Shopify Glossary: Your Ultimate Shopify Dictionary

Struggling to make sense of all the Shopify ecommerce terms? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve created this Shopify glossary—your go-to resource for decoding key concepts and features. 

No matter whether you are a new store owner, the rising eCommerce brand, or just some developer acting behind-the-scenes, here is your guide to go around Shopify with ease. So, no need to worry about technical jargon—they’re simple and clear. These Shopify terms and definitions will help you make the most of the platform.

Let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of Shopify!

1. Shopify Introduction

Shopify is one of the best platforms used for eCommerce. It allows businesses to engage in various activities, from creation to customization, while making online stores possible. Whether you are running a small business or an enterprise, Shopify has offerings including product management features, payment processing capabilities, marketing tools, and analytics.

If you’re just getting started with Shopify, take advantage of Shopify 3 months for $1—the perfect low-risk way to explore the platform. 

💡In case you’re looking for a detailed analysis of the features and pricing of Shopify, visit our Shopify Review and Shopify Pricing Plan Review.

Do not allow any waiting moment. This is where your eCommerce empire starts. Now, let’s break down the must-know Shopify terminology to help you navigate like a pro! And when you’re set, don’t miss our How to launch a Shopify store, a guide for step-by-step Shopify store setup.

2. List of Shopify Glossary

2.1. Shopify Development

Shopify API: An API (Application Programming Interface) is a collection of rules and protocols. It allows communication and interaction with other software applications. The Shopify API enables actions such as retrieving product information, updating inventory levels, and processing orders. It also synchronizes data between Shopify and other systems.

Shopify Hydrogen: This is a react-based framework which is used to build the front end of a headless eCommerce website.

Shopify Liquid: Liquid is the programming language of Shopify. Liquid is a template language, used by Shopify to allow modifications on the part of the user in the store and outputs. It is a flexible and open-source language, allowing anyone to access and customize it for their Shopify store.

Shopify Metafields: Metafields on Shopify are custom fields that provide additional information for products, collections, customers, orders, blogs, and pages. They provide you with other options to save and manage additional data that Shopify doesn’t handle by default. This allows you to extend standard features offered by the platform. For instance, you can save extra details about a product, shipping information, or content that is different from what is normally available on your site.

Shopify Metaobjects: Metaobjects in Shopify are employed by application developers and store owners to add custom fields for data not encompassed by default options in Shopify. By using Metaobjects, you can structure this data and link it to other data related to products, collections, etc. This creates more dynamism and personalization in your store. For instance, you can add size charts, clothing styles, and ambassador profiles.

Shopify Oxygen: Shopify Oxygen is a hosting solution designed specifically for Hydrogen-powered storefronts. This hosting service launched to provide a facility for hosting headless React-based Hydrogen stores. Therefore, the platform allows merchants to deploy and manage hydrogen storefronts directly on Shopify. This eliminates the need to spend extra money on third-party hosting service providers.

Shopify Page Builder: Shopify Page Builder refers to tools and apps that give merchants the ability to create and edit their Shopify store pages. These tools allow merchants to do so without writing code.These builders come with drag-and-drop capabilities, templates, and design elements. They provide enough flexibility for users to design landing pages, product pages, and blogs with ease

Shopify Redirects: A feature that automatically sends visitors and search engines from outdated or broken URLs to new, functioning ones. This can be especially useful when restructuring a store, renaming product pages, or migrating from another platform.

Shopify Themes: A Shopify theme is a pre-designed template that dictates how an online store will look and behave on the Shopify platform. In essence, it provides the skeleton for everything visual and the structure of the layouts. It also includes the building blocks of features for all aspects of the store, such as the header, footer, product listings, navigation menus, and the checkout process.

2.2. Shopify Payments & Finance

Shopify Capital: Shopify Capital is a financing program that provides cash advances and loans to qualified businesses. These are based on the store’s location, history, usage, and interaction with the Shopify platform. The funds from Shopify Capital can be used to help you fund growth and operations of your business such as new inventory, marketing initiatives, rent for a physical retail space, or hiring employees.

