Supplement Business Glossary

10DLC: A standard ten-digit local number registered with US carriers for business texting. The brand and each messaging campaign are registered before carriers will deliver the traffic.

21 CFR Part 111: The federal rule governing how dietary supplements are manufactured, packaged, labeled and held. Distinct from Part 117, which covers general food safety.; Part 111

60-Day Notice: The notice of violation that starts a Proposition 65 action. Private enforcers buy products, test them, and serve it where a result exceeds the level without a warning on the label.

A/B Test: The process of running two variations of an ad, email, or landing page against each other to see which performs better.; Split TestingSplit TestA/B testing
Abandoned Cart: An automated email sent to a visitor who added items to their cart but left the site without completing the purchase. A critical email flow for recovering lost revenue.
Above the Fold: The portion of a webpage that is visible on the screen before the user scrolls down. Critical selling points (Headline, Button) must be placed here.
Account Warming: Building billing history with modest spend before raising budgets, so a new account does not match the pattern platforms flag.
Acquirer: The bank that holds your merchant account and carries the risk of your disputes. Its tolerance, not the card network's published threshold, is usually what governs a small merchant.; Acquiring Bank
Active Ingredient: The ingredient the product is actually bought for, as opposed to everything else in the capsule.; ActivesActive Ingredients
Add to Cart: A metric tracking how many users added a product to their cart. A key indicator of purchase intent.; ATC
Additional Insured: A party added to your policy so your coverage extends to them. Manufacturers, warehouses, Amazon and retailers each require it before they will work with you.
Adverse Event: Any health problem reported in connection with using a supplement, whether or not the product caused it. Every report is logged and kept for six years, and the serious ones are filed with the FDA.; Adverse EventsAdverse Event ReportAdverse Event Reports
Advertorial: An advertisement written in the style of an editorial news article or blog post. Used to educate 'Cold Traffic' before asking for a sale.
Affiliate: A person or partner who promotes your product in exchange for a commission on each sale they generate.
Algorithm: The automated system used by platforms (Meta, TikTok, Amazon) to decide which users see your content based on engagement signals.
AM Best Rating: A carrier's financial strength grade. A- or better indicates reserves sufficient to pay claims, and several counterparties require it.
Amazon Brand Registry: Amazon's brand protection program, which unlocks listing control and enforcement tools. Requires a mark on the Principal Register or, at times, a pending application.
App Bloat: The accumulation of too many plugins or apps on a store, where each adds JavaScript code that slows down page load speed.
Arbitrary Mark: A real word with no connection to the product it is attached to. Registers cleanly and is straightforward to defend.
Attribution: The method of determining which ad or channel gets credit for a sale.
Attribution Window: The period after a click or a view in which a platform will still credit itself with a sale. Meta's default on a website conversion campaign is seven days for a click and one day for a view.
Automatic Renewal Law: State legislation governing how subscriptions are disclosed, consented to and cancelled. Applies independently of any federal rule.; ARL
Average Order Value: The average amount a customer spends in a single transaction. Calculated as Total Revenue ÷ Total Orders. Increasing AOV is the fastest way to increase profitability.; AOV

Back-End: The systems and revenue generated after the initial sale (e.g., email marketing, subscriptions, SMS).
Banned Substance Testing: Lot by lot screening for substances prohibited in competitive sport. The basis of the certifications athletes and leagues look for.
Beneficial Ownership Information: The ownership disclosure required under the Corporate Transparency Act, narrowed by a 2026 rule to cover only foreign companies registered to do business in the US. Confirm the current position with FinCEN rather than with a formation service.; BOI
Beta Tester: A customer recruited early in the launch process to provide feedback and reviews, often in exchange for a discount.
Billing Descriptor: The text a customer sees on their card statement. A descriptor that does not match your brand is a leading cause of disputes.; Soft Descriptor
Blue Ocean: A position narrow enough that generic competitors stop being relevant to your specific customer. Zero competition is rare in an established category and is not the goal.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who land on your website and leave immediately without clicking anything.
Break-Even ROAS: The specific Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) number where your profit is exactly $0. Used as a baseline for ad performance.
Bridge Page: A landing page that sits between an ad and the product page, designed to 'bridge' the gap in awareness (usually an Advertorial or Quiz).
Broker: A company that takes supplement manufacturing orders without owning a facility, subcontracts production, and marks it up. Leaves the brand unable to name or audit the plant that made its product.
Browsewrap: Relying on a footer link nobody has to click. Courts have set aside arbitration clauses on this basis, because the customer never agreed to anything.
Business Portfolio: The container holding your pages, ad accounts, domains and payment methods on an advertising platform. Should be registered in the company's legal name, matching your formation documents.; Business Manager

