The Spryker Glossary: Digital Commerce Terms Explained

The world of digital commerce is filled with specialized terminology. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or just starting out, our glossary provides clear, concise definitions for all the essential terms you’ll encounter.

The Spryker Glossary: Digital Commerce Terms Explained

The world of digital commerce is filled with specialized terminology. Whether you're a seasoned expert or just starting out, our glossary provides clear, concise definitions for all the essential terms you'll encounter.

A

A/B Testing
Often used in marketing, A/B or split testing is where you compare two different versions of something - commonly, a web page.

API (Application Programming Interface)
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are software interfaces that allow efficient communication between different pieces of software. An API consists of definitions and protocols that precisely determine how the responding system will react when a specific request is made.

B

B2B2C
B2B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) is a business model in which a company partners with another company to reach a consumer and offer extra added value. How the partnership creates additional value for the consumer can take myriad forms. However, a crucial distinction is that the customer permanently recognizes each brand and its input in the transaction.

Best-of-Breed
Best-of-breed refers to your e-commerce technology stack approach.

Best-of-Suite
Best-of-suite is the opposite approach to best-of-breed.

Brownfield
In the world of urban planning, brownfield refers to any previously developed land.

C

Cloud Commerce
Cloud commerce is outsourcing infrastructure, management, and development of e-commerce solutions. Businesses can access these services through online channels and API integrations that they configure for their needs. Companies pay only for the services they hire instead of investing in their development and continuous maintenance.

CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)
CLV measures just how valuable a customer is to your business – not just on a purchase-by-purchase level, but across the entire potential relationship.

Composable Commerce
Composable Commerce is a way for businesses to build their e-commerce taking a best-of-breed approach, thus applying customization to solve their specific challenges.

E

Enterprise marketplace
An enterprise marketplace is an e-commerce platform provided by a traditional vendor or brand that opens its audience to allow third-party vendors to sell their services or products. The business logic behind them is: Improving the customer’s experience by increasing the assortment of products offered Minimizing costs through savings in warehouse capabilities Avoiding the effort required in logistics and fulfillment processes Profiting from additional sources of revenue through fees paid by vendors

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
ERP is the process by which companies manage and integrate various important parts of their business, such as inventory management, marketing, finance, etc.

F

FeS (Front-end Enablement Service)
FeS refers to the Spryker solution which allows e-commerce customers to build, test, and launch codeless digital storefronts with a focus on intuitive customer experience.

Fulfilment
E-commerce fulfilment is referring to the process of completing an order, i.e., when a customer orders a product online, you as the merchant then complete the sale, and.

G

Gateway (also known as Payment Gateway)
In order to enable customers to buy online, e-commerce providers must be able to authorize credit cards and direct payments.

Glue API
The Spryker GLUE API is a system based on JSON REST API functionalities. Its technology is built to ensure the system’s efficient functioning, flexibility in the application, and the system’s security. It uses REST APIs to connect the Spryker Commerce OS backend to various third-party systems.

Greenfield
Greenfield is a software development methodology that creates software from scratch. The greenfield approach is considered more flexible but also more complex. In opposition, the brownfield software development methodology is the one where software is developed within an existing and constraining predefined structure.

H

Headless Commerce
While traditional architectures are characterized by having a strong link between the back-end and the front-end (since their codebase is shared, they are in fact two components of the same "monolith"), in a headless architecture the approach is different: the back-end becomes a module in its own right with the task of exposing APIs to access content, the APIs will be consumed by a multiplicity of front-ends (website, app, IoT), with no technological constraints other than to comply with API documentation.

I

Inventory
Inventory is the physical amount of tangible goods, products, or services you offer your customers.

ISS (Infinity Shopping Shelf)
Infinity Shopping Shelves (ISS) are purely digital shelves that enable an unlimited presentation of products at stores or other convenient selling points. ISS are designed to support the purchasing journey and include capabilities to display product information, print coupons or information, place orders, process payments, and create personalized content for customers.

M

Marketplace
Marketplaces enable several vendors and potential customers to connect on one platform, offering a diverse selection of product and material sources from more than one geographical location.

Merchant
In the e-commerce context, a merchant is a seller of products or services in an online shop.

Microservices
Microservices are a container-based architectural approach to building applications. Each application is made up of multiple, small and independent components. This allows services to scale or update independently without affecting performance or functionality of others in the application.

MOAs (Marketplace Operation Applications)
Gartner defines marketplace operation applications as those which enable existing e-commerce owners to transform their sites into online marketplaces.

Modular Architecture
Modular architecture is represented by the design and use of a system built by components (modules) that function independently, but are interconnected.

Monolithic Architecture
This approach refers to software architecture that is composed in one unified model.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
An MVP is a basic or early draft version of a product or service which is released with the intention of gathering feedback for further improvement and development.

P

PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)
PaaS is a cloud computing model which outsources responsibilities such as servers, storage, virtualization and others, from the company to the vendor. This frees the business to provide only data and applications.

PBCs (Packaged Business Capabilities)
Packaged Business Capabilities is a Gartner-defined term used to describe an independent assembly of features that are grouped into larger clusters. These functionalities connect via APIs and target specific business tasks.

PIM (Product Information Management)
A PIM system is used to manage and distribute data for various sales channels, including e-commerce sites or apps, marketplaces, social media, and more.

POS (Point-of-Sale System)
The POS is where the real transaction takes place between seller and buyer.

Pure Marketplace
A pure marketplace is a platform where only third-party merchants sell goods, in comparison to an enterprise marketplace – where the operator is also a seller.

S

SDKs (Software Development Kits)
SDKs are collections of software development tools neatly packaged into installable units.

Smart Shelf
Smart shelves consist of a range of technologies that empower retailers to give a better purchasing experience for the customer and obtain gains in the optimization of the supply chain, inventory management, and dynamic pricing. For this purpose, digital price tags, cameras, sensors, and RDIF tags are connected to enable the information flow.

State Machine
A state machine is a programming architecture that helps implement complex scenarios by defining them in terms of states, inputs, and transitions. They describe the characteristics of each state, the possible inputs that are compatible with that state, and the actions that these inputs trigger. The movement from one state to another due to input action is called a transition.

T

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)
TCO is a very common term in e-commerce, generally referring to the total long-term cost of a project, i.e.

TTM/T2M (Time to Market)
Quite simply, TTM is the total length of time it takes from a product or service being conceived until it is commercially available.

V

Voice Commerce
Voice commerce is a specific form of voice search in which the customer uses voice commands to interact with a voice-enabled device (smartphone, tablet, smart speaker, smart home devices) throughout the purchasing process. Voice commerce is powered by various AI algorithms that allow voice assistants to interpret what users mean and act accordingly.

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