A

ABC:

Activity based costing.

ABM:

Activity based management.

absolute-minimum pricing:

The lowest possible price at which goods can be sold.

account:

A manufacturers' term for a retailer or wholesaler that buys and resells the manufacturer's products.

accounts payable:

A retailer's or wholesaler's unpaid bills and invoices; the money owed to vendors and suppliers.

account planning:

A manufacturer's business review for retail accounts that lays out the timing and scope for product promotions, deals and allowances for a coming year.

account receivable:

Bills or invoices for goods or services; money owed by a customer.

accounting and controls:

Money management methods and procedures, which include inventories; budgeting; strategic and long-range planning; expense controls; taxes, including depreciation guidelines; direct product profit, among others. See specific commodities, such as produce.

accrued inventory:

An estimate of current inventory that is determined by subtracting the costs of the current inventory and goods sold from the cost of the original inventory.

ACH:

Automated clearinghouse.

activity based costing (ABC):

An accounting method that measures business profits and costs by taking into account both overhead and the cost of wasteful or inefficient practices two items that are not considered in conventional accounting methods.

activity based management (ABM):

A management strategy used in Efficient Consumer Response (ECR), based on principles of activity based costing. See activity based costing; Efficient Consumer Response.

actual ship date (ASD):

The actual date that products leave a manufacturer's plant or distribution center.

ACV:

All commodity volume.

ad actuals:

A calculation of exact profits or losses resulting from an advertisement.

ad group:

A retailers' consortium that advertises together and shares costs.

ad projections:

Estimates of sales and profits on all advertised items.

ad slick:

Camera-ready print ads, such as illustrations, company logos and copy, provided by retailers and manufacturers for newspaper advertisements. Also known as slicks.

ADI:

A Nielsen/Arbitron radio or television term that draws the boundaries of a station's area of dominant influence.

advance order:

A retailer's order placed with a supplier for seasonal and new items before they are available.

advanced-shipping notice (ASN):

A communication using electronic data interchange (EDI) that manufacturers use to notify wholesalers or retailers about future shipments.

advertised brand:

See national brand.

advertising:

A paid, public notice that food retailers place in newspapers, on television and/or radio, on the Internet, in circulars, or on in-store signs and displays to promote products and prices.

advertising allowance:

Money that a manufacturer pays a wholesaler or retailer to advertise a product, brand or line. See cooperative advertising; cooperative merchandising allowance.

advisory board:

A group of consumers or retailers that provides ideas about items to stock and merchandise. New products are tested by consumers.

AFFI:

American Frozen Food Institute.

affiliated retailer or affiliated store:

An independent retailer that purchases products and services from a cooperative wholesaler.

affiliated wholesale grocer:

A wholesaler that provides goods and services to retailers that belong to a cooperative association.

agent:

A manufacturer's employee or a network of brokers that directly sells products to retailers and/or wholesalers. See master broker; direct sale.

AHW:

Average hourly wage.

AIFD:

American Institute of Food Distribution, Inc.

AIR:

Average item retail.

air conditioning and heating:

Systems used to cool and heat stores, warehouses and other facilities. They are often linked to refrigerators and lighting as part of energy management systems. See equipment and supplies; store construction; maintenance; energy management; and ecology.

air curtain:

A buffer zone of air between rooms of different temperatures in a warehouse or between the inside and outside of a store.

aisle captain or aisle clerk:

A supervisor or person responsible for full shelves, merchandising and ordering.

aisle closer:

A mobile, merchandising unit used to close a checkout stand so that customers move to another checkout stand.

all commodity volume (ACV):

A retailer's total volume of sales, expressed as a percentage (or share) of the ACV; therefore a 30 percent ACV is a 30 percent share of the total market for that commodity.

allocate:

A process that determines how much shelf space a product gets, using product movement and profitability as a guide.

allocation:

A limit set by a manufacturer on the total amount of a retailer's or wholesaler's product order during a promotional period. See forced distribution.

allowance:

A manufacturer's deal for wholesalers or retailers to advertise and/or merchandise specific product(s). Also known as a trade deal, promotion or a discount.

ambient:

A recommended air temperature used to transport or to store perishable foods.