Shopify Checkout: The checkout is the last step of the purchase process in e-commerce. Here, customers check their cart, fill in shipping information, select payment options, enter discount codes, and finalize the purchase.

Shopify EP for Merchants: Shopify EP refers to orders which are shipped with the Shopify Shipping system using third-party carriers. In Shopify EP, “EP” refers to a specialized logistics service that Shopify uses to handle and manage deliveries. This service integrates multiple third-party carriers and fulfilment centres which allows shipping packages in a fast and dependable manner.

Shopify Fees: Shopify fees consist of an array of different fee categories. The major categories are subscription fees, transaction fees, payment processing fees, app fees, theme fees, and other service fees like fulfillment fees and third-party integration fees.

Shopify Payment: Shopify Payments is Shopify’s built-in payment gateway. It lets you accept and manage payment proceedings with customers, including credit card payments. The advantage of choosing Shopify Payments instead of a third-party gateway processing is that they will waive transaction fees.

Shopify POS: This is the point of sale where sales are being made and payments accepted by the brick and mortar shop. It helps in selling goods in any physical location like stores, pop-ups, markets, and events.

Shopify Shop Pay: Shop Pay is a payment method that provides a fast checkout experience at Shopify stores. It allows customers to securely save email addresses, payment details, and billing information for future purchases.

Shopify Subscription: Shopify subscriptions app is built into your store admin, which allows you to sell products on a recurring delivery basis. The app allows you to set delivery frequency tiers (weekly, monthly, or yearly) and discounts on repeat purchases.

2.3. Shopify Store & Product Management

Shopify Bundle: Shopify’s Bundles app is a free tool that helps merchants create and manage fixed product bundles or multipacks directly from the Shopify admin. It is available with any of the Shopify plans.

Shopify B2B: B2B, which stands for business to business, refers to transactions between businesses. It’s a set of native features that allows you to sell B2B within the Shopify admin and online store.

Shopify Expansion Stores: Expansion Store is another owned store with your Shopify Plus account. The Shopify expansion store operates separately from your main store. It allows for distinct products, branding, and a unique domain name.

Shopify Fulfillment Network: This is the fulfillment service of Shopify which allows brands to store inventories and fulfill their customer orders. It comprises a network of fulfillment centers in the USA that handle both domestic and international shipments. Shopify works with USPS, DHL, UPS, Canada Post, and numerous regional mail carriers to deliver customer orders.

Shopify Marketplace: Shopify Marketplace is an eCommerce model where you create a platform using Shopify. It allows multiple vendors to list and sell their products through your store. This setup allows sellers to reach a broader audience while you manage the marketplace infrastructure.

Shopify Multi-Currency: Shopify multi-currency allows you to choose currencies for your store. You can select from a list of over 130 currencies worldwide

Shopify Minimum Order Quantity: A minimum order quantity (MOQ) is the least number of products that must be bought as one order from any vendor. A supplier sets the MOQ to ensure profit and avoid wasting resources on unprofitable orders.

Shopify Product Variants: A product variant is a specific version or model of a product. It differs slightly from other options offered by the same manufacturer. The differences can include features, specifications, colors, sizes, and/or any of the other attributes that differentiate one variant from another.

Shopify SKU: SKU (Stock-Keeping Unit) is a precise and unique code to keep track and manage your inventory. You will get an SKU when creating a product on Shopify. Assigning SKU has so many advantages as it makes the inventory control less difficult, efficient, and easy. Additionally, it helps identify key product characteristics such as brand name, color, size, and style.

Shopify Stores: Shopify Stores are online stores built on Shopify. This eCommerce platform gives merchants the ability to sell their products or services to buyers online. The online stores help businesses of all sizes scale and streamline their operations easily.

Shopify Wholesale: Shopify wholesale is simply the act of selling direct B2B or wholesale products online on an eCommerce store running on Shopify.

