Posts Tagged ‘Glossary’
Glossary of Not-So-Common Retailing Terms
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
Have you heard some terms that you do not know what they mean? Do you appear to have the ‘dear in the headlights’ look when someone mentions a term that you should know, but do not? Below is a list of 20 not-so-common retailing terms. If you are just entering into the retail business, these terms will help to indoctrinate your lingo in the retailing industry.
Ad Impressions: Ad impressions are simply the number of times an ad is made available for consumers to view the product or service. These are also known as banner impressions.
Asset Protection: Assets protection is also known as loss prevention. Loss prevention is where steps are taken to stop or reduce the possibility of loss from shoplifting, employee theft, poor safety procedures, and errors in paperwork.
Business-to-Government: Business-to-Government, or B2G, is that the company’s primary focus is on working with government agencies. This can be at the national, state or local level.
Balanced Scorecard: The balanced scorecard is the strategic management system that is measurement-based. It was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. The balanced scorecard aligns the business activities with the strategic goals, monitoring the performance of the goals over time. It also details what needs to be measured to ensure the effectiveness of the strategies.
CLV: CLV, or customer lifetime value, is the current value of the potential future income that is generated by an individual purchaser.
Co-op Advertising: Co-op advertising is also known as the Cooperative Advertising or Cooperative Program. The co-op advertising is the ad costs divided between two or more companies.
Depth of Assortment: This is the number of brands or styles within a product line or classification of merchandise, also known as product depth.
Fractional Tagging: This is where the EAS tags are applied to a percentage of units during production.
GAF: GAF is an acronym for General merchandise, apparel, and furniture. These are the items that stores sell which are normally sold at department stores.
Halo Effect: This is connected to the electronic article surveillance system in that people will have the perception that untagged merchandise is protected with the EAS, simply because other items within the store are protected.
Journal Roll: This otherwise known as the journal tape that is either paper or electronic, recording the transactions from the cash register.
Keystone Markup: Also known as retail pricing, the keystone markup is the equivalent of the cost of the merchandise and doubling it to determine the retail price.
Mazur Plan: This is where the retail store activities are divided into four sections-merchandising, publicity, store management and control.
Narrow and Deep: This is a sales approach where the retailer will only sell a few selected items but have a lot of the product available.
Objective-and-Task Method: A budget technique that relates the sales objective with the advertising budget. This is also referred to as the advertising budget preparation.
Push Money: This is the employee sales incentive in the form of cash premiums, prizes, or additional commission for effectively pushing or increasing sales for an identified product or merchandise.
Step Theory: The step theory is where a customer will go through a decision making process-attention, interest, desire and action.
Universal Vendor Marking: This is where manufacturers will pre-mark the merchandise that is easily read by both people and machines.
Variable Markup Policy: This is a policy that allows for adjusting markups that is based on a classification of particular merchandise.
Wheel of Retailing: Wheel of retailing is a theory that is used to explain the institutional changes that occur when innovators enter the retail industry.
Tags: Glossary, larry Slusser, retail, retailing terms, Small Business Resources, Starting a Business, tools
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A Glossary of Common Product Sourcing Terms
Friday, February 15th, 2008
If you are considering buying products wholesale, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with common industry terms. That way you won’t find yourself in a situation where you’re agreeing to something that you thought meant something else! Here is a list of some of the most common terms you’ll come across when trying to source products:
Backorder - A product that is unable to ship because of a lack of inventory.
Bulk - Items that are sold in large quantities. Typically, bulk merchandise is sold at a significant discount.
Case lot - Products packaged and sold by the boxful.
Closeouts - merchandise that is being sold below the original wholesale cost. The condition of the merchandise can vary from new (overstocks ) to junk (salvage).
Dropshipping - A method of selling where the retailer does not stock goods, but instead takes customer orders and sends them to a wholesaler, who in turn ships out the orders.
Factory authorized wholesaler - A supplier that has been chosen by a manufacturer to sell their products.
Factory overruns - A production run that went over the scheduled amount, resulting in excess inventory.
Factory overstocks - Stock that was left over after a particular selling season.
Factory direct - Buying products directly from the manufacturer, without having to go through any middlemen.
Light bulk - Bulk quantities with a total price that is less than $500.
Liquidation products - Products that were sold at a discount (many times less than the production cost) in order to turn the slow-moving inventory into cash.
Minimum order - The minimum purchase that is required in order to place an order.
Pallet lots - Products packaged and sold by the pallet. A standard wooden pallet is 40″ by 48″ and cartons of goods are packed as high as can be safely moved by a forklift into a cargo truck.
