This glossary explains key terms used across Consumer & Retail, with a focused view of merchandising, store operations, inventory, omnichannel fulfillment, supplier management, payments, loss prevention, and performance measurement. It helps executives and practitioners navigate the language of the Specialty Retail Practice and apply it consistently in planning and operations.
0–9 A B C D E F G I L M N O P Q R S T U V W
| 0–9 | |
| 3DS | 3-D Secure: A cardholder-authentication protocol used to reduce fraud in online card transactions while supporting issuer liability-shift rules. |
| 3PL | Third-Party Logistics: The outsourcing of warehousing, transportation, fulfillment, or returns processing to a specialist provider. Retailers use these partners to add capacity, geographic reach, or logistics capabilities. |
| A | |
| ABC | ABC Inventory Analysis: A method that groups merchandise into priority tiers based on factors such as sales, margin contribution, or inventory value. It helps focus forecasting, replenishment, and control efforts on the most consequential items. |
| ADA | Americans with Disabilities Act: A U.S. civil-rights law that affects store accessibility, fitting rooms, checkout areas, websites, employment practices, and customer accommodations. |
| ADS | Average Daily Sales: Sales revenue or unit volume averaged across the days in a selected period. It supports demand planning, store comparisons, staffing, and inventory-cover calculations. |
| AOV | Average Order Value: Net order revenue divided by the number of orders, typically for a digital or omnichannel sales channel. It indicates basket economics and the impact of cross-selling, promotions, and free-shipping thresholds. |
| AP | Asset Protection: The retail function responsible for protecting merchandise, cash, employees, customers, facilities, and information. Its remit commonly includes theft prevention, investigations, fraud controls, and operational risk. |
| ASN | Advanced Shipping Notice: An electronic message detailing an inbound shipment before it arrives, often including purchase-order, carton, item, and quantity data. It improves receiving efficiency and inventory visibility. |
| ASP | Average Selling Price: Sales revenue divided by the number of units sold for a product, category, store, or period. It reveals the effects of assortment mix, pricing, discounts, and markdowns. |
| ATV | Average Transaction Value: Net sales divided by completed transactions, most often used for store or point-of-sale performance. It helps assess basket building, associate selling effectiveness, and promotional impact. |
| AUR | Average Unit Retail: Net retail sales divided by units sold. Merchandise teams use it to track the realized selling price and understand changes caused by product mix, promotions, and markdowns. |
| AUV | Average Unit Volume: Average annual sales generated by a store or other operating unit. It is used in store-economics analysis, network benchmarking, and new-location planning. |
| AVS | Address Verification Service: A payment-fraud control that compares billing-address information submitted by a customer with issuer records. It is particularly relevant to card-not-present orders. |
| B | |
| B&M | Bricks and Mortar: Physical retail stores and their operations, distinguished from digital-only channels. The term is commonly used when comparing channel economics, customer behavior, and fulfillment models. |
| BNPL | Buy Now, Pay Later: A payment arrangement that lets customers divide a purchase into installments, often through a third-party provider. Retailers evaluate its effects on conversion, basket size, fees, returns, and consumer compliance. |
| BOGO | Buy One, Get One: A promotion that provides a second item free or at a discount when a qualifying item is purchased. Careful setup is required to protect margin and apply eligibility rules correctly. |
| BOH | Back of House: Non-customer-facing store space used for receiving, storage, employee activities, administration, and order staging. Its layout and controls affect replenishment speed, inventory accuracy, and fulfillment productivity. |
| BOL | Bill of Lading: A transportation document describing the goods, shipper, consignee, and shipment terms. Receiving teams use it to verify deliveries and document shortages or damage. |
| BOPAC | Buy Online, Pick Up at Curbside: An omnichannel service in which a digital order is delivered to the customer outside the store. It requires accurate inventory, rapid picking, arrival communication, and controlled handoff processes. |
| BOPIS | Buy Online, Pick Up in Store: An omnichannel model in which customers place orders digitally and collect them at a physical location. Execution depends on reliable inventory availability, picking, staging, and customer notification. |
| BOPUS | Buy Online, Pick Up in Store: An alternative abbreviation for store pickup of digitally placed orders. It appears in retail systems, operating procedures, and channel-performance reporting. |
| BORIS | Buy Online, Return in Store: A cross-channel returns service that allows digital purchases to be returned at a physical location. It affects customer convenience, refund controls, inventory disposition, and store workload. |
| BOSS | Buy Online, Ship to Store: A fulfillment option in which merchandise is sent from another location to a chosen store for customer collection. It extends assortment availability without requiring every store to hold the item. |