2.4. Shopify Marketing & SEO

Shopify Email Marketing: Email marketing is emailing your current and potential customers about products, services, sales while maintaining contact with them. It’s fully integrated into the Shopify store with various email marketing services. Store owners can use these services or Shopify’s own email marketing product.

Shopify Google Analytics: A built-in integration that allows digital store owners to track customer behavior using a web analytics tool. It helps merchants monitor visitor demographics, conversion rates, and marketing performance to optimize their store’s growth and efficiency.

Shopify Google Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager is a tool that fires your tracking code according to defined rules. Google Tag Manager is not a replacement for Google Analytics. Instead, you can use it to add Google Analytics tracking codes (tags) to your site or deploy code snippets by setting rules for when each tag should fire.

Shopify Meta Description: It is the small piece of text that is shown in search engine results after the title tag. You can create meta descriptions for the web page, product pages, collection pages, and blog posts in Shopify.

Shopify Meta Title: A meta title, also referred to as a title tag, refers to the title of a page that works as a short summary of the web page content. It is a part of the search snippet in search engine results pages (SERPs) and is also displayed in the browser tab.

Shopify SEO: Shopify SEO is the term used to refer to built-in tools and strategies offered by Shopify for the improvement of organic visibility of stores. Such would include customizable meta tags, automatic sitemaps, and mobile-friendly themes, leading to better optimization of speed, content, and site structure towards a higher search ranking.

Shopify Sitemap: This file lists all the pages and content on a website, including each page, product, or material you want search engines to index. This offers clearer guidelines to search engines in understanding your website.

Shopify Schema Markup: The Shopify schema markup brings structured information that enables search engines to understand the content of your store better. It gives them the character of the products, their reviews, and the pricing, which improves the visibility in the search results. With schema markup, Shopify merchants are capable of boosting SEOs, getting higher click-through rates, and attracting more relevant traffic to the store.

Shopify Tags: Tags in Shopify are the labels inclined on grouping the data present within your Shopify store about products, customers, orders, and so on. That makes backend tasks simple and allows one to look for more customer-specific search.

2.5. Shopify Analytics & Reporting

Shopify Analytics: Shopify Analytics is an internal feature of the Shopify platform that tracks and records sales, customer activity, and visitor data from your store. Shopify reports include various types, such as financial, product analytics, acquisition, inventory, and behavior reports.

Shopify Conversion Rate: The conversion rate represents the proportion of website visitors who take a specific action, such as purchasing a product, subscribing to a newsletter, or adding an item to their cart.

Shopify Reports: Reports compile your store’s data and present it in both graph and table formats, categorized by topic. Shopify provides a list of default reports, which you can customize to fit your specific needs.

Shopify Speed Score: Shopify Speed Score is a performance metric that tells how fast a Shopify store loads its pages. Shopify calculates this score using Google Lighthouse metrics from the homepage, top product page, and top collection page. The higher the score, the better performance for user experience, which means even how high the conversion rate could be.

Shopify Statistics: Shopify Statistics refers to the data and insights collected from a Shopify store. It include metrics on sales, customer behavior, traffic sources, and product performance. These statistics help merchants analyze trends, optimize marketing strategies, and improve overall business performance using Shopify’s built-in analytics and reporting tools.

2.6. Shopify Automation & AI Technology

Shopify Flow: Shopify Flow is an automation tool provided by Shopify that enables merchants to design custom workflows and automate routine tasks in their ecommerce operations. It helps streamline processes like order fulfillment, inventory tracking, customer segmentation, and marketing campaigns.

Shopify Magic: Shopify Magic is an AI-driven suite of tools by Shopify. In essence, it helps merchants automate or enhance several aspects of their business. Its features include AI-generated product descriptions, smart replies for customer service, and predictive analytics. Additionally, it offers many other AI-driven capabilities to improve efficiency, streamline operations, and ultimately boost sales.

Shopify Sidekick: an AI-powered personal assistant designed to help merchants start, manage, and grow their businesses on Shopify. Integrating with Shopify Magic, it utilizes Shopify’s data and knowledge to personalize support services. This helps streamline tasks and optimize efficiency in store management.

