Words used in this guide

Some words come up again and again once you start selling online. Here is what each one means. You do not need to learn them now — come back when you meet one.

App — something you add to your shop to give it a new ability, such as a way to take payment or a delivery company to carry your parcels.

Alt text — words that describe a picture, for anyone using a screen reader and for search engines. You add it on a picture's page in your Media Library.

Analytics provider — an app that reports your sales to an outside service, such as Google Analytics or Meta, so you can see how your shop is doing outside Biponix. Add and set one up from Analytics & tracking.

Archived — put aside without being deleted. A product you archive leaves your storefront and product list, though you can still find it by filtering for it, and your old orders keep it. An order you archive leaves your main Orders list the same way. Both can be brought back with Unarchive. A sales funnel is different — once archived, its page stops working and it can never be changed or brought back again, and cannot be deleted either. A page is different again — you choose Archived directly as its status, and unlike the others it can also be deleted outright.

Barcode — a code printed as a row of stripes that a scanner can read. You put your own in on a product, and Biponix can print labels from it.

Bulk actions — doing the same thing to several rows of a list at once, such as archiving ten products together.

Cancel — call off an order before any of it has been delivered. It releases whatever stock was being held for it, and can be undone with Reopen.

Cart — where a shopper collects what they want to buy, before they pay for it.

Cash on delivery — your customer pays when the parcel reaches them, instead of paying online.

Category — groups products of the same type, so shoppers can browse one part of your shop. A category can go inside another one, like Shoes inside Clothing; the inner one is a sub-category. Every product must be in a category.

Checkout — the last few steps, where a customer fills in their details and pays.

Collection — a group of products you put together yourself, such as "Eid Offers". A product can be in as many collections as you like, or none. Each collection gets its own page on your storefront.

Compare at price — the previous, higher price. Put one in and customers see the reduction next to your current price.

Confirm — telling Biponix an order is real and you intend to fulfil it. Every order except a counter sale waits for you to do this, and it cannot be undone.

Courier — the company that carries your parcels to your customers.

Dashboard — your own private side of Biponix, where you add products and see orders. Customers never see it.

Discount — a code that can be applied when an order is placed to take a percentage or a fixed amount off it.

Draft — saved but not on your storefront yet. Shoppers cannot see a draft.

Filter — a way of narrowing a list to the rows you want, such as showing only archived products. Filters sit above the list as small tags.

Fraud check — a trust score built from a customer's delivery history with different couriers, meant to help you spot an order worth a second look before you ship it. Shown as Fraud Report on your Orders list, and as Customer Fraud Check on an order's own page.

Handle — a short version of a name that Biponix makes for you, used to connect something to another part of your shop. A menu gets one from its title; you never type or change it yourself.

Inventory — how many of each item you have left, and the screen where you correct those numbers.

Ledger — the running record of every payment, refund and correction recorded against an order. Press Show ledger on the order's Payment panel to see it.

Media Library — every picture, and any video you have linked to, that you have added to your shop, kept in one place so you can reuse it anywhere.

Menu — a set of links you build for shoppers to click through on your storefront, such as "Home" or "Shop All". Not the same as the menu on the left of your own dashboard.

Needs Confirmation — a new order you have not dealt with yet. The number beside Orders in the menu counts these.

On hand — how many of an item you actually have. What you would find if you counted the shelf.

Option — a kind of choice on a product, such as Size or Colour. The choices themselves are its values. A product can have up to three options.

Order — a customer's request to buy something from you.

Owner — the person whose shop this is. Every shop has exactly one, and it cannot be changed or removed.

Payment method — a way you take money by hand, such as cash at your counter. You add these yourself in Settings. Different from a payment provider, which is an app your customers pay through on your storefront.

POS — short for point of sale. The counter screen for selling to someone standing in front of you.

Product — something you sell.

Published — on your storefront, where shoppers can see and buy it.

Ready to Ship — an order you have confirmed, waiting to be sent. Only orders in this state can be handed to a courier.

Receipt — proof of what was bought and paid, printed for a customer at your counter, or printed or shared as a link from any order's own page.

Reopen — undo a cancelled order, putting it back exactly where it was and holding its stock again. Only works before the order has been archived.

Reserved — how many of an item are promised to orders that have not gone out yet. They are still on your shelf, but you cannot sell them to anyone else.

Role — a label you give a teammate, such as Admin or Manager, to describe what they do. It does not limit what they can see or do in your dashboard — see Team.

RTO — a shipment the courier could not deliver, now coming back to you. Resolve Return records what happened to the parcel once it does.

Sales funnel — a single-product page you build to sell one thing, separate from your main storefront. A shopper can pick one option, or choose several as a cart, depending on how you set it up.

Search alias — another word that should find a product in the search box on your storefront, such as a local name or a different spelling. You can add up to twenty per product.

SEO — short for search engine optimisation. The work of helping shoppers find you through Google and other search engines.

Shipment — a parcel going out to a customer. You make one from an order once it is confirmed.

Shipping rate — one delivery choice your customer can pick, made of a name and a price.

SKU — a short code you give an item so you can recognise it. Yours to choose, and optional.

Slug — the short name that identifies a page in your shop's web address. No two can be the same, so Biponix checks a new one as you type.

Storefront — the shop your customers see and buy from.

Tag — a label you add yourself, to find something again later.

Template — one of the layouts a theme can offer for a kind of screen, such as a page you write yourself. Choosing a different one changes how it is built, not what you wrote or chose for it.

Theme — the design and behaviour of your storefront: how it is laid out, how it looks, and how it responds as a shopper uses it.

Variant — one exact version of a product, such as red in size large. You make variants by adding options like colour and size.

View — a saved way of looking at a list. It keeps your search, your filters, how the list is sorted and which columns you chose, and sits as a tab at the top so you can come back to it in one press. Everyone in your shop shares the same views.

Walk-in customer — a customer at your counter whose name you did not take. Counter sales without a customer attached are recorded against them.