Call to Action: The instruction you give the user (e.g., 'Shop Now,' 'Learn More').; CTA
Campaign Budget Optimization: An ad account setting where the algorithm automatically distributes your budget to the best-performing ad sets, rather than you setting a budget for each audience manually.; CBO
Cash Flow: The timing of money arriving and leaving, which is a separate question from whether a sale was profitable.
Cease and Desist: A demand letter from a senior mark holder requiring you to stop using a name. The usual way a founder discovers a conflict they never searched for.
Certificate of Analysis: A document from a laboratory confirming that a supplement ingredient meets specific purity and safety standards.; COA
Certificate of Insurance: The one-page proof of coverage you send to anyone who asks. The entity name on it must match your formation documents exactly.; COI
Chain of Custody: The document tracing samples from the pallet to the laboratory, establishing that the units tested were the ones you actually received.
Chargeback: A forced refund initiated by a customer’s bank after a dispute. High chargeback rates can get your merchant account banned.
Chargeback Ratio: The percentage of transactions that result in a dispute, calculated as Disputes ÷ Total Transactions. Ratios above 1% can lead to excessive fines or account termination.
Churn: The event of a subscriber cancelling their recurring subscription. Reducing this is critical for long-term profitability.
Churn Rate: The percentage of subscribers who cancel their subscription within a given period.
Circumventing Systems: Creating new accounts, pages or profiles to get around an enforcement decision. A policy violation in its own right, and a common route from a restricted ad account to a permanently banned domain.
Claims-Made Policy: Coverage that answers only for claims filed while the policy is active. Usually cheaper, but it needs an unbroken chain and tail coverage when you leave.
Class Action Waiver: A term requiring disputes to be brought individually rather than as a group. Common alongside arbitration clauses, and no defense against a regulator.
Clearance Search: The full search, usually run by an attorney and delivered with a written opinion, covering registered marks, pending applications and common law use.
Clickwrap: Presenting your terms where a customer must act to proceed, such as under the order button. What makes the clauses inside them enforceable.
Clinically Proven: A claim referring to studies on your finished formula. Studies on a single ingredient support a weaker and different statement, and describing one as the other is a substantiation problem.
Cold Chain: Storage and shipping kept refrigerated from manufacture to delivery. Needed only for products labeled to be refrigerated, and handled by specialist warehouses.; Cold-Chain
Cold Traffic: People who have never heard of your brand before. Hardest to convert; requires more education.
Commingling: Mixing business and personal money. The most common evidence used to argue that an entity was never truly separate from its owner.
Common Law Trademark: Rights earned by actually using a name in commerce, with no registration. They can outrank a later federal filing within the territory the user has built.
Comparative Advertising: Advertising that identifies a competitor, by name or by implication, to show a difference. Permitted and encouraged by the FTC provided every claim is truthful and substantiated.
Consumer Health Data: Information linkable to a person that reveals their health status, including what a company infers from their behavior on a site. State laws such as Washington's My Health My Data Act cover it and allow consumers to sue directly.
Contact Shadow: The soft shadow where an object meets a surface. Adding one is what makes a product cutout sit in a composited scene rather than float above it.
Contains Statement: The allergen declaration placed beside the ingredient list, used where allergens are not already named within it.
Contract Manufacturing: Hiring an outside facility to produce your product, whether that is a stock formula, a modified one, or a formula built from scratch.; Contract MfgContract Manufacturer
Contribution Margin: The cash left from an order after every variable cost including advertising. The number that actually funds the business.
Controlled Room Temperature: 20 to 25°C (68 to 77°F), with brief excursions up to 30°C (86°F). The pharmacopeia's definition, and the usual reference when a product's storage range is not stated.
Conversion Rate: The percentage of website visitors who make a purchase. (e.g., 100 visitors and 3 sales = 3% CR).; CR
Conversion Rate Optimization: The process of tweaking a website to increase the percentage of visitors who buy.; CRO
Conversions API: A server-side tracking tool (mostly for Meta) that tracks data more accurately than a standard browser pixel, bypassing ad blockers.; CAPI
Cost of Goods Sold: The total 'Landed Cost' of the product, including manufacturing, packaging, and freight to the warehouse.; COGS
Cost Per Acquisition: The cost in ad spend required to get one purchase.; CPA
Cost Per Click: The amount you pay to an ad platform for every click on your ad.; CPC
Cost Per Mille: The cost for 1,000 impressions (views) of your ad. A measure of how expensive an audience is to reach.; CPM
Cost per Serving: Price divided by servings per container. The only honest basis for comparing two products.
Creative: The visual asset used in an ad (Video, Image, GIF).
Cross-Sell: An offer of a different product alongside the one being bought, such as a second supplement suggested in the cart.; Cross-SellsCross-selling
Customer Acquisition Cost: The full cost of winning a new customer, including ad spend, creative, and discounts. Broader than CPA, which counts ad spend alone.; CAC

