Glossary

Every Shopify word you will run into, in plain language. Alphabetical.

Admin. The behind-the-scenes control panel where you run the store. Customers never see it. You reach it at admin.shopify.com.

Abandoned checkout. A customer who added items and started checkout but did not finish paying. Shopify can remind them automatically.

Alt text. A short written description of an image. It helps customers using screen readers and helps your products show up in search.

Analytics. The reports section. Sales, orders, traffic, and trends over time.

Authorized (payment). The customer's card has been approved for the amount, but the money has not been taken yet. You "capture" it to actually collect.

Collection. A group of products shown together, like "Sale" or "New arrivals". Can be manual (you pick each product) or automated (products join when they match a rule).

Committed (inventory). Stock that is spoken for by orders not yet shipped. It is not available to sell again until those orders are fulfilled or cancelled.

Draft order. An order you create yourself, on behalf of a customer, for phone or in-person sales. You can send an invoice or take payment.

Fulfillment. The act of preparing and shipping an order. An order is "unfulfilled" until you pack and send it, then "fulfilled".

Inventory. How many of each item you have in stock. Shopify can track this automatically and stop selling when you hit zero.

Line item. A single product (and quantity) on an order.

Location. A physical place your inventory lives, such as a store or warehouse. Most stores have one.

Metafield. An extra custom field on a product or order for information the standard fields do not cover. Usually set up by FireNet.

Order. A purchase a customer placed. It has a payment status and a fulfillment status.

Payout. Money Shopify deposits into your bank account from sales, on a schedule.

Permissions. The specific things a staff account is allowed to see and do.

Product status. Whether a product is Active (visible to shoppers), Draft (hidden, still being worked on), or Archived (retired).

Refund. Returning money to a customer, fully or in part. You can choose to put the item back in stock.

SKU. Stock Keeping Unit. Your own code for a specific product or variant, used to track it.

Staff account. A login for a team member, with its own permissions.

Storefront. The public website customers shop on. The opposite of the admin.

Tag. A keyword you attach to products, orders, or customers to organize and filter them.

Theme. The design and layout of your storefront. FireNet builds and maintains yours.

Two-step authentication (2FA). A second check at login, usually a code on your phone, so a password alone cannot get someone in.

Variant. A version of a product, like a specific size and color. One product can have many variants.

Vendor. The brand or supplier of a product. A field you can filter and organize by.