Glossary
The words of online selling, in plain English.
52 terms you will meet running a store in India, from COD remittance to HSN codes. Legal and tax entries are general descriptions; confirm the details for your business with your CA or lawyer.
A moving band of sample orders from Indian cities, with the item, amount, payment method and status. The orders are made up.
Payments
- Payment gateway
- The service that takes a buyer's UPI, card, netbanking or wallet payment and settles the money to your bank account, after its fee. It handles the card data, so your store does not have to. Read more
- UPI
- Unified Payments Interface, India's system for instant bank to bank payments from a phone. Most online buyers in India now expect to pay by UPI at checkout.
- Cash on delivery (COD)
- The buyer pays the courier in cash, or sometimes by UPI, when the parcel arrives. Popular with first time buyers, but it carries the risk of refused parcels. Read more
- COD remittance
- The money your courier or shipping service collected on COD orders, paid to you after delivery on an agreed cycle, less any charges.
- Settlement
- The transfer of collected payments from the gateway to your bank account, usually a day or more after the payment, minus fees and refunds.
- Chargeback
- A disputed card payment that the buyer's bank reverses. You can respond with proof of delivery; if you lose, the money is taken back.
- PCI DSS
- The security standard for handling card data. A payment gateway carries its own PCI DSS obligations; a store that sends buyers to the gateway's checkout does not store card numbers itself. Read more
- Payment link
- A link from your gateway that a buyer can open to pay a set amount. Handy for orders taken on WhatsApp or the phone.
Shipping and delivery
- Return to origin (RTO)
- A parcel that could not be delivered and is sent back to you. You usually pay shipping both ways, and the stock is out of reach while it travels. Read more
- NDR (non delivery report)
- The courier's notice that a delivery attempt failed, with a reason such as buyer unavailable or refused. Acting on it quickly can save the parcel from going back.
- AWB (air waybill)
- The tracking number and document a courier assigns to a parcel. It appears on the shipping label.
- Courier aggregator
- A shipping service that lets you book with several courier companies from one account, compare rates and print labels in one place. Read more
- Pincode serviceability
- Whether a courier delivers to a given pincode, and whether it offers COD there. Remote areas may be prepaid only.
- Volumetric weight
- A weight calculated from a parcel's dimensions. Couriers charge on whichever is higher, the actual or the volumetric weight, so large light boxes cost more than you expect. Read more
- Reverse pickup
- Collection of a returned item from the buyer's address by a courier, booked by the seller.
- Last mile
- The final leg of delivery, from the local courier hub to the buyer's door. Most failed deliveries happen here.
- Fulfilment
- Everything between a paid order and the parcel leaving: picking, packing, labelling and handing over to the courier. Read more
- Partial fulfilment
- Shipping part of an order now and the rest later, for example when one item is out of stock.
Catalogue and stock
- SKU
- Stock keeping unit: a code for one sellable item, such as a kurta in medium indigo. Every variant should have its own SKU. Read more
- Variant
- One version of a product that differs by an attribute, such as size, colour or pack size, with its own price and stock.
- Attribute
- A property that defines variants or helps filtering, such as size, colour, fabric or phone model.
- Stock sync
- Keeping one stock count up to date across every place you sell, so an item sold on one channel is not sold again on another. Read more
- Overselling
- Taking more orders than you have stock for, usually because channels were not in sync. It ends in cancellations and unhappy buyers.
- Safety stock
- A small buffer you hold back from sale so that counting errors and delays do not cause overselling.
- Cycle count
- Counting a small part of your stock every day or week, so the whole stock is counted through the year, to keep the numbers accurate. Read more
- Dead stock
- Items that have not sold for a long time. They tie up cash and shelf space.
Orders and returns
- Average order value (AOV)
- Total sales divided by the number of orders in a period. A simple way to see whether bundles and free shipping thresholds are working. Read more
- Abandoned cart
- A cart a shopper filled but did not pay for. Reminder messages can bring some back, with the shopper's consent.
- Exchange
- Replacing a returned item with another, often a different size or colour, in place of a refund.
- Store credit
- A balance on a buyer's account that they can spend on a future order, offered in place of a refund.
- Refund to source
- Returning money to the same UPI ID, card or account the buyer paid with, through the gateway.
- Order confirmation call
- A call or message to confirm a COD order before dispatch. It catches mistaken and fake orders before you pay for shipping.
Tax and rules
- GSTIN
- Your Goods and Services Tax identification number. Online sellers generally need to register for GST; confirm your case with your CA. Read more
- HSN code
- The Harmonised System of Nomenclature code that classifies goods for GST. It decides the rate and appears on invoices. Your CA should confirm the code for each product.
- Place of supply
- The rule that decides whether a sale carries IGST, or CGST and SGST. For goods shipped to a buyer, it generally depends on where they are delivered.
- TCS under GST
- Tax collected at source by e-commerce operators such as marketplaces on sales made through them. It shows in your GST returns as a credit. Ask your CA how it applies to you.
- Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020
- Rules that set duties for online sellers and marketplaces in India, such as showing seller details, return and refund policies, and having a grievance officer. Confirm the details with your lawyer. Read more
- Legal Metrology declarations
- Details such as net quantity, MRP and the maker's or packer's name and address that the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules require for pre-packaged goods, including when sold online. Confirm the list for your products with your adviser.
- DPDP Act, 2023
- India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act. Shopper names, phone numbers and addresses are personal data, and the Act sets duties on how you collect, use and protect them. Read more
- Grievance officer
- The person named on your store to receive and resolve buyer complaints, as the e-commerce rules expect.
Marketing and growth
- Conversion rate
- The share of visits that end in an order. A store with 2,000 visits and 30 orders in a week converts at 1.5%.
- Repeat purchase rate
- The share of customers who order more than once in a period. For consumables it often matters more than new traffic.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- What you spend on ads and offers to win one new customer. Compare it with what that customer is worth over time.
- D2C
- Direct to consumer: a brand selling its own products to buyers through its own store, alongside or ahead of retailers and marketplaces. Read more
- Marketplace
- A website where many sellers list products and the marketplace runs the storefront, payments and often delivery, for a commission. Read more
- Meta title and description
- The title and short summary a search engine may show for a page. Every product and category page should have its own.
- 301 redirect
- A permanent redirect from an old address to a new one. Essential when you move platforms, so search visits and links still work. Read more
Technology
- Headless commerce
- Running the store's back end (catalogue, cart, orders) separately from the front end shoppers see, connected by an API. Useful for custom front ends, more work to run.
- API
- Application programming interface: a defined way for other software to read and change your store's data, such as orders or stock. Read more
- Webhook
- A message the store sends to another system the moment something happens, such as a new order, so that system can act straight away.
- Managed hosting
- Hosting where the provider looks after servers, updates and backups for you. On ShopenUp's managed plans this is handled by the Code Colonies team. Read more
- Role based access
- Giving each person in your team access only to the parts of the admin they need, such as packing or accounts.
See the store running with your own products.
Send a few products and your trickiest order. The demo shows them in the admin and on a storefront, with a plain list of native and custom parts.