Daily Value: The reference amount used to express how much of a nutrient a serving provides. Declared in the Supplement Facts panel wherever one has been established.; %DV
Dark Pattern: An interface designed to push users into actions they would not otherwise take, such as making a subscription hard to cancel. Several forms are actionable under FTC rules.
Dead Stock: Inventory you cannot sell, usually because the trend passed or the expiry date is too close.
Decoy Effect: A pricing strategy where a 'dummy' option (e.g., a high-priced single bottle) is presented solely to make the target option (e.g., the 3-Pack) look like a better deal.
Default Bias: The tendency to accept whatever is already selected. Pre-selecting a tier moves most buyers onto it.
Delivery Format: The physical vehicle carrying the dose: capsule, softgel, gummy, powder, or liquid.; Dosage Form
Desiccant: The moisture-absorbing packet placed in a supplement bottle to protect the product across its shelf life.
Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act: The 1994 US law that regulates dietary supplements. It defines what can and cannot be claimed on a label.; DSHEA
Digital Double: A 3D model of your packaging built to the container's real dimensions. Renders from it replace a photo shoot, and a label change means swapping a texture file rather than reshooting.
Direct Response: A style of marketing designed to elicit an immediate action (sale/signup) rather than just building brand awareness.
Direct-to-Consumer: Selling directly to buyers via your own website, bypassing retail stores.; DTCDirect to Consumer
Disease Claim: Any statement that your product diagnoses, treats, cures, or prevents a disease. Not legal for a dietary supplement.; Disease Claims
Dispute Alert: A notification that a cardholder has disputed a charge, sent before a chargeback is filed. Refunding inside the window keeps the chargeback off your record.; Ethoca AlertVerifi CDRN
Dispute Alert Service: A notification service that alerts merchants of a pending dispute, allowing them to refund the customer within 24 hours to avoid a formal chargeback strike.
Disregarded Entity: The IRS default treatment of a single-member LLC. The company is ignored for federal income tax, so its activity is reported on the owner's personal return.
DNS: The system translating your domain into the server that answers it. Controlled by your registrar, and part of how fast and how securely your site resolves.
Doing Business As: A registered trading name that differs from the legal entity name. Lets one company sell under several brands without forming a second entity.; DBAAssumed NameFictitious Business Name
Domain Verification: Proving to a platform that you control your domain, which ties it to your business rather than to whoever first advertised it.
Downsell: A smaller offer shown to a customer who declined the first one, such as one extra bottle after turning down two.; Downsells
Dream Outcome: The result the customer actually wants, as distinct from the product that delivers it.
Dropshipping: A fulfillment model where you do not hold inventory; the manufacturer ships the product directly to your customer when an order is placed.; Dropship
Dry-Labbing: Producing a certificate of analysis with plausible numbers that were never measured. Caught by checking for named methods, an accredited lab, and results given as figures rather than as "Pass".
Dunning: The automated process of retrying failed payment methods (e.g., declined credit cards) to recover lost revenue from subscribers.

