Glossary

3PL

Third-party logistics provider — a company that stores and ships your inventory for you, outside the marketplace's own network. Full guide →

A-to-z claim

A buyer-initiated guarantee claim against a seller. One source reports these count toward ODR whether granted or not, which makes preventing the claim more valuable than winning it. Full guide →

A+ Content

Enhanced description modules available to Brand Registry sellers at no charge, replacing the plain product description with images, comparison tables and formatted copy. Full guide →

Accrual accounting

Recognising revenue and costs when they are incurred rather than when cash moves. Required for meaningful margin analysis and expected by buyers and lenders. Full guide →

ACOS / TACOS

Advertising cost of sale measures ad spend against sales attributed to the ads. Total ACOS measures the same spend against total sales, which is the number that tells you whether advertising is actually working. Full guide →

AD/CVD

Antidumping and countervailing duties — additional duties imposed under individual orders on defined merchandise from named countries, frequently at company level. They are not findable from an HTS code alone.

Aged inventory surcharge

An additional storage charge on units held beyond a threshold — reported as tightening from 271 days to 180 days on 1 July 2026. Full guide →

AHR

Account Health Rating — a consolidated compliance score starting at 200. Reported bands: 200+ healthy, 100 to 199 at risk, below 100 capable of triggering suspension. Full guide →

Amazon Attribution

A free measurement tool for brand-registered sellers that reports clicks, detail page views and purchases from off-Amazon campaigns, with a reported 14-day lookback.

AQL

Acceptance Quality Limit — a sampling standard that derives a sample size and acceptance number from lot size and chosen quality level. It assumes a manufacturing process under control.

Arbitrage

Buying discounted stock and reselling it at market price. Retail arbitrage sources from physical stores, online arbitrage from online retailers. Full guide →

ASIN

Amazon Standard Identification Number — the ten-character identifier for a product listing on Amazon. One ASIN can have many sellers. Full guide →

AWD

Amazon Warehousing and Distribution — upstream bulk storage that replenishes FBA automatically. Reported as sitting outside the FBA capacity limit. Full guide →

Brand Referral Bonus

A credit against referral fees on sales driven through attribution-tagged external links, reported at an average of around 10%.

Brand Registry

Amazon's brand protection programme, requiring a registered or pending trademark. Unlocks A+ Content, Brand Analytics and reporting tools, and since 31 March 2026 determines whether you may use GS1 barcodes instead of FNSKU labels. Full guide →

Buy Box

The purchase panel on a product page. Where several sellers offer the same ASIN, only one holds it at a time, and holding it is what most sales depend on. Full guide →

Capacity limit

The volume of FBA inventory you are permitted to hold, in cubic feet, set from a quarterly evaluation. ASIN-level restock limits can throttle individual products independently of it. Full guide →

Chargeable weight

The greater of actual and dimensional weight, used to price air freight. It penalises bulky lightweight goods regardless of what they weigh.

Chargeback (vendor)

A deduction issued against a supplier for a non-compliant purchase order — wrong labels, late delivery, wrong quantities. Reported as substantial and difficult to dispute.

COGS

Cost of goods sold — what a unit cost you before any marketplace fee, freight or advertising. The starting point of every margin calculation. Full guide →

Commingling

Storing your units interchangeably with other sellers' identical units, tracked by manufacturer barcode rather than FNSKU. Reported as eliminated on 31 March 2026. Full guide →

Country of origin

Where a product was manufactured or substantially transformed — not where it shipped from. Goods made in one country and routed through another retain their original origin for tariff purposes.

Country of origin marking

The requirement under 19 USC 1304 that most imports carry their origin conspicuously, legibly and permanently. Unmarked goods are reported to attract a 10% ad valorem marking duty.

Customs bond

A financial guarantee to CBP that duties and fees on your entries will be paid. Required for almost all formal entries, and sized as a percentage of annual duties.

DD+7

The delivery-date based payout schedule. Funds release seven days after the carrier marks an order delivered rather than on a fixed cycle from the order date. Applied to remaining North American accounts on 12 March 2026, with reported order-to-bank of 14 to 27 days for FBA. Full guide →

DDP / DAP

Delivered Duty Paid means the seller covers duty and the buyer pays nothing on arrival. Delivered At Place means the buyer is billed on the doorstep — which since the de minimis change has driven up parcel refusals. Full guide →

De minimis / Section 321

The US provision that allowed shipments valued at $800 or less to enter duty-free without formal entry. Suspended for China and Hong Kong in May 2025, extended to all countries that August, and codified by regulation in June 2026. Full guide →

Dimensional weight

A billable weight derived from a package's volume rather than its mass. Carriers and marketplaces charge on whichever of actual and dimensional weight is greater.

