The commerce operations glossary

An electronic packing list sent to the buyer before a shipment arrives.

The dominant North American EDI standard that defines how business documents are formatted.

A secure internet protocol for transmitting EDI documents directly between partners.

The uncommitted inventory a business can promise to new orders right now.

Selling to business buyers online, with account-specific pricing and terms.

The fixed number of units a product is packaged and sold in per case.

Coordinating catalog, inventory, and orders consistently across every sales channel.

Revenue minus variable costs, showing what each sale contributes to profit.

An explicit agreement on the shape, meaning, and quality of data passed between systems.

Any amount a buyer subtracts from an invoice payment.

Predicting future demand to guide purchasing and inventory decisions.

Using near-real-time signals to adjust short-term demand expectations.

The system for storing, organizing, and distributing product images and media.

A partner that buys inventory to resell it onward to retailers.

A model where the supplier ships directly to the end customer on a retailer’s behalf.

The electronic invoice a supplier sends to bill the buyer for shipped goods.

An EDI document communicating payment and remittance details.

An EDI document that shares a product catalog with prices between partners.

An EDI document that communicates product inventory availability between partners.

The electronic purchase order a buyer sends to a supplier to place an order.

Retailer sell-through and inventory-movement data shared back to the supplier.

The supplier’s electronic confirmation of a received purchase order.

A buyer’s electronic request to change a purchase order already sent.

An EDI document instructing a warehouse or 3PL to ship an order.

A warehouse or 3PL’s confirmation of exactly what shipped.

A technical receipt confirming an EDI document was received.

A standardized EDI document type identified by a number, like an 850 or 856.

The connection that turns inbound EDI documents into records inside an ERP or commerce system.

The international EDI standard used widely outside North America.

The standardized computer-to-computer exchange of business documents between trading partners.

The percentage of ordered units a supplier actually ships.

The standardized carton shipping label retailers require, carrying an SSCC.

A globally unique product identifier used across trading partners and marketplaces.

How closely recorded inventory matches what’s physically on hand.

Deciding how to divide finite inventory across channels and orders.

The convention of setting retail price at double the wholesale cost.

The full cost of a product delivered, including freight, duties, and fees.

The elapsed time from placing an order to receiving usable inventory.

A concise product-and-price document brands present to wholesale buyers.

The lowest price a reseller is permitted to advertise a product for.

The smallest order a supplier will accept, by units or dollar value.

Credit terms letting a buyer pay an invoice a set number of days after delivery.

The end-to-end process of getting an order from placement to the customer’s hands.

The system that captures, routes, and tracks orders across all channels.

The full cycle from receiving an order to collecting payment for it.

A retailer metric scoring whether shipments arrive on time and complete.

The structured, individual characteristics that describe a product.

Distributing consistent product content out to every sales channel and marketplace.

The practice and system for centralizing all product data as a single source of truth.

The inventory level that triggers placing a replenishment order.

A penalty a retailer deducts from a supplier’s payment for failing to meet its rules.

A retailer’s rulebook specifying exactly how suppliers must ship and label.

Buffer inventory held to absorb demand and supply variability.

The percentage of received inventory sold in a given period.

When a buyer pays less than the invoiced amount, usually via a deduction.

One authoritative record for a given piece of data that every system reads from.

A unique internal identifier for a distinct, sellable product variant.

Systematically pruning the product assortment to the SKUs that actually earn their place.

A unique 18-digit code identifying an individual shipping carton or pallet.

An outsourced provider that warehouses, picks, packs, and ships a brand’s orders.

The money brands pay retailers to promote and stock their products.

Any retailer, supplier, or marketplace a brand exchanges EDI documents with.

The 12-digit barcode standard used to identify retail products at point of sale.

A private network that routes EDI documents securely between trading partners.

Meeting all of a retailer’s operational rules to avoid penalties.

The system that runs day-to-day warehouse operations — receiving, slotting, picking, shipping.

Selling products in bulk to retailers or distributors who resell them.

The structured set of prices and terms a brand offers to wholesale accounts.