Glossary
Retail Store Manager Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential retail store manager terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key retail store manager vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in retail store manager training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ATV
- Average transaction value.
- Comp sales
- Sales compared with the same period last year.
- Conversion rate
- Shoppers who buy versus visitors.
- District manager
- A manager over several stores.
- Floor set
- Changing merchandise layouts.
- Huddle
- A short team meeting.
- Key holder
- An employee who opens and closes.
- KPI
- Key performance indicator.
- Markdown
- A price reduction.
- Open-to-buy
- Budget for new inventory.
- Payroll budget
- Allowed labor hours or dollars.
- Planogram
- A product placement diagram.
- Sales per labor hour
- Sales divided by staff hours.
- Shrink
- Inventory lost to theft, damage or error.
- Turnover
- Staff leaving, or inventory selling through.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Retail Store Manager practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Retail Store Manager training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.