| C | |
| C&C | Click and Collect: A general term for ordering through a digital channel and collecting the purchase at a store, locker, or designated pickup point. It is widely used outside North America for store-pickup services. |
| CAM | Common Area Maintenance: Charges allocated to shopping-center tenants for maintaining shared areas and services. These costs are an important component of store occupancy economics and lease negotiations. |
| CCTV | Closed-Circuit Television: A video-surveillance system used for loss prevention, incident investigation, safety, and operational monitoring. Deployment must account for privacy rules, retention practices, and access controls. |
| CNP | Card Not Present: A payment transaction in which the physical card is not presented to the merchant, as in online or telephone orders. These transactions require additional fraud screening and authentication controls. |
| COGS | Cost of Goods Sold: The recognized cost of merchandise sold during a period. It is deducted from net sales to calculate gross margin and is central to category, item, and store profitability analysis. |
| CPFR | Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment: A structured process through which retailers and suppliers share forecasts, inventory information, and replenishment plans. It aims to improve availability while reducing excess stock and supply-chain variability. |
| CPSC | Consumer Product Safety Commission: The U.S. federal agency responsible for regulating many consumer-product safety risks. Retailers may need to support product compliance, incident reporting, stop-sale actions, and recalls under its rules. |
| CVR | Conversion Rate: The percentage of store visitors or digital sessions that result in a transaction or order. It connects customer traffic with selling effectiveness and is sensitive to availability, service, price, and experience. |
| CVV | Card Verification Value: A security code printed on or associated with a payment card and used to help validate card-not-present purchases. Merchants must handle it according to payment-card security requirements. |
| D | |
| DC | Distribution Center: A facility that receives, stores, processes, and dispatches merchandise to stores or customers. Its throughput, inventory accuracy, and service levels directly affect availability and fulfillment cost. |
| DDP | Delivered Duty Paid: An Incoterms rule under which the seller bears responsibility for delivering goods to the named destination, including import clearance and duties. Buyers still need clear agreements covering unloading and local execution. |
| DIO | Days Inventory Outstanding: A financial measure estimating how many days inventory remains on hand before being sold. It helps executives assess working-capital efficiency and compare inventory intensity over time. |
| DOH | Days on Hand: The number of days current inventory is expected to support demand, based on a selected sales or usage rate. It is used operationally to identify shortages and excess stock. |
| DOM | Distributed Order Management: The process or system capability that routes customer orders across stores, distribution centers, suppliers, and fulfillment methods. It balances availability, delivery promises, capacity, and cost. |
| DOS | Days of Supply: An inventory-coverage measure expressing available stock as the number of forecast demand days it can support. It informs replenishment, allocation, and exception management. |
| DPT | Dollars per Transaction: Net sales divided by the number of completed transactions. It is a common store-performance measure of average basket value. |
| DTC | Direct-to-Consumer: A model in which a brand sells directly to end customers through its own stores or digital channels rather than relying exclusively on wholesale intermediaries. It changes margin structure, customer ownership, and operating requirements. |
| E | |
| EAN | European Article Number: The legacy name retained for a family of GS1 retail product identifiers and barcode symbols, most commonly the 13-digit format. It enables consistent item identification across suppliers, stores, and systems. |
| EAS | Electronic Article Surveillance: A loss-prevention system using tags or labels and detection gates to identify merchandise leaving a controlled area without authorized deactivation or removal. |
| EDI | Electronic Data Interchange: The standardized computer-to-computer exchange of business documents such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, and inventory reports. It reduces manual processing and improves supplier coordination. |
| EMV | Europay, Mastercard and Visa: The chip-payment specifications used for secure card-present transactions, including contact and contactless payments. Compliance affects terminal capabilities, authentication, and fraud liability. |
| EOQ | Economic Order Quantity: A model for determining the replenishment quantity that balances ordering costs with inventory-holding costs. Retail applications often adjust the result for case packs, minimums, lead times, and demand variability. |
| ESL | Electronic Shelf Label: A digitally controlled shelf-edge display for prices and product information. It can improve pricing accuracy and speed while requiring integration with item and pricing systems. |
| F | |
