Glossary
The words behind chat-first commerce, in plain language
Most of the confusion about buying and selling online comes from vocabulary, not technology. These are the terms that actually matter, defined without jargon and without overselling what any of them guarantee.
- Social commerceSocial commerce is the buying and selling of products that begins inside a social experience — a feed, a video, a story or a chat — rather than in a search-driven product catalogue.
- Conversational commerceConversational commerce is buying and selling that takes place inside a messaging conversation, where the product, the price and the payment are handled through chat rather than a traditional checkout.
- Escrow accountAn escrow account is an arrangement where a neutral third party holds money for a transaction and releases it only when the conditions both sides agreed have been met.
- Buyer protectionBuyer protection is a marketplace's commitment about what happens when a purchase goes wrong — typically a refund if the item never arrives or does not match the listing.
- Social commerce marketplaceA social commerce marketplace is a platform that combines social discovery — a feed of video and photo content — with real marketplace transactions: listings, checkout, payment and order management.
- Video commerceVideo commerce is buying and selling driven by video content — a product video, a live stream or a short-form clip — that a buyer can purchase from without leaving the video.
- Payment gatewayA payment gateway is the service that authorises and processes a card or bank payment on behalf of a business, moving money between the buyer's bank and the merchant.
Definitions are only useful if they are precise
Escrow, buyer protection and insurance get used interchangeably, and they are not the same thing. Where a term has a limit, these pages say so — a definition that flatters the product is worse than no definition at all.