Commerce is full of terms that get used loosely — by agencies pitching decks, by platforms rebranding the same feature every year, by colleagues who learned the vocabulary without learning the mechanics. This glossary cuts through that. Every definition here is written to be actionable: what the term means, why it matters, and what it changes about how you operate.
Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)
Amazon's privacy-safe data clean room for advanced audience analysis, path-to-purchase measurement, and promo incrementality testing.
Read definition →JBP with Amazon
The Joint Business Plan — annual commercial alignment between brand and Amazon. Trade terms, media investment, content, and promotional support.
Read definition →Retail Media
Advertising sold by retailers against their first-party shopping data. Amazon dominates, but Walmart Connect, Carrefour Links, and Criteo all play.
Read definition →Amazon Rufus
Amazon's generative AI shopping assistant. Recommends products, compares options, and answers shopping questions in natural language.
Read definition →Vendor Central
Amazon's wholesale (1P) model — where Amazon buys your inventory and resells it. What you gain in simplicity, you give up in pricing control and margin visibility.
Read definition →Seller Central
Amazon's marketplace (3P) model — where brands sell directly to consumers. Pricing control and margin clarity, at the cost of operational complexity.
Read definition →Amazon DSP
Amazon's demand-side platform for programmatic display and video advertising — on Amazon properties and across the web, powered by first-party shopping data.
Read definition →A+ Content
Amazon's enhanced listing format — image modules, comparison charts, and brand narrative that replace the plain-text description. And why AI assistants like Rufus can't see most of it.
Read definition →Prime Day
Amazon's annual members-only shopping event that drives 35–45% of full-year category turnover in many CPG segments. Not a marketing add-on. The commercial backbone.
Read definition →Sponsored Products
Amazon's keyword-triggered CPC ads — the foundational retail media format. How ACoS and TACoS differ, and how the best brands use campaign data as a demand signal.
Read definition →Amazon Brand Registry
Amazon's gate for brand owners — unlocks Sponsored Brands, Brand Analytics, IP enforcement, and the tools that separate a brand from a generic seller listing.
Read definition →ASIN
Amazon's product identifier — and the most underestimated unit of strategy on the platform. Parent, child, variation, and the rules that decide what shows up in search.
Read definition →Buy Box
The Add to Cart button on every product page — and the single biggest revenue lever on Amazon. 80%+ of purchases flow through it.
Read definition →ACoS vs TACoS
The two metrics every Amazon advertiser quotes — and the difference between optimizing campaigns and managing a brand.
Read definition →New-to-Brand metric
Amazon's measure of customer acquisition — the only ad metric that distinguishes between a new buyer and a repeat purchase.
Read definition →Sponsored Brands
Amazon's banner ad format — three products, your logo, your tagline. The brand-building lever inside a search-driven platform.
Read definition →Sponsored Display
Amazon's audience-targeted ad format — runs on and off Amazon, retargets your viewers, defends against competitors.
Read definition →Subscribe & Save
Amazon's subscription program — and the most underrated retention tool in commerce. 5% per item, 15% with five subscriptions in one delivery.
Read definition →Hybrid 1P+3P model
Running Vendor Central and Seller Central in parallel — the dominant model for CPG brands at scale, and what it actually takes to run it well.
Read definition →Net Revenue Management on Amazon
The CPG profitability framework — pricing, promotion, assortment, distribution. Amazon breaks every assumption inside it.
Read definition →Digital shelf
Where shoppers see your product before they buy — search results, product pages, AI assistants, retailer apps. The shelf that decides whether you exist.
Read definition →GEO and AEO
Generative Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization — the disciplines replacing SEO as AI assistants take over discovery.
Read definition →a CRaP item on Amazon
Amazon's internal label for SKUs it cannot sell profitably. How it shows up, why it is a P&L problem and not a content problem, and the fixes that work.
Read definition →Net PPM on Amazon
Amazon's own yardstick for vendor profitability. What it counts, the thresholds brands cite by category, and why most teams never pull the number.
Read definition →Amazon chargebacks
Deductions Amazon takes straight from remittance for compliance failures. Typical cost, why nobody owns the number, and what is disputable.
Read definition →Amazon co op funding
The vendor funded allowance stack inside Amazon's annual terms. What co op, MDF and accruals mean, and why they decide your margin.
Read definition →Amazon Brand Analytics
The free report suite that shows how shoppers search for your category. What is inside, who gets it, and how to use it for strategy.
Read definition →share of search on Amazon
Your visibility across the queries that define the category. How to measure it on Amazon and why it moves before market share does.
Read definition →MAP (Minimum Advertised Price)
The lowest price a retailer may advertise. How MAP works on Amazon, who enforces it, and why Europe treats it very differently from the US.
Read definition →ROAS in retail media
Revenue divided by ad spend, and the most misread number in retail media. The break even math your CFO will ask for.
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