Email Flow: An automated sequence of emails triggered by a user action (e.g., Welcome Series, Abandoned Cart).
Email Service Provider: The software platform used to send marketing emails (e.g., Klaviyo, Mailchimp).; ESP
Employer Identification Number: The federal tax ID issued to a business by the IRS. Free, applied for online, and required to open a business bank account or a merchant account.; EINTax ID
Endorsement: Any statement about a product that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinion or experience of someone other than the advertiser. A founder describing their own results is making one.
Enhanced Safety Categories: Amazon's list of higher-risk product categories, which includes dietary supplements. From 2 November 2026 these require $1 million of commercial liability insurance regardless of sales volume.
Event Deduplication: Matching the browser pixel event and the server-side event for the same action so a purchase is counted once. Platforms pair them by event name and a shared event ID.
Evergreen: A problem that persists regardless of trends, and the safest foundation for a first product.
Excipient: Everything in the bottle that isn't the active: flow agents, fillers, the capsule shell, sweeteners, and flavor systems.; Excipients
Expert Endorsement: An endorsement presented as coming from someone qualified in the field. The qualifications have to support what is being claimed about the product.
Expiration Dating: The date stamped on each unit. Stock that sits too long becomes unsellable rather than merely slow.; Expiry Dating
Exploded View: A render showing the cap lifted and contents suspended above the bottle, usually with callouts to the active ingredient and its dose.

Fairy Dusting: Including a token amount of a popular ingredient so its name can appear on the panel, at a dose too low to do anything. Legal and common, and paid for later in reorder rates.; Pixie-DustingPixie Dusting
Fanciful Mark: An invented word with no meaning before you give it one. The strongest category to register and enforce, and the most expensive to build recognition for.
FDA Disclaimer: The statement that must accompany a structure/function claim, noting the FDA has not evaluated it.
Federal Trade Commission: The US government agency that enforces consumer protection laws, specifically regarding truth in advertising and endorsements.; FTC
FEFO: Picking the units with the earliest expiry date first. Many warehouses pick by the date stock arrived instead, which ships the wrong lot once two lots overlap.; First Expired, First Out
FIFO: Picking the stock that arrived first. The default in many warehouses, and the wrong order for supplements once two lots overlap, which is why the agreement asks for FEFO.; First In, First Out
Five Second Test: Showing someone the top of a page for five seconds, then asking what the product does and who it is for. The cheapest check on whether a hero section works.
Flavor Masking: Formulating to cover the taste of the active ingredient. A real cost in powders, and routinely left out of the budget.
Food and Drug Administration: The US government agency responsible for protecting public health by regulating food, drugs, and supplements.; FDA
Food Facility Registration: FDA registration required of any facility that manufactures, processes, packs or holds food for US consumption, supplements included. A warehouse holding your stock needs it. Renewed between October and December of every even-numbered year.
Foreign Qualification: Registering an out-of-state company to do business in the state you actually operate from. Forming in Wyoming or Delaware usually triggers it, doubling filing fees and annual reports.
Form FDA 483: The list of observations an FDA investigator leaves after inspecting a facility. Publicly searchable through FDA's inspection databases, unlike facility registration.
Franchise Tax: An annual state charge for the privilege of operating an entity there, owed regardless of profit. California's $800 minimum is the one that catches new founders.
Fraud Report: An issuer's record that a transaction was reported as fraudulent. Counts toward Visa's monitoring ratio alongside chargebacks, which is why deflection alone is a partial answer.; TC40
Fulfillment: Storing, packing, and shipping orders after the sale is made.
Full Custom: A formula built from scratch to your specification. Highest cost and longest lead time, with complete exclusivity.
Funnel: The theoretical journey a customer takes from awareness to purchase (Top, Middle, and Bottom of Funnel).