Duty drawback

A refund of up to 99% of duties paid on imported goods that are subsequently exported, either unchanged or after manufacturing.

Economic nexus

A tax obligation triggered by sales volume or transaction count in a state, independently of physical presence. Full guide →

Entry Type 11

Informal entry, used for lower-value shipments. Entry Type 01 is the formal equivalent, required above the threshold and for goods subject to antidumping or countervailing duties. Full guide →

Fair Pricing Policy

The policy under which Amazon compares your price against other retailers and can suppress the Featured Offer where yours sits significantly higher. Full guide →

FBA

Fulfillment by Amazon — you ship inventory to Amazon, and Amazon stores, picks, packs, ships and handles returns in exchange for fulfillment and storage fees. Full guide →

FBM

Fulfilled by Merchant — you hold the stock and ship the orders yourself. No FBA fees, but no Prime badge by default and full responsibility for delivery performance. Full guide →

Featured Offer

Amazon's current name for the Buy Box — the offer that wins the Add to Cart button on a shared listing. Measured as a percentage of sessions rather than as a binary win. Full guide →

First sale valuation

A recognised customs valuation basis allowing qualifying importers in a multi-tier supply chain to declare duty on the price the intermediary paid the manufacturer, rather than the price they paid the intermediary.

FNSKU

Fulfillment Network SKU — the barcode that ties a physical unit in an Amazon warehouse to your specific seller account. Without it, your stock can be commingled with other sellers' units. Full guide →

Foreign Trade Zone

A designated area inside the United States treated as outside customs territory for duty purposes. Duty is deferred until goods leave the zone, and eliminated entirely on goods re-exported from it.

Frequently Returned Item badge

A label applied to listings with high return rates, reported to reduce conversion materially. Full guide →

Fulfillment fee

The per-unit charge for picking, packing and shipping an FBA order. From 15 January 2026 in the US, selling price became one of the inputs alongside size tier and weight. Full guide →

GS1

The organisation that issues legitimate barcode identifiers. Buying directly is the only route Amazon's verification reliably accepts. Full guide →

GTIN

Global Trade Item Number — the umbrella term for product identifiers including UPC and EAN. Amazon verifies these against the GS1 database, and resold third-party codes are reported to fail. Full guide →

HTS code

The Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification, ten digits for US imports, that determines the duty rate on a product. Required on every commercial import since the de minimis suspension. Full guide →

Importer of record

The party legally responsible for the customs entry, its accuracy and its duties. The obligation cannot be delegated by contract, whatever the Incoterm says. Full guide →

Inbound placement fee

A charge introduced in 2024 relating to how your inbound shipment is distributed across Amazon's network. Splitting a shipment across more destinations generally lowers it. Full guide →

Incoterms

Standard trade terms allocating cost, risk and responsibility between buyer and seller. They govern the commercial arrangement, not the legal identity of the importer of record. Full guide →

IPI

Inventory Performance Index — a score from 0 to 1,000 reflecting how efficiently you manage FBA inventory. Below the threshold, Amazon caps how much you may store and can restrict inbound shipments. Calculated from excess inventory, sell-through, stranded inventory and in-stock rate. Full guide →

Landed cost

What a unit actually costs you once product cost, freight, duty, customs fees and inbound shipping are included. Since the de minimis suspension this number has changed for most importers. Full guide →

LCL / FCL

Less than Container Load and Full Container Load. LCL shares a container with other shippers; FCL is the whole box. Reported guidance puts the crossover around 15 cubic metres.

Low-inventory-level fee

A per-unit charge applied to sales made while your days of cover sit below a reported 28-day threshold. Effectively a fee for selling while thin. Full guide →

LTL

Less than truckload — freight shipping for pallets that do not fill a trailer. Usually how inventory moves from a warehouse to a fulfillment centre.

MAP

Minimum Advertised Price — a brand policy setting the lowest price a reseller may advertise. Relevant because a marketplace that controls retail pricing can break a MAP agreement you signed offline. Full guide →

Marketplace facilitator

Laws making the marketplace responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax on its sellers' behalf. They cover sales tax only — income, franchise and gross receipts obligations remain the seller's. Full guide →

MCF

Multi-Channel Fulfillment — using Amazon's warehouses to fulfil orders that came from somewhere else, such as your own store.

ODR

Order Defect Rate — negative feedback, A-to-z claims and service chargebacks combined into one percentage over a rolling 60-day window. The published threshold is 1%, and it can suspend an account on its own. Full guide →

Peak fulfilment fee

A holiday surcharge on fulfilment, reported at an average of $0.32 per unit from 15 October 2026 to 14 January 2027, covering FBA, Remote Fulfillment, MCF and Buy with Prime. Full guide →

Physical nexus

A tax obligation created by having property in a state — including inventory in a fulfilment centre, in locations the marketplace chose rather than you. Full guide →

Pre-shipment inspection

A third-party check of finished goods before they leave the supplier — the last point at which the supplier still holds the goods and you still hold the balance payment.

