| Term | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Action (rule) | The “then do this” half of a rule — what actually changes when a product matches. | Add the tag “jordan”, or lower the listing price, or delist from GOAT. |
| Authentication | A check after a pair arrives that confirms it’s genuine before it can be sold. Until it passes, the pair is held back from listings. | A received Jordan 1 stays off your sales channels until your authenticator checks it and marks it approved. |
| Auto-list | Letting a listing rule put eligible stock up for sale on a marketplace by itself, instead of you selecting it and listing it each time. | New pairs from a purchase order go live on StockX the day they are received. |
| Available inventory | Your on-hand count for a size. It can go negative after an oversell or a correction from Shopify — that’s normal and just means you owe stock. | You have two size-10 pairs on hand, so available inventory is 2; one additional sale would take it to 1. |
| Commission rate | Your cut of a consignment sale. A 20% rate on a 300salepaystheconsignor240 and keeps you $60. | At a 20% commission on a 300consignmentsale,thestorekeeps60 and the consignor receives $240 before other agreed adjustments. |
| Compare inventory | Check the quantities in AIM against another system to find differences before deciding whether to update either side. | Compare inventory after a return when AIM shows four pairs but Shopify shows three. |
| Condition (rule) | The “when this is true” half of a rule. Conditions decide which products or listings the rule applies to. | Brand Name equals Jordan, and Retail Price is over $150. |
| Confidence (match) | How sure AIM is that it matched your store’s product to the right catalog product. Lower confidence = review it before accepting. | A 96% match between two listings is likely the same product; a 58% match should be checked for size range, colorway, and style code. |
| Connected account | A login link between AIM and an outside service (Shopify, eBay, etc.) so AIM can sync products, prices and orders for you. | Connect your primary Shopify store once so AIM can receive its orders and send back product, price, and inventory updates. |
| Consignment | Stock you sell on someone else’s behalf. You don’t own it; when it sells, the consignor gets paid their share and you keep a commission. | A consignor leaves a Jordan 4 with your store; you sell it for them and pay their agreed share after the sale clears. |
| Cost of goods sold (COGS) | What the items you sold actually cost you to buy. Subtracting it from revenue gives your gross profit. | Sold a pair for 300thatyouboughtfor180 — COGS is $180. |
| Costing method | How AIM decides what a sold pair cost you when you restocked the same shoe at different prices. “Average cost” blends them into one average; “FIFO” assumes your oldest pairs sell first. | Bought 3 at 120then2at140. Average cost = 128each;FIFOsellsthe120 pairs first. |
| Custom UPC | The barcode your store uses for a product or size when it differs from the shared catalog barcode. | Add a custom UPC when the barcode on your box does not match the catalog UPC. |
| Custom value | A value your store entered instead of the shared catalog or default value. | A custom UPC is the barcode your store uses when the catalog UPC does not match your box. |
| Damaged | Units you’ve flagged as not sellable (damage, missing box, etc.). They stay in your count but are held back from listings. | Mark one scuffed size-9 pair as damaged so it remains accounted for but is not offered on Shopify or a marketplace. |
| Deadstock | Brand-new, never-worn condition (often abbreviated DS). The opposite of pre-owned. | An unworn Jordan 4 with the original box is deadstock; a tried-on pair with sole wear belongs in pre-owned. |
| Delist | Taking a pair down from your marketplaces so it’s no longer for sale. | Delist a sold-out size 10 so buyers can no longer purchase it on eBay. |
| Draft | A record you’re still working on. It’s saved but not final — nothing is committed (no stock moves, nobody is charged) until you confirm it. | Save a 24-pair purchase order as a draft while the vendor confirms costs; inventory does not increase until you receive it. |
| Floor price | The lowest price AIM is allowed to auto-set for a listing. Repricing never drops below it. | Floor 180meansthatevenifthemarketfallsto150, your listing stays at $180. |
| Fulfillment | Getting a sold order out the door — picking, packing, and shipping it to the buyer. | For order 1042, fulfillment means finding the pair, packing it, buying the label, and handing it to the carrier. |
| Ghost listing | A listing AIM thinks is live but that isn’t actually on the marketplace anymore — usually fixed by reconnecting the account. | AIM shows a size-11 StockX listing as live, but StockX no longer has it; refresh or reconnect to clear the stale record. |
| Ghost sale | A sale you recorded by hand without linking it to a specific pair in stock. It records the money but can’t show profit until it’s linked. | Record a $180 cash sale without selecting the physical pair and revenue is saved, but profit remains unknown until the sale is matched. |
| Global vs. custom product | A “global” product comes from a shared catalog (StockX/GOAT) — name, image and sizes are filled in for you. A “custom” product is one you create yourself when it’s not in that catalog (boutique items, apparel, your own brand). | A Jordan 1 is usually global. A house-brand tee you made is custom. |
| Gross profit | Revenue minus what the goods cost you (COGS), before fees and expenses. | 300sale−180 cost = $120 gross profit. |
| Hold quantity | Units you keep back from the marketplaces so a size never shows online when you’re nearly out. | With 5 pairs on hand and a hold quantity of 1, AIM offers at most 4 pairs to outside sales channels. |
