Shopify glossary
The terms you meet when working with Shopify, defined plainly and correctly. Compiled from the questions we answer most often in client calls.
Core concepts
Shopify
A hosted (SaaS) ecommerce platform. Servers, SSL and software updates are the platform's responsibility; you deal with products, content and selling.
Shopify Plus
Shopify's tier for high-volume and enterprise stores. Unlimited B2B catalogues, multi-store, checkout extensibility and higher API limits live here.
Storefront
What the visitor sees. Produced by the theme — not to be confused with the admin.
Handle
The short name that appears in a product, collection or page URL. Keep it readable and keyword-relevant; it affects search.
Variant
A sellable version of a product differing by size, colour and so on. Each variant carries its own stock and price.
Collection
How products are grouped. Manual or automated by rule — and where most category search traffic lands.
Theme and development
Liquid
Shopify's templating language. It decides what data appears where in the theme, combining store data with HTML.
Online Store 2.0
Shopify's theme architecture. It allows drag-and-drop sections and app blocks on every template, not just the homepage.
Section
An independently addable, reorderable content block within a theme. Editable from the admin without touching code.
Metafield
A custom data field added to a product, collection or customer when Shopify's standard fields are not enough — size charts, materials and similar.
Metaobject
A reusable content type made of several fields. A store location or an author record, for example.
Dawn
Shopify's reference free theme. Built as the example implementation of Online Store 2.0, and the base for many custom themes.
Theme app extension
How an app adds blocks to a store without editing theme files — which matters because it leaves no residue when the app is removed.
Shopify.theme
An object every Shopify storefront prints in its page source, with the theme's name, schema_name, version and Theme Store ID. schema_name is the theme's real name even when the merchant has renamed their copy.
Selling and checkout
Checkout
The step from cart to payment. Shopify controls it; how much you can customise depends on your plan.
Shopify Payments
Shopify's own payment infrastructure. Not available in every market — where it is unavailable, stores use local providers.
Shopify Markets
How selling into multiple countries is managed: currency, language, pricing and domain behaviour configured per market.
Abandoned checkout
A cart that reached payment and left without completing. Usually recovered with reminder emails.
Shopify Functions
How checkout logic is customised in code — discount rules, shipping options and payment method visibility.
B2B
Wholesale inside the same store as retail: company profiles, B2B catalogues with their own prices, payment terms and volume pricing. On every plan since April 2026 with up to three catalogues; Plus adds unlimited catalogues assigned directly to companies, and deposits.
Third-party transaction fee
The extra percentage Shopify charges on each sale when a store uses a payment provider other than Shopify Payments. It falls with each plan — on the UK price list 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.
Performance and SEO
Core Web Vitals
Google's page experience metrics, covering loading, interaction readiness and visual stability.
LCP
Largest Contentful Paint — how long the largest content element takes to become visible. The metric most stores struggle with on mobile.
CLS
Cumulative Layout Shift — how much content moves while the page loads. Images without dimensions are the most common cause.
INP
Interaction to Next Paint — how quickly the page responds after a tap or click.
301 redirect
A permanent redirect telling search engines an address has moved. The core tool for protecting rankings during a replatform.
Canonical
The tag that names the primary address when the same content is reachable from several URLs. Important on filtered collection pages.
Structured data
Markup that describes page content in a form search engines parse. Separate schemas exist for products, FAQs and articles.
Faceted navigation
Filter-driven URLs. They generate infinite combinations and burn crawl budget unless managed deliberately.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation — structuring content and product data so AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features can quote and recommend it. It builds on SEO rather than replacing it.
Platform features
Shopify Scripts
Ruby scripts that ran discount, shipping and payment logic in the Plus checkout. They stopped running on 30 June 2026; Shopify Functions do the same jobs now.
Checkout UI extensions
Components rendered at defined points in Shopify's checkout, such as after line items or near the payment methods. The replacement for editing checkout.liquid.
Shop Pay
Shopify's accelerated checkout that stores a customer's details for one-tap purchasing across Shopify stores.
Shopify Flow
Shopify's automation tool: when something happens to an order, customer, product or stock level, do something else — without writing code.
Launchpad
A Shopify Plus tool for scheduling campaigns — price changes, product releases and theme switches at a set time.
Hydrogen
Shopify's framework for headless storefronts, built on Remix. The storefront becomes a separate application while checkout stays on Shopify.
Oxygen
Shopify's hosting for Hydrogen storefronts, deployed at the edge.
Shopify Catalog
The route through which Shopify shares product data with AI channels, so products can be discovered in assistants such as ChatGPT and Copilot.
Agentic storefronts
Shopify's way of selling through AI channels — ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Meta — managed under Sales channels in the admin.
Compliance and cross-border
Consent Mode v2
Google's interface for passing a visitor's consent choices to its tags. Required for measurement and advertising features on EEA traffic.
OSS
The EU One Stop Shop: one VAT registration and quarterly return covering B2C sales into other EU countries above the €10,000 threshold.
IOSS
The EU Import One-Stop Shop: lets non-EU sellers charge EU VAT at checkout on consignments up to €150 so parcels clear without charges at the door.
DDP
Delivered Duty Paid — duties and import taxes are paid at checkout, so the customer pays nothing on delivery. The opposite of DAP.
De minimis
A value below which imports enter without duty. The US suspended its $800 de minimis exemption for all countries from 29 August 2025.
GPSR
The EU General Product Safety Regulation. Since 13 December 2024 online listings must show manufacturer details, an EU responsible person for non-EU manufacturers, product identifiers and safety information.
Withdrawal button
The EU electronic withdrawal function required since 19 June 2026: a 'withdraw from contract here' control, a 'confirm withdrawal' step and an automatic acknowledgement.
DMCC Act
The UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Since 6 April 2025 it bans drip pricing and fake reviews and lets the CMA fine businesses directly.
Questions about the glossary
What is the difference between a metafield and a metaobject?
A metafield belongs to one record, such as one product's material. A metaobject is a reusable record type, such as a size chart, that many products can reference.
What replaced Shopify Scripts?
Shopify Functions. Scripts stopped running on 30 June 2026; discount, shipping and payment logic now runs as Functions inside apps.
Which terms matter most for selling into the EU from the UK?
IOSS, OSS, DDP, GPSR and the withdrawal button — they decide whether parcels clear, VAT is reported and listings are compliant.