Prep

Preparing units to marketplace standards before they enter a fulfilment centre: labelling, poly-bagging, bundling and protective packaging. Amazon ended its US prep and labelling service on 1 January 2026. Full guide →

Price parity

A marketplace requirement that your price there is not higher than on other channels, including your own website. It removes per-channel pricing as an option.

Private label

Sourcing a generic product and selling it under your own brand. The only common model that builds a business you could sell. Full guide →

Referral fee

The marketplace's commission on each sale, taken as a percentage of the sale price and varying by category. Distinct from fulfillment fees, and it did not change in Amazon's 2026 US update. Full guide →

Reimbursement

Money a marketplace owes you for inventory it lost, damaged, or mishandled, or for fees it charged in error. Not all of it is credited automatically. Full guide →

Remote Fulfillment

Listing US FBA inventory on Amazon Canada and Mexico without sending stock across the border. A remote fulfilment fee replaces the FBA fee, and the customer pays import duties. Full guide →

Request a Review

Amazon's own button for soliciting feedback, sending a standardised message the seller cannot customise. Reported as the only officially sanctioned proactive review mechanism.

Resale certificate

Documentation allowing a business to buy goods for resale without paying sales tax at purchase. Usually required before a distributor will open a wholesale account. Full guide →

Returns processing fee

A charge applied to returns in certain categories above a return-rate threshold, deducted between the 7th and 15th of the third month following shipment. Full guide →

Review gating

Directing dissatisfied customers to contact you instead of leaving a negative review. Prohibited, and treated as review diversion even where the intent is customer service.

Review manipulation

A policy category covering incentives for reviews, requests for positive reviews, review gating and reviews from connected parties. Enforcement is reported to flag patterns rather than confirmed violations.

SDE

Seller Discretionary Earnings — the profit figure ecommerce businesses are typically valued on, and the base to which an acquisition multiple is applied. Full guide →

Section 232

Tariffs on specific materials such as steel, aluminium and copper. These apply at input level, so a product assembled elsewhere can still carry exposure through its components.

Section 301

Tariffs applied to Chinese-origin goods by HTS code, sitting on top of the base duty rate in the tariff schedule.

Seller Fulfilled Prime

A programme allowing merchant-fulfilled offers to carry the Prime badge, subject to delivery-speed coverage requirements, weekend fulfilment and weekly performance review.

Settlement

The periodic statement reconciling your sales, fees, refunds and adjustments into a single payout. Reconciling settlements is how you find money that has quietly gone missing. Full guide →

Shipment discrepancy

A mismatch between what you say you sent to a fulfillment centre and what it says it received. Resolving one requires proof of what shipped. Full guide →

SIPP

Ships in Product Packaging — a programme for products that ship in their own packaging without an Amazon box, requiring packaging that passes transit testing. Full guide →

Size tier

The bucket Amazon assigns a product based on its packaged dimensions and weight. It is the single biggest driver of fulfillment cost, and crossing a boundary by a fraction of an inch is expensive.

Storage utilisation surcharge

A charge applied when your stored volume is high relative to your sell-through, reported as triggering above roughly 22 weeks of cover. Full guide →

Stranded inventory

Units sitting in a fulfilment centre with no active listing attached. They cannot sell, they still accrue storage, and the percentage counts against your IPI score.

Subscribe & Save

Amazon's recurring delivery programme. Eligible FBA products are reported to be auto-enrolled at a 0% seller-funded discount, which displays as almost no offer. Full guide →

Substantial transformation

The test that determines a product's country of origin: meaningful manufacturing or processing that changes its character. Repackaging, relabelling and simple final assembly do not qualify.

Tariff engineering

Designing or specifying a product so it falls under a lower-duty classification. Legal when the product changes; fraud when only the description does.

Trade Assurance

A marketplace escrow mechanism covering payment against quality and delivery failures, and only where the transaction stays entirely within the platform.

Ungating

Obtaining approval to sell in a restricted category, brand or ASIN. Typically requires invoices from an authorised distributor covering a minimum quantity within a recent window. Full guide →

Vendor Central

The first-party arrangement in which Amazon buys your products wholesale and becomes the retailer, setting the retail price. Invite-only, and distinct from Seller Central third-party selling.

Vine

Amazon's programme for supplying products to reviewers in exchange for honest reviews. Enrolment is once per ASIN for its lifetime, so it cannot be repeated on the same product. Full guide →

WFS

Walmart Fulfillment Services — Walmart's equivalent of FBA for its marketplace.

Fee names and rules change. Where a definition references a specific date or rule, verify it against the marketplace documentation before acting on it.