| In transit | Stock that has shipped but hasn’t arrived or been received yet — on its way to you or to a buyer. | A vendor shipped 12 pairs yesterday; they remain in transit until your store receives them into a location. |
| Inventory unit | A single physical unit you own — tracked with its own cost, purchase history, and serial when applicable. AIM uses inventory units so profit stays accurate even when you restock the same product at different costs. | Buy 3 pairs at 120,later2moreat140 — that is five inventory units with two different costs. |
| Inventory valuation | What your unsold stock is worth right now, valued at what you paid for it, so you know how much money is sitting on your shelves. | If 10 unsold pairs cost 120each,theircost−basedinventoryvaluationis1,200. |
| Listing rule | A saved instruction about where your stock gets listed and when it comes down — for example, list new arrivals to StockX, or delist anything that has sat for 90 days. | When a pair has no active StockX listing and you have more than one, list it to StockX. |
| Listing template | Listing wording you write once, with blanks that get filled in per product, so you don’t retype a title and description for every pair. | ”{brand} {product_name} — Size {size}” becomes “Nike Dunk Low Panda — Size 10.5”. |
| Live sync (webhook) | A behind-the-scenes link that lets a store notify AIM the instant something changes (like a sale), so stock stays accurate without waiting for a refresh. | When Shopify receives order 1042, its live sync immediately tells AIM to reduce the sold size instead of waiting for a scheduled refresh. |
| Location link | The connection between a location in an outside service and the matching AIM location. | Create a location link before syncing inventory so AIM knows where Shopify stock belongs. |
| Market ask | The current lowest asking price on the resale market (StockX/GOAT) for a size. AIM can base your price on it automatically. | If the lowest ask is 220,a10242. |
| Marketplace / sales channel | A place your inventory is listed for sale — your Shopify store, eBay, StockX, GOAT/Alias, or TikTok Shop. | Shopify, eBay, StockX, and GOAT are separate sales channels that can each carry a listing for the same pair. |
| Markup vs. margin | Markup is profit as a share of cost; margin is profit as a share of the sale price. Same dollars, different denominator. | Buy 100,sell150: $50 profit = 50% markup but 33% margin. |
| Match sale to inventory | Link a sale to the physical pair or inventory record that fulfilled it so AIM can track cost and profit. | Match the untracked eBay sale to the size-9 pair you have on hand. |
| Month to date | From the 1st of the current month through today. | On July 26, month to date means activity from July 1 through July 26. |
| Net payout | The money you actually receive from a sale after the marketplace takes its fees — usually less than the sticker price. | A 300StockXsalemightpayout 270 after fees. |
| Net profit | What’s left after everything: cost of goods, marketplace/payment fees, shipping, returns, and expenses. This is your real take-home. | A 250salewith140 cost, 25fees,12 shipping, and 8allocatedexpensesproduces65 net profit. |
| Oversell | Selling more than you had on hand. Your count drops below zero until you restock — AIM allows this and just shows that you owe stock. | You had one size-10 pair but two orders arrived before counts synced, so available inventory becomes -1 until you restock or cancel one order. |
| Overwrite | Replace the existing value in Shopify with the value from AIM. Use this word when the choice can replace data already in the other system. | Choose Overwrite only when AIM should replace the existing Shopify title or size wording. |
| Pending receiving | Units you’ve received but can’t sell yet because they’re still going through receiving steps like authentication or put-away. | A newly scanned pair is on hand but stays pending until authentication and put-away are complete. |
| Pinned price | A price you set by hand and locked. Auto-pricing leaves pinned listings alone until you unpin them. | Pin a rare size at $450 so an automatic repricing run does not lower it to the current market ask. |
| Pre-owned | Used or non-deadstock items. They’re tracked and listed differently (condition, box notes) from brand-new pairs. | A worn Jordan 1 with heel drag and no original box should be created as pre-owned with condition notes and its own photos. |
| Pricing formula | A way of working out a price from something else — the market ask, what you paid, or your current price — instead of typing a number. | Set the price to the lowest market ask minus 3%, but never below a $90 payout. |
| Pricing tier | A named price level. The same product can have a Retail price, a Wholesale price, a VIP price, etc. — each tier is one of those levels. | Retail 200,Wholesale160, VIP $180. |
| Priority (rule) | Which rule wins when two of them want to change the same thing. Lower numbers run first, so your most specific rules should have the lowest numbers. | A “Nike Dunk Low” rule at priority 10 beats a broad “all Nike” rule at priority 50. |
| Product match | The link between a product in your store and the matching product in AIM’s shared catalog. | Review the product match before accepting it when two colorways have similar names. |
| Product rule | A saved “when this, then that” instruction that sets up new products for you — their tags, title wording, description, product type, and vendor — so you don’t repeat the same setup by hand. | When the brand is Jordan, add the tag “jordan”. Every new Jordan that arrives gets it automatically. |
