Live Commerce Glossary | SHOPLIVE

Glossary

One-sentence definitions of the terms that come up most often in live and video commerce.

Core concepts

• Live Commerce
  Live commerce is selling through a real-time video broadcast where viewers can buy without leaving the stream.

• UGC (User-Generated Content)
  UGC is photo, video, or review content created by actual customers rather than the brand, and it typically earns more trust than advertising.

• D2C Live Commerce
  D2C live commerce runs the broadcast inside the brand's own store and app rather than on a marketplace or social platform, so the customer data and the margin stay with the brand.

• Short-form Commerce
  Short-form commerce attaches products to vertical videos of roughly a minute or less, shortening the distance between discovery and purchase.

• First-Party Data
  First-party data is information a brand collects directly from customers on its own channels, and it becomes the core asset for repeat-purchase marketing after third-party cookies go away.

• Omnichannel Commerce
  Omnichannel commerce runs the web store, app, physical stores, and social channels as one connected experience, so a customer gets the same information and offers wherever they start.

• Social Commerce
  Social commerce is discovery and purchase happening inside platforms like Instagram or TikTok — strong on reach, but the customer data stays with the platform.

• Video Commerce
  Video commerce is the umbrella term for selling through video — live, short-form, and one-to-one video consultation — with live commerce as one format within it.

• Zero-Party Data
  Zero-party data is information customers deliberately volunteer — through surveys, polls, or preference choices — making it more accurate than behavioral data that has to be inferred.

• Live Host
  The live host presents the broadcast, explains products, and answers viewer questions — one of the biggest determinants of whether a broadcast converts.

Features

• Highlight Clip
  A highlight clip is a short-form video cut from the strongest moments of a longer live broadcast so the content keeps working after the stream ends.

• Streaming / RTMP Ingest
  Streaming ingest is the process of sending video from a camera or encoder to a streaming server over a protocol such as RTMP so it can be delivered to viewers in real time.

• Video Subtitles
  Subtitles render spoken audio as on-screen text so the content still works for sound-off viewers and for audiences in other languages.

• Social Video Import
  Social video import automatically pulls videos you already published on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts into your own store as shoppable short-form, with no re-uploading.

• Intro & Outro
  Intro and outro are the holding screens shown before a broadcast starts and after it ends, used to hold early arrivals and to direct viewers to a next action.

• Live Replay (VOD)
  Live replay re-serves a finished broadcast on demand, converting viewers who missed the live window and making round-the-clock programming possible.

• Live Pop-up
  A live pop-up is an overlay shown on top of the broadcast — a notice, coupon, or product detail — used to prompt an action without interrupting viewing.

• Live Quiz
  A live quiz poses a question during the broadcast and rewards correct answers instantly, lifting both dwell time and chat participation.

• Live Coupon
  A live coupon is a discount issued in real time only to viewers of a broadcast, creating a reason to buy now rather than later.

• Live Chat
  Live chat is the real-time channel where viewers ask questions during a broadcast and the seller answers immediately, resolving hesitation at the moment of purchase.

• Live Auction
  A live auction is a commerce format where bidding runs inside a live video broadcast, and viewers bid, win and pay without leaving the screen.

Metrics

• Conversion Rate (CVR)
  Conversion rate is the share of visitors or viewers who actually purchase, and it typically runs higher in live commerce than on a standard product page.

• Average Order Value (AOV)
  Average order value is the mean amount spent per order — total revenue divided by number of orders — and it rises with bundling and upselling.

• Concurrent Viewers
  Concurrent viewers is the number of people watching at the same moment — unlike cumulative viewers, it reflects both real-time momentum and server load.

• Engagement Rate
  Engagement measures how much viewers actually react — chat, likes, quiz entries, product taps — and it predicts purchase intent better than raw view counts.

• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
  ROAS shows how much revenue each unit of ad spend produced — ad revenue divided by ad cost — and it is the standard yardstick for judging live commerce ad efficiency.

• GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)
  GMV is the total value of transactions over a period before cancellations, returns, and fees are deducted, which makes it different from revenue.

• LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)
  LTV is the total profit a customer generates across the entire relationship, which distinguishes it from average order value — the size of a single order.

• CTR (Click-Through Rate)
  CTR is the share of impressions that resulted in a click, and in live commerce the product card click rate is the clearest signal of purchase intent.

• Bounce Rate
  Bounce rate is the share of arrivals who leave without taking any action; in live commerce it means viewers who enter the broadcast and exit almost immediately.

• View Completion Rate
  View completion rate is the share of viewers who watch to the end — a direct driver of algorithmic distribution in short-form, and a measure of structure in live.

AI & discovery

• Agentic Commerce
  Agentic commerce is buying where an AI agent — not the shopper — searches, compares, and completes the purchase, which means product information has to be machine-readable to be considered at all.

• AI Shopping Agent
  An AI shopping agent understands a shopper's requirements and finds and recommends products on their behalf, which makes being chosen by the agent — not just by the person — the new challenge for brands.

• Conversational Commerce
  Conversational commerce carries a customer from question to purchase through chat or voice, with live chat and AI chatbots as its most common forms.

• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
  AEO is optimizing so that AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite your content as a source — unlike SEO, the goal is being included in the answer rather than ranking above it.

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
  GEO is structuring content and schema so a brand is part of what generative AI draws on when composing an answer; in practice it is used almost interchangeably with AEO.

• AI Chat Moderation
  AI chat moderation automatically filters non-compliant or inappropriate messages from live chat before a human has to intervene, which is what makes live broadcasting viable in regulated industries like healthcare and finance.