2.7. Shopify Security & Operations

Shopify ADA Compliance: Shopify ADA compliance means making the store accessible easily to disabled individuals using the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) principles. This practice includes implementing several features; a screen reader comes into the first option.

Shopify Fraud Prevention: Shopify Fraud Prevention consists of those software solutions and capabilities that Shopify offers. It assists merchants in identifying and preventing fraudulent transactions. Fraud assessments, risk assessments based on machine learning, third-party fraud prevention applications, and Shopify Protect for eligible orders/accounting for fraud prevention tools. Such measures help store owners in reducing chargebacks or unauthorized transactions or any fraudulent activity.

Shopify IP Address: The Shopify IP address refers to the specific Internet Protocol address (IP) that is assigned to servers on the Shopify network. Merchants use it for domain setup, email authentication, and security services. In some cases, they may need to obtain Shopify’s IP address to configure third-party services like custom domains, firewalls, or email providers.

Shopify Maintenance Service: Shopify maintenance is an ongoing process that ensures maintaining a smooth operating condition for your Shopify store. It involves fixing bugs almost every day, searching for search engine performance on the websites, updating content, and fixing technical problems immediately.

Shopify SSL: Shopify SSL or Secured Sockets Layer is a cryptographic protocol to secure the exchange of information between a web server and a web browser. Whether dealing with the core functionalities or changing a layout with the help of a Shopify page builder, it induces encryption for data transferred between these interfaces. This preventing hackers from intercepting transactions for fraudulent purposes. This means that SSL guarantees all sensitive customer data remains protected from prying eyes, including credit card details, passwords, and personal information.

2.8. Shopify Content Management & User Experience

Shopify AR (Augmented Reality): The feature allows merchants to show 3D models of their products, whereby customers can visualize items in their real surroundings before buying. This immersive shopping experience gives customers confidence and lowers return rates. It also boosts engagement by allowing customers to interact visually and thoroughly with the product.

Shopify CMS (Content Management System): This is the inbuilt system whereby merchants can create, manage, and alter all digital content on their Shopify store without any knowledge of coding. It actually comes with products, blog posts, pages, and media content management tools. Thus, the entire experience is seamless and user-friendly for store owners.

Shopify One Page Checkout: A simplified checkout that brings all steps involved in the purchase of a product. It includes everything from entering contact details to providing shipping information and selecting a payment option—all on a single page. This minimizes friction, making transactions faster with a lower abandonment rate. As a result, it enhances the shopping experience and boosts conversion rates for merchants.

Shopify One Product Page: a dedicated landing page designed to showcase a single product, providing all essential details such as descriptions, images, pricing, and purchasing options in one place. This layout helps merchants focus customer attention on a specific item, optimizing conversions and improving the shopping experience.

Shopify Omnichannel: A commerce strategy that connects multiple selling channels. It unifies your online shop, social media, marketplace, and physical store into one seamless experience. Through this method, the business can manage inventory, customer activity, and orders from the same Shopify dashboard. This ensures shopping customers have the same experience regardless of the platform they choose.

Shopify Inbox: Shopify Inbox is a free messaging tool that allows you to talk with customers while they are shopping. When chatting, you can access real-time customer insights, including viewed products, cart items, and past orders. This allows you to personalize your messaging.

Shopify Partners: Experts in Shopify who can assist you with all aspects of your Shopify store—from design to marketing and everything in between.

Shopify Collaborator: Collaborators are similar to staff members, but they have extra benefits. They can log into your store via their Partner Dashboard or the Shopify mobile app.

3. Conclusion 

Whether you are new to the platform or an old hand, understanding these key terms is still absolutely necessary for efficiently navigating the platform. This Shopify glossary will provide the corresponding meanings of the Shopify terms aimed to help you optimize your store, modernizing your operations, and boosting your sales. Knowing these concepts will empower you to make wise choices and to leverage your full potential with Shopify. 
For expert insights and other resources centering on building a successful Shopify store, visit eComStart—your partner in everything eCommerce!