Gateway: The digital 'bridge' that connects your website to your merchant bank account, securely transmitting credit card data (e.g., Authorize.net).
Ghost Code: Leftover code fragments remaining in a website's theme files after an app has been deleted, which can degrade site performance over time.
Goldilocks Pricing: A three-tier structure built so the middle option looks like the sensible financial decision.
Good Manufacturing Practice: A system for ensuring that products are consistently produced and controlled according to quality standards. Manufacturers should be GMP Certified.; GMPcGMPCurrent Good Manufacturing PracticeGMP Certified
Gross Margin: The percentage of revenue left over after subtracting the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).

Hero Section: The large, top section of a website homepage or landing page. It is the first thing a visitor sees.
High-Risk Merchant Account: A payment account priced for categories processors treat as risky, supplements included. Higher rates, and usually a reserve.
Holdout Group: A random share of customers deliberately left out of a flow or campaign, so its real effect can be measured against them.; Holdout
Homeopathic: A separate regulatory category sold alongside supplements, with its own rules and its own enforcement history.
Hook: The Headline of a landing page or first few seconds of a video, designed to grab attention and stop the user from scrolling.
HPLC: High performance liquid chromatography, the standard method for measuring how much of an active ingredient a product actually contains.; UPLC

ICP-MS: Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, the standard instrumental method for measuring heavy metals in a finished supplement.
Identity Testing: Confirming a raw ingredient is what the supplier says it is. Required for every dietary ingredient, and a supplier's certificate alone does not satisfy it.
Implied Claim: A claim made by an image, testimonial, or context rather than by words. Regulators treat it the same as written copy.; Implied Claims
Impression: A single instance of an ad being displayed on a screen.
Indemnity Clause: The contract term deciding which party absorbs a loss when a claim arrives. In a manufacturing agreement it determines whether a bad batch lands on the facility or on the brand.; Indemnification
Induction Seal: A tamper-evident safety liner placed on a bottle's opening to prevent leakage during transit and ensure product safety.
Influencer Seeding: Sending free product to influencers with no contract, hoping they will post about it organically.
Information Panel: The panel immediately to the right of the front, carrying the Supplement Facts, ingredients, allergens, business address and directions. Those elements must run together with nothing placed between them.
Ingestible Exclusion: The clause in a general business policy that removes cover for anything a customer swallows. The reason an off-the-shelf policy leaves a supplement brand uninsured.
Insert Card: A printed card packed in the parcel with the product. Federal law treats it as labeling, so the claim rules that apply to the bottle apply to the card as well.; Insert Cards
Intellectual Property: Ownership of intangible assets like formulas, brand names, and logos.; IP
Intent-to-Use: A trademark application filed before you sell anything, on a genuine intention to use the mark. Dates your claim from the filing date instead of your first sale.; ITUSection 1(b)
International Class: The category a trademark is registered in. Dietary supplements sit in Class 5 whatever their format; adjacent classes 29, 30 and 32 cover foods, gummies and functional drinks.; Class 5Nice Classification
IP Address: The unique identifying number assigned to every device connected to the internet.; Internet ProtocolIPs
ISO/IEC 17025: The accreditation standard for testing laboratories. A certificate of analysis should name the lab's accreditation number, and an independent lab should hold it.

Key Performance Indicator: A measurable value used to track the success of a business objective (e.g., ROAS, CPA).; KPI
Keyword Opt-In: Consent to texts given by texting a word, such as one printed on an insert, to a brand's number. Valid only with the program's disclosure printed beside the keyword.
Kitchen Sink: Cramming many actives into one product so that none of them reach an effective dose.
Knockout Search: The quick, free first pass through the USPTO database to eliminate candidate names with obvious conflicts before paying for a full clearance search.