| FIFO | First In, First Out: An inventory method that assumes or operationally prioritizes the earliest-received merchandise for sale first. It affects inventory costing and can reduce aging, obsolescence, and product deterioration. |
| FOB | Free on Board: An Incoterms rule for sea and inland-waterway transport under which risk transfers when goods are loaded aboard the nominated vessel. Retail buyers use the named location and contract terms to clarify logistics responsibilities and landed cost. |
| FTC | Federal Trade Commission: The U.S. agency that enforces consumer-protection and competition laws affecting advertising, pricing claims, endorsements, subscriptions, warranties, and other retail practices. |
| G | |
| GLA | Gross Leasable Area: The floor area of a shopping property designed for tenant occupancy and exclusive use, generally measured to defined lease standards. It is used in property productivity, rent, and portfolio analysis. |
| GM | Gross Margin: Net sales less the cost of goods sold, expressed in currency or as a percentage of sales. It is a foundational measure for pricing, assortment, markdown, and vendor decisions. |
| GMROI | Gross Margin Return on Investment: Gross margin generated relative to the average cost value of inventory. It shows how productively merchandise investment produces margin and supports assortment and category comparisons. |
| GMROS | Gross Margin Return on Space: Gross margin generated per unit of selling space. It helps evaluate category adjacencies, fixture allocation, store layouts, and the productivity of constrained floor area. |
| GTIN | Global Trade Item Number: A globally standardized identifier assigned to a trade item. It supports product master data, barcode scanning, ordering, receiving, inventory control, and omnichannel listings. |
| I | |
| IMU | Initial Markup: The difference between an item’s original retail price and its merchandise cost, usually expressed in dollars or as a percentage of retail. It establishes the starting margin before markdowns and other reductions. |
| IPT | Items per Transaction: The average number of merchandise items sold in each completed transaction. It measures basket size and can indicate the effectiveness of attachment selling and promotions. |
| IRA | Inventory Record Accuracy: The degree to which system inventory quantities and locations match physically verified stock. High accuracy is essential for replenishment, pickup promises, fulfillment routing, and shrink diagnosis. |
| IST | Inter-Store Transfer: The movement of merchandise from one store to another to rebalance inventory, fill demand, or support a customer order. Transfer costs and lost selling time must be weighed against availability benefits. |
| L | |
| LFL | Like-for-Like: A performance comparison limited to a consistent set of stores or channels, excluding material effects from openings, closures, or acquisitions. It is used to assess underlying sales trends. |
| LIFO | Last In, First Out: An inventory-costing method that assumes the most recently acquired inventory is sold first for accounting purposes. It is permitted under U.S. accounting rules but not under International Financial Reporting Standards. |
| LP | Loss Prevention: The retail discipline focused on reducing theft, fraud, process failures, cash losses, and inventory shrink. It combines controls, analytics, training, investigations, and security technology. |
| LTL | Less Than Truckload: A freight service in which shipments from multiple customers share trailer capacity. It is commonly used for store and supplier shipments that are too large for parcel service but do not require a full truckload. |
| M | |
| MABD | Must Arrive By Date: The contractual deadline by which merchandise must reach a retailer’s specified location. It supports launch and seasonal timing and may be enforced through vendor-compliance penalties. |
| MAP | Minimum Advertised Price: The lowest price at which a reseller may advertise a supplier’s product under the supplier’s policy. It concerns advertised prices rather than necessarily determining the final selling price and must be managed with competition-law considerations. |
| MD | Markdown: A reduction from an item’s previous retail price, generally used to stimulate demand or clear aging, seasonal, or discontinued stock. Markdown timing materially affects sell-through and realized margin. |
| MFP | Merchandise Financial Planning: The process of setting and managing sales, margin, inventory, markdown, and purchase plans across merchandise hierarchies and time periods. It links strategic targets to assortment and buying decisions. |
| MMU | Maintained Markup: The markup actually retained after markdowns, discounts, and other retail reductions, relative to merchandise cost. Comparing it with initial markup shows how pricing actions and shrink affect realized profitability. |
| MOQ | Minimum Order Quantity: The smallest quantity a supplier will accept for an order or production run. It influences assortment breadth, inventory exposure, unit cost, and vendor negotiations. |
| mPOS | Mobile Point of Sale: A portable device or application that enables associates to complete transactions away from a fixed checkout. It can support line busting, assisted selling, clienteling, and mobile inventory lookup. |
