ABAR
Glossary

Commerce terminology, defined.

Short, accurate definitions for every Shopify term merchants encounter.

A

Archived Product
A retired product that keeps its history but is hidden from sale.

B

Barcode
The external product identifier — usually UPC, EAN, GTIN or ISBN.
Bulk Edit
Editing many products or variants in a single operation.
Bulk Operation
An asynchronous, long-running mutation over many records.

C

Collection
A group of products a customer can browse.
Compare-at Price
The strike-through 'was' price shown next to a sale price.
CSV Import
Uploading a spreadsheet to create or update products in bulk.

D

Draft Product
A product not yet visible on any channel.

E

EU Omnibus
EU rule requiring the 'lowest price in the last 30 days' when advertising discounts.

F

Flow automations
Shopify's built-in automation engine.

G

Google Shopping
Google's product listing surface, fed by Merchant Center feeds.
GraphQL Admin API
Shopify's modern typed API for admin operations.

I

Idempotency
A property where re-running the same operation produces the same result.
Image Alt Text
Textual description of an image, read by screen readers and crawlers.
Inventory Location
A physical or logical place that stocks inventory.
Inventory Policy
Whether Shopify allows selling a variant with zero on-hand stock.

L

Leaky Bucket
The algorithm behind Shopify's REST API rate limiting.

M

Meta Description
The snippet Google shows under the SEO title in a search result.
Metafield
A structured custom field on a Shopify resource.
Metaobject
A reusable custom data type, referenced by metafields.

P

Price Anchoring
Displaying a higher reference price to make the current price feel like a discount.
Product Handle
The URL slug for a product.
Product Status
Active, draft or archived — controls visibility.
Product Type
A single category label describing what a product is.

R

Rate Limit
The maximum request throughput Shopify allows for an app or client.
Rollback
Restoring catalog fields to the values captured in a snapshot.

S

Sales Channel
A place where products are sold — online store, POS, marketplaces.
SEO Title
The <title> tag Google shows for a product or collection.
Shopify Markets
Shopify's multi-region storefront and pricing system.
SKU
Stock Keeping Unit — an internal identifier for a variant.
Snapshot
A recorded state of your catalog before a bulk change.

T

Tag
A free-form label used for filtering and automation.
Taxable
Whether Shopify calculates tax on a variant at checkout.

V

Variant
A specific version of a product — size, color, material combination.
Vendor
The manufacturer or brand assigned to a product.