Shopify Glossary of Terms.

API stands for Application Programming Interface, software that allows two or more computer programmes to communicate with one another. An API acts as an intermediary layer to send information back and forth between a website or app and a user.

Customers who have added items to their cart but have not yet checked out. To re-engage and convert lost customers, abandoned cart emails are the best way of bringing customers back to the store.

Shopify’s Analytics dashboard displays various metrics from sales, to sessions, to customer rates and more. This section is the best way to track your trends and take a close look at your target audience. You can discover exactly which countries your customers are buying from, whether any of your audience have landed on your site from social media channels, and get a breakdown of your most successful products.

A plugin that can be installed (free or for a fee) that enables new features or services for your Shopify store.

A blended storefront allows you to set up and manage both DTC and B2B sides of your business from a single store, instead of having two separate stores. With Shopify’s latest Summer Editions B2B features, blended storefronts are becoming increasingly popular for B2B merchants.

Call to Action. An instruction in the form of a shape, button or text, or even an image that encourages visitors to perform an action, such as a Shop Now button. CTAs can be included on emails, social media platforms, and websites.

A collection is a grouping of your products. Collections are used for categorising products to make it easier for shoppers to find what they’re looking for. “Tops” and “bottoms” would be an example of categories for a clothing store.

Shopify-specific term for businesses you sell to within your B2B store.

The percentage of site sessions that resulted in actual orders. This is filtered by “Added to cart”, “Reached checkout” and “Sessions converted”.

The Shopify Customiser is a part of your Admin panel, where you can find and change Sections and Settings.

DTC stands for Direct to Consumer, when a brand or manufacturer sells its own products to its end customers.

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, software designed to manage core parts of a business such as finance, HR and purchasing inventory.

A sequence of automated actions, which can include email and SMS messages, that is triggered when a person performs a specific action.

The part of a website or software with which the user directly interacts.

The process of preparing and shipping orders to customers, either by yourself or through a third-party fulfilment service.

A payment gateway allows you to accept online payments, such as credit card transactions, securely on your Shopify store.

Your homepage is the main landing page of your Shopify store - one which all other pages link to.

HTML is one of the foundational elements of the web; it’s a programming language used to display elements of a webpage in a browser. HTML is one of the many languages used within webpages on Shopify stores..

A process of visualising and understanding the customer's journey through your store, identifying touch-points and areas for improvement in the user experience.

Integrating the Klarna payment method into your Shopify store, allowing customers to choose Klarna's "buy now, pay later" financing options at checkout.

Integrating Klaviyo, a popular email marketing platform, with your Shopify store to create targeted email campaigns, segment your audience, and automate email marketing efforts, ultimately driving sales and customer engagement.

The template coding language used for Shopify.

A collection of opted-in customer profiles, primarily used for email marketing.

Metafields are a scalable way to add and store custom information to native Shopify resources like products, customers, orders. In addition to product titles and prices, metafields enable store owners to create unique properties like ingredients or materials to enhance a product page.

A successful move or transition from one e-commerce platform to another. You can migrate to Shopify or Shopify Plus, for example, from Magento, WordPress, and other channels.

The area where your Shopify menus are saved, allowing customers to navigate around your online store.

Order management does what it says on the tin - it’s all about the ways you manage your orders, from payments to fulfilment of customer deliveries.

Page views within Shopify concern either the number of times a visitor/user has visited a single page or the number of times they visit your entire online store over a given time period.

A payment gateway processes all your card payments, for both online and physical stores. Shopify itself has its own payment gateway, Shopify Payments, but it also supports over 100 other payment gateways, with many popular options such as PayPal, Stripe and Apple Pay.

These are a variety of third party companies which handle payments on behalf of a Shopify seller.

Point of Sale (POS), describes retail activity that takes place at a physical premises, and not online. POS systems, such as Shopify POS, enable merchants to process orders at a physical retail store or a pop-up shop at events. Shopify POS integrates such transactions with your online Shopify store.

A product description is a piece of text that sits alongside each product on your Shopify store which describes the product, its features and its attributes.

Product pages are those that individual products sit on, containing images about the product, a description, pricing and stock availability information.

Product variants refer to any of the different options available for a product, such as different sizes, colours and other variables. These are stored within your Shopify store as variants.

QA stands for Quality Assurance - the process of testing and maintaining set standards of a system. A QA is conducted before setting any website live to find bugs, compare the development work to the original design and check for any responsive design issues.

Ensuring web pages render well and are easy to use on all screen sizes such as desktop, mobile and tablet.

One or more locations where you can sell online. Your online store usually is your primary sales channel, but you may also sell on Amazon, Meta or TikTok.

A collection of customer profiles filtered by specific rules, such as amount of orders placed, or how many emails they've engaged with.

A session is a period of activity from visitor. Shopify measures your traffic in overall sessions over time.

The most advanced of all Shopify plans, Shopify Plus offers the most benefits and support and is therefore suited to the largest global Shopify merchants.

Tags are applied to products to help you categorise and group products into collections.

The files that control the look and feel of a Shopify store. From a technical standpoint, a Shopify theme combines HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Liquid, and image files into what shoppers see on screen, or the “front end”.

UI, or user interface, is the visual and aesthetic elements of a website. It includes the look and feel of the interface, the interactions (animations) as well as the layout and typography. On e-commerce websites, the goal of UI design is to create a appealing, recognisable (branded) and memorable shopping experience.

UX, or user experience, is the overall experience of using a website. It includes the information architecture, the usability, functionality, and overall satisfaction of the user. On e-commerce websites, the goal of UX design is to create a positive and seamless experience for users in order to increase their satisfaction, engagement, and conversion rates.

A bird’s eye view diagram that showcases your organisation’s infrastructure. The map illustrates how components in a system interact with one another.

Tools and data analysis techniques used to track and measure website traffic, user behaviour, and conversion rates on your Shopify store.

A way to connect your Shopify store with external apps or services, enabling real-time data updates and automation of tasks.

A feature that allows customers to save products they're interested in for future reference, making it easier for them to return and make a purchase later.

A file that helps search engines index your store's pages more efficiently, improving your SEO.

Integrating Xero, a popular accounting software, with your Shopify store for streamlined financial management, including tracking expenses, revenue, and taxes.