| MSRP | Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price: The consumer price recommended by a manufacturer or brand owner. Retailers use it as a pricing reference while considering market conditions, agreements, margin, and applicable law. |
| N | |
| NFC | Near Field Communication: Short-range wireless technology used in contactless card and mobile-wallet payments. Compatible terminals enable tap-based checkout and related customer experiences. |
| NNN | Triple Net Lease: A lease structure under which the tenant generally pays property taxes, building insurance, and maintenance expenses in addition to base rent. It shifts significant occupancy-cost exposure to the retailer. |
| NRF | National Retail Federation: A U.S. retail trade association that provides policy advocacy, research, education, events, and operational resources. Its terminology and programs are frequently referenced by retail leaders. |
| O | |
| OCR | Occupancy Cost Ratio: Store occupancy expenses expressed as a percentage of sales. It helps evaluate lease affordability, store contribution, and location-portfolio performance. |
| OMS | Order Management System: A system that captures, tracks, orchestrates, and updates customer orders across channels and fulfillment locations. It supports inventory sourcing, status visibility, cancellations, and returns. |
| OOS | Out of Stock: A condition in which an item is unavailable at the location or channel where demand occurs. Persistent unavailability causes lost sales, substitution, poor customer experience, and distorted forecasts. |
| ORC | Organized Retail Crime: Coordinated, profit-motivated theft or fraud involving retail merchandise, often across multiple stores, channels, or jurisdictions. Addressing it requires intelligence, controls, investigations, and external collaboration. |
| OTB | Open to Buy: The amount available for additional merchandise commitments within a financial plan after accounting for planned sales, inventory, receipts, and reductions. It controls purchasing while preserving flexibility. |
| OTIF | On Time in Full: A supplier-service metric measuring whether orders arrive by the agreed date with the complete quantity requested. It is used in vendor scorecards, availability management, and compliance programs. |
| P | |
| P2PE | Point-to-Point Encryption: A payment-security approach that encrypts card data from the point of interaction until it reaches a secure decryption environment. Validated implementations can reduce exposure of store systems to sensitive payment data. |
| PCI DSS | Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard: A security standard governing how entities that store, process, or transmit payment-card data protect that information. Compliance affects checkout technology, networks, procedures, vendors, and incident response. |
| PI | Physical Inventory: A full or targeted count of merchandise used to verify stock and reconcile book inventory with actual quantities. Results support financial reporting, shrink measurement, and inventory correction. |
| PIM | Product Information Management: A system and governance process for maintaining product attributes, descriptions, dimensions, images, and channel-ready content. Accurate information supports item setup, selling, fulfillment, and customer trust. |
| PO | Purchase Order: A formal buyer document authorizing specified products, quantities, prices, delivery dates, locations, and commercial terms. It is the core transaction linking merchandise planning, suppliers, receiving, and settlement. |
| POG | Planogram: A visual specification showing how products should be positioned on fixtures or shelves. It translates assortment and space plans into store execution and supports compliance audits. |
| POS | Point of Sale: The hardware and software environment used to record sales, accept payment, apply prices and promotions, and process returns. Its data feeds inventory, finance, customer, and performance systems. |
| PSP | Payment Service Provider: A third party that enables merchants to accept and route electronic payments through one or more methods and acquirers. Provider selection affects authorization performance, fees, fraud tools, and channel integration. |
| Q | |
| QOH | Quantity on Hand: The recorded number of units physically held at a store, distribution center, or other inventory location. Reliable quantities are fundamental to availability, replenishment, and fulfillment promises. |
| R | |
| RDC | Regional Distribution Center: A distribution facility serving stores or customers within a defined geographic region. Regional placement can improve lead times, transportation efficiency, and inventory deployment. |
| RFID | Radio Frequency Identification: Technology that uses electronic tags and radio waves to identify merchandise without requiring line-of-sight scanning. Item-level applications can improve inventory accuracy, cycle counting, fulfillment, and loss prevention. |
| RMA | Return Merchandise Authorization: Formal approval and tracking information issued before merchandise is returned to a retailer, supplier, or service location. It helps control eligibility, routing, disposition, and financial reconciliation. |
| RMS | Retail Management System: A retail-focused platform supporting functions such as item management, pricing, inventory, purchasing, sales, and store operations. Its scope varies by provider and operating model. |
