E-commerce Glossary

API (Application Programming Interface)

Interface that allows different systems to communicate programmatically.

Canonical

HTML tag (rel=canonical) that tells search engines which is the primary version of a page when duplicate or very similar URLs exist.

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Network of servers distributed worldwide that stores and delivers copies of static files (images, CSS, JS) from the geographically closest point to the user.

Checkout

Final stage of the purchase process where the customer enters shipping data, selects freight and makes payment.

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery)

Practice of automating testing, validation and code publishing.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

Metric that measures a page's visual stability during loading.

Composable Commerce

Evolution of headless commerce where each e-commerce capability (catalog, checkout, search, CMS) is provided by an independent, specialized service.

Conversion (CRO)

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is the discipline of increasing the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as finishing a purchase.

Core Web Vitals

Set of three Google metrics that measure real user experience on a website: LCP (loading speed), CLS (visual stability) and INP (interaction responsiveness).

deco.cx

Brazilian web development platform focused on performance and developer experience.

Deploy

Process of publishing a new code version to the production environment, making changes available to end users.

Edge Rendering

Page rendering on geographically distributed servers, close to the end user.

FastStore

VTEX's next-generation headless framework, built on React and optimized for performance.

GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)

Total value of merchandise sold in a period, before deducting returns, cancellations and discounts.

GraphQL

API query language created by Facebook that allows clients to specify exactly which data they need.

Headless Commerce

Architecture where the frontend (user interface) is separated from the backend (business logic, catalog, checkout).

Hreflang

HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and region versions exist for a page.

Hydration

Process where client-side JavaScript makes interactive an HTML that was rendered on the server.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

Metric that replaced FID in 2024 to measure responsiveness.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

Metric that measures the time until the largest visible element on the page is rendered.

Lighthouse

Google's open-source tool for auditing web page quality.

Liquid

Template language used by Shopify to render pages on the server.

Monolith

Architecture where frontend, backend, database and business logic are all in a single system.

Nuvemshop

Latin American e-commerce platform aimed at small and mid-size businesses.

PWA (Progressive Web App)

Development approach that allows a website to function like a native mobile app.

REST (Representational State Transfer)

Architectural standard for web APIs where each resource has a unique URL and operations are performed via HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).

Schema Markup

Standardized vocabulary (schema.

Shopify

Canadian e-commerce platform that leads the global market in number of active stores.

Shopify Hydrogen

Shopify's headless framework built on React and Remix.

Shopify Plus

Enterprise version of Shopify for high-volume, high-complexity operations.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)

Unique code that identifies a specific product variation in inventory.

SSG (Static Site Generation)

Technique where pages are generated as static HTML at build time, not at request time.

SSR (Server-Side Rendering)

Technique where the page's HTML is generated on the server on each request, rather than in the user's browser.

Store Framework

VTEX IO's store-building framework based on declarative JSON blocks.

Structured Data

Data organized in a standard format that helps search engines understand a page's content.

Technical SEO

Set of optimizations in a site's infrastructure and code to facilitate crawling, indexing and ranking by search engines.

VTEX

Brazilian e-commerce platform focused on mid-to-large operations.

VTEX IO

VTEX's serverless development environment that allows you to build, test and publish apps directly in the cloud.

VTEX Vision

VTEX's new visual CMS that allows editing pages via drag-and-drop without touching code.

Webhook

Real-time notification mechanism where a system automatically sends data to a URL when an event occurs.

Workspace

Isolated development environment used in VTEX IO to test changes without affecting the production store.