Landed Cost: The total cost to get one unit into your warehouse: formula, bottle, lid, seal, label, and freight.
Landing Page: A standalone web page created specifically for a marketing campaign.
Lanham Act: The federal law under which a competitor, rather than a regulator, can sue you over a false or misleading advertising claim.
Largest Contentful Paint: A core web vital metric that measures how long it takes for the largest element on a web page to become visible. Keeping this 'green' is essential for site speed.; LCPLoad Speed
Launch Capital: Everything spent before the first sale: inventory, packaging, legal, insurance, site build, creative, and ad testing.
Lead Time: The time between placing an order with a manufacturer and having stock you can ship. For a supplement that includes freight, receiving and release testing as well as production.
Learning Phase: The period after launching a new ad set (usually the first 72 hours or 50 conversions) where the algorithm is testing different audiences. Performance is volatile during this time.
Lifetime Value: The total profit you expect to earn from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship with your brand.; LTV
Likelihood of Confusion: The legal standard for a trademark conflict. Weighs how alike two marks look, sound and mean, how related the goods are, and whether they reach buyers the same way. Identical spelling is not required.
Limitation of Liability: A clause capping what you owe in a contract dispute, commonly at the amount the customer paid. Does not reach regulators or personal injury claims.
Limited Liability Company: A state-registered business structure that separates the owner's personal assets from the company's debts and claims, as long as the two are kept separate.; LLC
Load Balancing: The practice of routing sales transactions to different merchant accounts to spread volume and keep chargeback ratios low.
Lookalike Audience: An ad targeting option where the platform finds new people who 'look like' your existing customers based on data points.; LAL
Loss Aversion: Losing money stings more than gaining a benefit pleases, which is why removing risk converts better than adding features.
Lot Number: The code tying a unit to one production run, its batch record and its certificate of analysis. Printed on the bottle and the case.; Batch Number

Mail Privacy Protection: An Apple Mail feature that preloads email content, which records an open whether or not the person read the message. The reason to judge email engagement on clicks.; Apple Mail Privacy ProtectionApple Mail's privacy protection
Major Food Allergen: One of the nine allergens requiring declaration: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. Sesame was added in 2023.
Margin: The difference between the selling price and the cost to produce/ship the item.
Market Withdrawal: Removal of product for a minor problem that is not a violation the FDA would act on. Handled by the company outside the formal recall process.
Marketing Efficiency Ratio: Total revenue divided by total advertising spend across every channel, for the same period. Nothing inflates it, and it cannot tell you which individual ad is working.; MERBlended ROAS
Mass Arbitration: Filing thousands of individual arbitrations at once against a business whose terms require them. Per-case provider fees generally fall on the business, which can cost more than the class action the clause was meant to prevent.
Master Services Agreement: A contract between a brand and a manufacturer. It is critical to ensure this agreement specifies that the brand retains ownership of the formula IP.; MSA
MATCH List: The card networks' shared record of merchants terminated for cause. A listing follows the owners as well as the entity and typically persists for five years.; Terminated Merchant File
Material Connection: A relationship between an endorser and a seller that would affect how much weight a reader gives the endorsement. It must be disclosed wherever an audience would not already expect it.
Maximum Allowable Dose Level: The daily exposure figure under Proposition 65 below which no warning is required. Differs by substance and by health endpoint.; MADL
MedWatch Form 3500A: The FDA form for mandatory serious adverse event reports, filed by mail or electronically through the FDA Safety Reporting Portal.; Form 3500ASafety Reporting Portal
Merchant Fees: What the payment processor takes per transaction, commonly around 2.9% plus a fixed amount.; Processing Fees
Merchant ID: The account number identifying your business to the card networks. A dedicated MID is underwritten specifically for you, rather than shared through an aggregator.; MID
Merchant Processor: The financial institution that handles credit card transactions for your store (e.g., Stripe, Authorize.net).
Mere Descriptiveness: A refusal ground for a name that simply describes the product, its ingredient or its effect. The reason names like "Liver Detox Complex" cannot be owned.; Descriptive Mark
Meta Ad Library: Meta's free public archive of every ad currently running, searchable by brand.; Ad Library
Minimum Order Quantity: The lowest quantity of product a manufacturer is willing to produce for an order.; MOQ
Minimum Remaining Shelf Life: The least time before expiry a unit must have left to ship. Set from the largest bundle a customer can buy, so they can finish the last bottle before its date.
Misbranded: A product whose labeling fails a legal requirement, regardless of what is actually in the bottle. A missing element or a disallowed claim is enough.
Mock Recall: A drill in which a warehouse or manufacturer is given a lot number and asked where every unit from it went. Shows whether a real recall could reach the right customers, and how quickly.