| ROP | Reorder Point: The inventory position that triggers a replenishment order. It is generally set using expected lead-time demand, service targets, and safety stock. |
| ROPO | Research Online, Purchase Offline: Customer behavior in which product discovery or evaluation occurs digitally but the transaction is completed in a physical store. It highlights the need to connect digital engagement with store conversion. |
| ROS | Rate of Sale: The speed at which an item sells, usually expressed as units or value per store and time period. It supports forecasting, replenishment, allocation, and lifecycle decisions. |
| RRP | Recommended Retail Price: The consumer selling price suggested by a manufacturer or supplier, particularly in markets outside the United States. It serves as a reference rather than necessarily fixing the retailer’s final price. |
| RSP | Retail Selling Price: The price at which merchandise is offered to the customer before or after applicable retail price adjustments, depending on the reporting convention. It is used in pricing, margin, and inventory valuation processes. |
| RTV | Return to Vendor: The process of sending damaged, defective, recalled, obsolete, or otherwise authorized merchandise back to a supplier. Accurate authorization and accounting are needed to recover credits and correct inventory. |
| S | |
| SFS | Ship from Store: An omnichannel fulfillment model in which store inventory is picked, packed, and shipped directly to a customer. It can improve inventory utilization and delivery speed but adds labor and process complexity. |
| SIS | Shop in Shop: A dedicated branded or category selling area operated within a larger host retailer. Commercial arrangements may involve concessions, leases, wholesale purchases, or revenue sharing. |
| SKU | Stock Keeping Unit: A retailer-defined identifier for a distinct sellable item or variant. It is the basic level for tracking price, sales, inventory, replenishment, and assortment performance. |
| SOH | Stock on Hand: Merchandise currently recorded as physically present at an inventory location. It is used for availability, stock-cover, replenishment, and order-sourcing decisions. |
| SPLH | Sales per Labor Hour: Sales revenue generated for each paid or worked labor hour. Store leaders use it to align staffing with demand while monitoring service levels and productivity. |
| SPSF | Sales per Square Foot: Sales generated per square foot of retail space over a defined period. It supports location comparisons, store-format decisions, and space-productivity analysis. |
| SSR | Stock-to-Sales Ratio: Inventory value or units divided by sales for a comparable period. Merchandise planners use it to assess whether stock levels are proportionate to expected demand. |
| SSS | Same-Store Sales: Sales growth for stores operating in both the current and comparison periods under a defined eligibility rule. It separates performance in the existing fleet from growth caused by openings or acquisitions. |
| ST | Sell-Through: The proportion of available merchandise sold during a specified period. It is used to monitor product acceptance, inventory productivity, lifecycle progress, and markdown needs. |
| T | |
| TI | Tenant Improvements: Construction and fit-out work performed to prepare leased premises for store operation. Lease negotiations typically define the scope, approvals, ownership, and landlord allowance for this work. |
| U | |
| UPC | Universal Product Code: A GS1 barcode symbol and identifier widely used on retail products in North America. Scanning supports checkout, receiving, inventory control, and item-level reporting. |
| UPH | Units per Hour: The number of items processed during each labor hour in activities such as receiving, picking, packing, replenishment, or cycle counting. It is a core productivity measure for operational tasks. |
| UPT | Units per Transaction: The average number of units sold in a completed transaction. It indicates basket depth and the effectiveness of attachment selling, bundles, and multi-item promotions. |
| V | |
| VMI | Vendor-Managed Inventory: A replenishment arrangement in which the supplier monitors agreed inventory and demand data and assumes responsibility for generating or recommending replenishment. Clear service levels and data governance are essential. |
| W | |
| WAC | Weighted Average Cost: An inventory-costing method that averages unit costs based on the relative quantities purchased or held. It smooths cost changes and supports inventory valuation and margin reporting. |
| WMS | Warehouse Management System: Software that directs inventory receipt, put-away, storage, picking, packing, counting, and shipping within a distribution facility. It improves location control, labor execution, and fulfillment accuracy. |
| WOC | Weeks of Cover: The number of weeks forecast demand can be supported by available or projected inventory. Planners use it to compare stock adequacy across items with different sales rates. |
| WOS | Weeks of Supply: Inventory on hand or available expressed as the number of forecast sales weeks it can cover. It is central to replenishment, allocation, and excess-inventory management. |
| WSSI | Weekly Sales, Stock and Intake: A merchandise-planning framework that tracks and forecasts weekly sales, inventory, receipts, markdowns, and related measures. It helps teams respond to trading performance while controlling seasonal inventory. |