| Product settings | The details your store chooses for a product, such as its name, description, prices, images, and sales channels. | Edit the product settings when your store uses a different description or price from the shared catalog. |
| Purchase order (PO) | A record of stock coming in — what you bought, from whom, at what cost. Receiving a PO adds those units to your inventory. | PO-204 records 24 pairs bought from Sample Supply Co.; receiving 20 today adds those 20 units while four remain expected. |
| Put-away | Telling AIM which shelf or bin a newly received pair goes to, so you can find it again later. | Scan shelf A-12 after receiving a size-10 pair so the next picker knows exactly where to find it. |
| Ready to list | How many units are actually free to sell right now — your stock minus damaged pairs and pairs still going through receiving/authentication. | Five pairs are on hand, but one is damaged and one is still being authenticated, so three are ready to list. |
| Ready to list | Units that are free to offer for sale right now, after damaged or still-processing units are held back. | A size with three pairs in stock but one damaged box has two pairs ready to list. |
| Reconnect | Sign in to a connected account again. You do this when a connection expires or stops syncing — it doesn’t delete anything. | Reconnect eBay after its authorization expires; existing AIM products and listings remain, and syncing can resume. |
| Relist | Putting a pair back up for sale on your marketplaces after it came down. | After a cancelled order returns a pair to stock, relist its size on StockX so it is available again. |
| Repricing | AIM automatically updating your marketplace prices to follow the market, within the rules you set. | A rule keeps your price 5% above the lowest ask, moving a listing from 200to210 when the market changes. |
| Repricing buffer | A cushion AIM keeps below the market (or above your floor) so the auto-repricer never races to the bottom. | A 10bufferunderthelowestasklistsyou10 cheaper, to sell a bit faster without giving it away. |
| Reservation | Stock set aside for a specific order or customer so it isn’t sold to anyone else while the deal is in progress. | Reserve two size-9 pairs for wholesale order WO-1042 so retail and marketplace orders cannot claim them. |
| Sell-through rate | The share of stock you sold in a period versus what you had to sell. Higher means inventory is moving faster. | Had 100 pairs and sold 60 this month — a 60% sell-through. |
| Set up & ready | This product has everything it needs (sizes, prices, images) to be listed and sold. “Not set up yet” means a few details are still missing. | After you add prices, images, sizes, and sold-out behavior, the product changes from Not set up yet to Set up & ready. |
| SKU | A product’s code/identifier. For sneakers this is usually the style number; AIM uses it to match your items to the right catalog product. | Jordan 1 “Bred” = 555088-062. |
| StockX listing type | How StockX sells your pair: Standard (you ship after it sells), Direct (StockX holds it and ships instantly), or Flex (a Direct discount to sell faster). Most sellers use Standard. | Choose Standard when you keep the pair and ship it after sale; choose Direct only for stock already held by StockX. |
| Sublocation | A specific spot inside a location — a shelf, bin, or rack. The location is the building; the sublocation is the exact shelf. Scanning its barcode tells AIM where a pair lives. | Main Warehouse is the location and Shelf B-07 is the sublocation where the physical pair sits. |
| Tracked | A sale is “tracked” when it’s linked to a specific unit in your inventory, so AIM knows its cost and can show profit. “Not tracked” sales show revenue but no profit. | Link a 220saletotheexactpairthatcost130 so AIM can calculate the sale’s gross profit. |
| Unit cost | What one pair cost you to buy. Recorded when stock comes in and used to work out profit when it sells. | Bought 6 pairs for 720total—theunitcostis120 each. |
| Unresolved item | A row from an import or scan that AIM couldn’t match to a product yet. It won’t add to your stock until you match it or skip it. | An imported row reading only “Panda 10” stays unresolved until you match it to the correct Dunk Low Panda size-10 variant. |
| Variable (template) | A blank in a template that AIM fills in from the product — its name, brand, SKU, or size. Insert them by clicking, since a mistyped one will not fill in. | Writing “Size {size}” produces “Size 10.5” on the finished listing. |
| Variant link | The link between one size or option in your store and the corresponding AIM variant. | Check the variant link when the Shopify size does not line up with the AIM size. |
| Variant settings | The details your store chooses for one size, color, or other product option, such as its price, barcode, or Shopify display size. | Edit the size-10 variant settings when that size needs a different barcode or price. |
| Vendor / supplier | Who you bought stock from. Recorded on a purchase order so you can track sourcing and costs. | Sample Supply Co. is the vendor on a purchase order for 24 pairs, so later returns and cost reports point to the right supplier. |
| When sold out | What happens on your storefront once a size hits zero. “Stop selling” hides it so customers can’t buy; “Keep selling” lets orders through even at zero (you may oversell). | Most stores choose “Stop selling” so you never sell a pair you don’t have. |
| Withdrawal request | A consignor asking to take back items they have with you that haven’t sold yet. | A consignor asks for two unsold pairs back; create a withdrawal request so the return is reviewed and tracked before stock leaves. |
Reference
Glossary
Every term AIM uses, explained the way you would explain it to a new employee.