Prepack - Assorted merchandise with pre-determined colors, styles and/or sizes.
Prepay - A payment that is due before the merchandise is shipped to the buyer.
Refurbished products - Products that have been used (and possibly previously defective), but have been restored to full working condition. However, they may or may not come in original packaging or include instructions and accessories.
Replica products - Products that look similar to a name brand but do not use the name-brand logo or name. Replica products are different from “knockoffs” or counterfeit merchandise which intentionally use name branding and logos to represent the product as the actual brand name.
Customer Returns - These are products that were bought by customers and then returned to a retailer. They may be new and unopened, used, defective or have missing parts.
Salvage and Surplus - Discounted products that vary in functionality, appearance or both. Typically, salvage products are junk and only good for parts, while surplus products may be new (though rare), used or defective.
Shelf Pulls - Products that were previously on the shelf in a retail store but were never sold. They may have multiple price tags/stickers on the packaging or they may have been display models showing use and missing parts.
Truckload - The largest of wholesale lots. A truckload can vary from 5,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds worth of products, enough to fill a good portion of a delivery truck’s trailer.
As you can see, wholesale merchandise can vary from new and unopened to junk good only for parts. Before making a wholesale purchase, always ask the condition of the merchandise and, if possible, take a look at the merchandise in person. In the wholesale industry, it’s important to always check the reputation of a company you are considering making a purchase from.
Tags: Carrie Hinkel, customer returns, Glossary, Product Sourcing, small business resource, source, surplus, wholesale
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Web Design Lingo
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
In order to effectively communicate with your website developer, it’s helpful if you actually understood the technical terms he or she uses. Here’s a list of some of the most common terms your web developer might use when talking with you and, of course, their definitions.
Common Terms Every Website Owner Should Know
If you think of any more, let us know and when we accumulate enough we’ll do a follow up article with more terms!
Tags: Business, E-Business, E-Commerce and E-Business, Glossary, List, Starting a Business, Terms, Web Design
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Understanding Your Web Developer - Common terms every website owner should know
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
In order to effectively communicate with your website developer, it’s helpful if you actually understood the technical terms he or she uses. Here’s a list of some of the most common terms your web developer might use when talking with you and, of course, their definitions.
Common Web Developer Terms
Browser - The computer software that users rely on to see pages on the World Wide Web. PC users typically browse with Internet Explorer, while Mac users rely on Safari. Both PC and Mac users can also use Firefox.
Cache - The storage file where your browser keeps temporary files and information from a website for a possible later use.
Content - Everything that is seen on a web page. It could be text, pictures, graphics, video, etc.
Cookies - Small files that websites use to keep information on your computer so that when you return, the site can “remember” you, i.e. a cookie stored on your computer by an online store you’ve purchased from will automatically log you in to your account the next time you visit.
Copy - The typed text on any web page.
Domain names - The actual name of a website. For example, goWholesale.com is a domain name.
Download - To copy a file from one computer to another.
FTP - This stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is the most commonly used form of uploading files from your computer to your web hosting server to then publish to your website.
Firewall - Security hardware or software that companies use to ensure that certain types of files don’t get into the network.
Flash - An animated graphic design program for websites.
GIF or JPG (aka JPEG) - these are both common file formats for images.
HTML - This stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Every website is written in this language.
Hyperlink - Either an image or piece of text on a web page that, when clicked on, will take you to another web page.
ISP - This stands for Internet Service Provider. It is a company that provides computers with access to the Internet.
JavaScript - This is another website scripting language, which is used in conjunction with HTML to provide additional functionalities on a website.
Link - A word, phrase or sentence on a website that, when clicked on, will take you to another web page.
Meta tags - Words and code embedded in a webpage. They provide information to search engines about a web page’s content. Search engines will then use this information to rank websites in their natural listings.
Pop-ups - Unsolicited ads that “pop up” on a computer screen, without being clicked on first.
Spiders - A search engine’s indexing program that allows it to share your website’s information on their natural listings.
Spyware - Software that is used by companies to unknowingly track information from a user’s computer.
URL - This stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is the whole web address, such as http://www.gowholesale.com
Web Hosting - A company that allows computer users to store text, images, files, video and more on their online storage systems.
Many of these terms you may already be familiar with. So, next time you talk to your web developer, you can feel confident that you’ll actually know what he or she is talking about!
Tags: Carrie Hinkel, Glossary, Terms, Web Design, web developer, website
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