American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI):

1764 Old Meadow Lane, Suite 350 McLean, VA 22102 (703) 821-0770

American Institute of Food Distribution Inc. (AIFD):

28-12 Broadway Fair Lawn, NJ 07410 (201) 791-5570

American Meat Institute (AMI):

1700 N. Moore St., Suite 1600 Arlington, VA 22209 (703) 841-2400 or P.O. Box 3556 Washington, DC 20007

American National Standards Institute (ANSI):

A nongovernmental association that formulates voluntary, national standards, such as electronic data interchange.

American Wholesale Marketers Association (AWMA):

(Formerly, National Candy Wholesalers Association-NCWA) The National Candy Wholesalers Association and the National Association of Tobacco Distributors joined to form a single trade organization. 1128 16th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-2124

AMI:

American Meat Institute.

ANSI:

American National Standards Institute.

ANSI accredited standards committee x12 (ANSI ASC X12):

A committee responsible for writing generic electronic data interchange (EDI) standards.

apollo:

A software program used to analyze shelf space and product movement in order to develop planograms for specific categories. See planogram; space management.

application identifier:

A numeric prefix to a UCC/EAN-128 code that defines the encoded data to follow. Generally used as secondary codes to provide information not included in standard U.P.C. numbering, such as product dates, weights and lot/batch numbers. May also identify a UCC serial shipping container.

area of dominant influence (ADI):

An Arbitron or Nielsen measure of a market of television viewers. An ADI includes all jurisdictions within a metro area, which can receive the signal of a particular station. The United States has over 200 ADIs.

arrival notice:

A sheet on a freight bill that notifies a recipient that a shipment has arrived at its destination.

as advertised:

A sale price for an item featured in a weekly ad that is lower than the regular price.

ASN:

Advanced shipping notice.

assembly of components:

Food purchased to combine into an in-store product, which is sold fresh or frozen, ready-to-cook, or ready-to-eat. The process requires skilled labor and equipment for food safety, but is not as demanding as a "scratch/on-site" operation.

asset:

Items or resources used to facilitate or add value to a company's operation. See assets; assets, fixed.

assets, current:

Cash, securities or resources (CDs, T-Bills, accounts receivable or inventory) that can be readily converted into cash in a year.

assets, fixed:

Items or resources, such as equipment, vehicles and buildings, used to finance a company's operations,

assets, frozen:

A creditor's lien on terms or resources.

ATM:

Automated teller machine.

audience, target:

Advertising designed to reach a certain group of people.

authorization or authorization to purchase:

An approval for a category manager to purchase products, to store them in a warehouse and to list them in a store's order book.

authorization slip or authorization letter:

A company form or letter that allows a broker or manufacturer's representative to call on a store manager or owner.

authorized items:

Products that a company's headquarters authorizes for distribution to retailers or stores.

authorized list:

A list of company-approved vendors and products.

authorized stock item:

A product that company headquarters must approve for retailers or company stores to stock.

automated clearinghouse (ACH):

A company that electronically transfers monies between financial institutions. See ACH card.

automated clearinghouse card:

An electronic transfer of funds between bank accounts.

automated teller machine (ATM):

An electronic banking system that uses cash/credit cards to process customer's transactions, such as a deposit or withdrawal from a bank account.

automatic distribution:

A chain stores' and wholesale grocers' method to determine how many products and the amount of a product to deliver to retail stores, based on the retailers' market share and profitability, whether or not the retailer has a specific order. See forced distribution.

automatic ordering:

A retail ordering method that automatically replenishes fast-moving items.

automatic vending:

The sale of merchandise through a coin-operated machine.

average hourly wage (AHW):

An averaging of total wages that is derived by dividing the total wages paid by the total hours worked.

average inventory on hand:

A calculation of the worth, expressed in dollars, of the inventory in a store that is determined by dividing the costs of goods sold by the number of retail/wholesale turns.

average item retail (AIR):

The computed, average retail price of all products sold in a store.

average order:

The amount of money a customer spends on each shopping trip.

averaging cost:

A calculation that determines a product's current cost by adding a product's current cost to its replacement cost and dividing that sum by two.

AVO:

Avoid verbal orders.

avoid verbal orders (AVO):

A management system that requires written notice of changes in policies and procedures.

AWMA:

American Wholesale Marketers Association.