Linux goesZen

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.