Feb 23

Amazon abbreviations, acronyms, definitions

Category: Linux,Showrooming   — Published by goeszen on February 23, 2015 at 10:25 pm

A bit of reverse engineering of Amazon's internal workings and logistics, through their abbreviations, and only from what's publicly available:

  • A2S
    Amazon Associates Web Service, old abbreviation for Amazon's Product Advertising API, see also ECS
  • A9
    former startup, now A9.com is a subsidiary of Amazon that develops search and advertising technologies
  • AFN
    Amazon Fulfilment Network, compare MFN
  • AMI
    Amazon Machine Image (Webservices), mostly a read-only file-system image
  • AMZN
    stock exchange symbol on NASDAQ
  • ASIN
    amazon standard identification number; encoded as CODE_128 on product-boxes/plastic-bag labels, can be used as an SKU-like ID, but also to identify a group of products, like T-Shirt XY in all sizes and colours
  • COD
    Cash on Delivery, a payment method offered in Asia, not an amazon term
  • FTL
    "full truck-load", shipment/delivery size designation used internally in Amazon Fulfillment, to tell how much of a unit a seller has sent
  • Lab126
    Lab126, Inc, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, responsible for R&D, known for developing Amazon's Kindle devices
  • LTL
    "less than truck-load", shipment/delivery size designation used internally in Amazon Fulfillment, to tell how much of a unit a seller has sent
  • LPN
    (??, comment if you know) "labeled product number"(?), "loose product numbering", amazon internal per-unit identifier, probably mostly on things which are in no particular packaging, like bulk items, textile goods, etc - and on returned items, where the LPN label replaced/covers the original ASIN label encoded as CODE_39 barcode on product labels; might be an identifier down to the single object
  • EBS
    Amazon Elastic Block Storage, raw block devices that can be attached to Amazon EC2 instances
  • EC2
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
  • ECS
    Amazon E-Commerce Service, oldest abbreviation for Amazon's Product Advertising API, see also A2S
  • FBA
    Fulfillment by amazon
  • FNSKU
    Fulfillment Network SKU; docs: "Unique identifier assigned by Amazon to products stored in and fulfilled from an Amazon fulfilment centre."; Amazon Fulfillment internal alphanumeric ID, encoded as UCC128 Code Set A barcode on labels, identifies a singular item/size/variation/condition (inventory items), always begin with "X00"; when an item sent in via FBA has an FNSKU = ASIN, it is stowed internally along with items with the same ASIN by different sellers ("stickerless commingled inventory", probably means it's part of the Amazon Fulfilment Network (AFN)) but may also be a MFN-SKU; maybe the FNSKU has ben replaced by the LPN
  • FPS
    Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Web Service that allows the transfer of money between two entities
  • GP
    short for Gurupa
  • Gurupa
    the name of Amazon's content delivery infrastructure. It is abbreviated to "gp" in Amazon URLs (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/123456789/)
  • ICQA
    internally in Amazon Fulfillment, probably "Inbound Control and Quality Assurance" (?)
  • MFN
    Merchant Fulfilment Network, FBA sellers may have their inventory stored separate from normal Amazon inventory, compare AFN
  • MSKU
    not an amazon term, found in FBA interfaces, manufacturer SKU
  • MPN
    not an amazon term, returned by product advertising api, manufacturer product number/model number
  • MSRP
    not an amazon term, returned by product advertising api, manufacturer suggested retail price
  • MTurk
    Amazon Mechanical Turk
  • MWS
    Marketplace Web Services (Amazon MWS), API to manage seller-actions via a programmatic interface
  • Obidos
    was the name used for amazon's original page rendering engine, and appears in many of their URLs (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos)
  • PHX6
    (unconfirmed), probably short for "Product Handling x6, a fulfillment worker doing a "six-sided check" of each unit received in amazon warehouses
  • RDS
    Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a distributed relational database service
  • S3
    Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
  • SC
    (inofficial ?) Seller Central, amazon's seller web interface
  • SDB
    Amazon SimpleDB, distributed database
  • SES
    Simple Email Service (Amazon SES), infrastructure for sending outbound bulk email
  • SIP
    Statistically Improbable Phrases (or Statimprophrases) used in the "Search Inside!" feature to find phrases in books that are most unlikely to be found in any other book indexed
  • SKU
    not an amazon term, returned by product advertising api, stock keeping unit
  • SQS
    Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
  • TFM
    Amazon Transportation for Merchants (Amazon TFM), only available in China
  • UPC
    not an amazon term, returned by product advertising api, universal product code
  • VPC
    Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)

If you know any abbreviations not yet on the list, or if you'd like to send corrections, please comment below!

If you think this list was helpful, use this link when you go shopping at amazon.

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