Seller Central or to Amazon using Vendor Central.

3rd Party / Third Party Seller / 3P:
Third-party sellers refer to Amazon sellers using Seller Central to sell another brand’s products directly to customers using Seller Central or to Amazon using Vendor Central. Agencies and wholesalers are considered third parties.

A-To-Z Guarantee:
The Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee protects you when you purchase items sold and fulfilled by a third-party seller. Our guarantee covers both the timely delivery and the condition of your items. If either is unsatisfactory, you can report the problem to us and our team will determine if you are eligible for a refund.

A+ Content / Enhanced Brand Content:
The A+ Content feature enables brand owners to change the product descriptions of branded ASINs. Using this tool, you can describe your product features in a different way by including a unique brand story, enhanced images, and text placements.

A9 Search Engine Algorithm:
The automatic algorithm, or automatic calculations, that powers Amazon's product search pages. It determines which product listings show in the results and their order.

Account Health:
An overview of a seller account's adherence to the performance targets and policies required to sell on Amazon.

Ad Status:
The current state of an ad group. Some statuses include running, paused, ended, archived, and out of budget.

Add to Cart / ATC:
The number of times a promoted product is added to a customer’s cart after a click of an associated ad.

Advertising Cost of Sales / ACoS:
Our favorite Amazon acronym! It’s a metric that shows how well your ads are performing relative to their cost. Calculate it by dividing your ad spend and ad revenue. The lower the ACoS, the more efficient your ads are.

Amazon Advertising Console / AAC:
Amazon’s platform that allows vendors to buy ads. Setting up, monitoring, and optimizing ads is easier with our 5 Amazon advertising tips in mind.

Amazon Attribution / AA:
The tool used to attribute Amazon sales to outside sources like Google, YouTube, and social media ads. Learn how Amazon Attribution works here.

Amazon Condition Guidelines:
Amazon’s official guide to the types of product conditions, like new, renewed, rental, and used. They are sometimes referred to as Marketplace Item Condition Guidelines. They are specific and different based on product categories.

Amazon Display Ads:
Amazon Display Ads are automatically-generated and are powered by Amazon DSP (demand-side platform). They can promote your products on or off Amazon and enables advertisers to programmatically buy display and video ads. Many experts consider this the future of buying ads via Amazon.

Amazon Marketing Services / AMS:
Amazon platform that allows vendors to buy ads. Our 5 tips simplify what it means to advertise on Amazon.

Amazon Posts:
The social feature that allows brand owners to create content similar to social media posts for free. We’ve discovered some great tips to help brands make Amazon Posts that increase sales.

Amazon Search Terms:
Words and phrases used to search for products on Amazon’s search engine. There are plenty of free Amazon Keyword tools available for those wanting to add keywords into their listings.

Amazon Standard Identification Number / ASIN:
A unique 10-digit code assigned to each product sold on Amazon. ASINs are the same across all Amazon sites.

Amazon Store:
A multi-page store on Amazon used to promote your brands and products for free.

Amazon Vine Program:
A program created by Amazon used to allow sellers to buy legitimate reviews on Amazon listings. Good reviews are critical to successfully launching new products.

Amazon's Choice:
A label designated to products that Amazon recommends based on product ratings, price, and availability.

Application Programming Interface / API:
The method of allowing two programs to communicate and connect with each other.

Attribution Tag:
Measures click-based ad activity when added directly into third-party ads. Ad-attributed activity is measured using parameters within the URL that capture data upon click.

Average Selling Price / ASP:
The average price that a brand or company sells an item for. This is calculated by dividing the total sales revenue for a time period by the number of items for the time period.

Best Sellers Rank / BSR:
Calculation Amazon uses to determine which products are considered Best Sellers. Contributing factors are sales, ratings, reviews, shipping, and more.

Books, Music, Video & DVD / BMVD:
A category of items sold on Amazon. Amazon actually began as an online store for BMVD products, and its terms for them still remain slightly different from all other categories.

Brand Protection:
Proactive and reactive measures to protect your brand from unauthorized sellers, MAP violators, and infringers of your intellectual property. Our blog on brand protection goes into the details on what it means and how to start protecting your brand.

Brand Registry:
Amazon Brand Registry is a system that helps you protect your intellectual property and create an accurate and trusted experience for customers on Amazon. It is one of the main tools involved in Amazon brand protection.

Brick and Mortar / B&M:
A physical retail store location that customers can visit to shop in-person.

Buy Box / BB:
“Buy box” is one of the most important Amazon terminologies. It Refers to the seller associated with the add to cart button on any Amazon product detail page.

camelcamelcamel / CCC:
A popular and free online tool that allows you to track product rankings and pricing history.

Channel:
The medium through which a brand promotes its products and services. Examples include print, display, social, video, email or search).

Click-Through Destination / CTRD:
The page URL where the ad links to after being clicked.

Click-Through Rate / CTR:
The percentage of times an ad is clicked. The formula for CTR is the total number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of impressions. Increase your CTR with our 5 keys to Amazon ads.

Click-Throughs:
A click on an advertisement that directs the user to a destination outside of the web page the ad was on.

Cost Of Goods Sold / COGS:
The total of all costs used to create your products and/or services.

Cost-per-click / CPC:
The cost incurred for each click on an ad.

Customer Reviews:
Feedback given about a product from customers.

Customer Star Ratings:
Rating is given by customers based on a 1 to 5 scale.

Customs:
The recipient is the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the destination.

Detail Page Views / DPV:
The number of views of the advertised product’s detail pages on Amazon.

Dropshipping / DS:
The act of shipping a product directly from a supplier to the end customer.

Duty Tax / DT:
A tax used by governments on imported and exported goods and services.

Early Reviewer Program:
Amazon's program that helps sellers receive authentic reviews.

Employer Identification Number / EIN:
Unique code given to you by the IRS for your business entity.

Entity:
A grouping of advertisers that share the same currency and time zone. This usually corresponds to a holding company account per region.

European Article Number/ EAN:
A 13-digit code that is given to retail products and can be found either on the outer packaging of a product or the back cover of a book, below the bar code.

Fulfilled by Amazon / FBA:
When Amazon is in control of the seller’s entire handling and shipping process. The seller pays a service fee and ships their inventory to an Amazon warehouse. When an order is placed, Amazon employees select, package and ship the item to the buyer. Learn more about FBA on Amazon’s website.

Fulfilled by Merchant / FBM:
When the seller is in control of his entire handling and shipping process. Instead of paying a service fee and shipping inventory to Amazon to handle, the seller uses his or her own resources and sends the items directly to the buyer. Also known as MF (Merchant fulfilled), this refers to shipping products directly to the end customer yourself

Fulfillment Center / FC:
Warehouses where Amazon stores its FBA goods for sellers.

Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit / FNSKU:
This unique identifier is the way that Amazon identifies a product as unique to the seller who has sent it to the Amazon fulfillment center. It is printed on product-level labels.

Gated Category:
Category of goods that are closed off from most sellers.

Global Standards 1 / GS1:
An organization that creates unique product codes used to identify items. Amazon may remove listings that are not tied to GS1 UPCs.

Global Trade Item Number / GTIN:
The umbrella term used to cover several numbers used to identify every product sold on Amazon. It includes UPC, ISBN, EAN among others.

Gross Profit / GP:
The profit made after deducting the cost of goods sold from revenue.

We Know the Lingo

Amazon’s terminology can be complicated, but hiring a talented agency is easy. Consider us your first option, we know the ins-and-outs of growing brands on online marketplaces as well as all of the sophisticated lingo. We’re a one-stop-shop for brands interested in getting more sales on Amazon. Contact us today to learn more.