National Advertising Division: The advertising industry's self-regulatory body. A competitor can challenge your claim there, and it reviews your substantiation and asks for changes where it falls short. Faster and cheaper than court.; NAD
Native Content: Advertising content that looks like regular organic social media posts (e.g., shot on iPhone, no heavy editing).
Negative Option: Any arrangement where silence or inaction results in a charge, which includes every subscription. Regulated federally and by several state automatic renewal laws.
Net Quantity of Contents: The count or weight in the package, placed in the lower 30% of the front panel.
Nootropic: A supplement category aimed at focus, memory, and mental clarity.; Nootropics
North Star: The guiding competitor or benchmark brand you aim to emulate or beat.
Notice of Allowance: Issued after an intent-to-use application clears examination and publication. Starts a six-month clock to file a Statement of Use or request an extension.; NOA
Notice of Penalty Offenses: An FTC letter listing practices the agency has already found unlawful. A company that receives one and then engages in them can face civil penalties from the first violation.; Notices of Penalty Offenses

Objection Sequence: The order a cold visitor raises doubts in: relevance, then belief, then risk. A landing page that answers them out of order asks for the sale before it has earned it.
Occurrence Policy: Coverage that answers for incidents happening during the policy period, whenever the claim is eventually filed. Suits consumables, where harm can surface years later.
Offer: The complete package presented to the customer, including Price, Product, Guarantee, and Bonuses.
Office Action: A written objection from the examining attorney reviewing your trademark application. Must be answered by a deadline or the application is abandoned.
Operating Agreement: The internal document setting out how an LLC is owned and run. Rarely required by a state, routinely asked for by banks and merchant underwriters.
Organic Traffic: Visitors who come to your site naturally (via Google Search or Social Bio) without you paying for the click.
Outpainting: Extending an image beyond its original frame with generated content, used to turn one square asset into a banner or a vertical story format.
Overage: Extra active ingredient added at manufacture so the product still meets its label claim at the end of its shelf life, after degradation.
Own-Label Distributor: The company whose name appears on a supplement label, even though another facility makes it. Carries responsibility under 21 CFR Part 111 for the product's identity, purity, strength and composition.
Owner's Draw: Money moved from the business account to the owner's personal account and recorded as such. The correct way to pay yourself without commingling.

Pack Out: Everything done to a filled bottle before it ships: shrink band, cartoning, case packing and palletizing. Routinely excluded from a manufacturing quote.
Packshot: The clean hero image of the product on a plain background, used as the primary product image on a page, a listing and a shopping feed.
Page Weight: The total script and assets a page loads. Every app adds to it, and the cost shows up in conversion rate rather than on an invoice.
Pattern Interrupt: A visual or auditory technique used in ads to break the viewer's subconscious scrolling habit.
Payback Period: The month your cumulative cash finally covers what you spent to launch.; Break-Even Date
Payment Aggregator: A service like Stripe or PayPal that bundles many businesses into one merchant account. They are easy to set up but have a high risk of freezing funds for supplement brands.
Payment Token: The stored credential a subscription app uses to charge a recurring customer. Tokens often cannot move between apps, which is what makes switching subscription platforms expensive.
Persona: The single specific person the product is for, defined tightly enough that you can picture them.; Personas
Personal Attributes: The platform policy prohibiting ad copy that states or implies knowledge of a viewer's characteristics, including health. Separate from federal claim rules, and where compliant supplement copy most often gets rejected.
Pick and Pack: The per-order fee your warehouse charges to pull the product from the shelf and box it.; Pick & Pack
Piercing the Corporate Veil: A court setting aside the liability protection of an entity and holding the owner personally responsible, usually after commingling, missing formalities, or deliberate underfunding.
Pixel: A snippet of code placed on your website that tracks visitor behavior for ad platforms (e.g., Meta Pixel).
Poly Mailer: A cheap plastic shipping bag. Usually the exact moment an unboxing stops feeling like a real brand.; Poly Mailers
Post-Purchase: The stage of the customer journey immediately after the sale is complete, often utilized for one-click upsells, cross-sells, and immediate retention efforts.
Post-Purchase Upsell: An offer shown after the card has been charged. Because the original order is already complete, a declined offer costs nothing.
Pre-Production Sample: The sample made before the full run, approved against the brief. The last point at which a formula, panel or packaging problem is cheap to fix.
Price Anchoring: Showing an expensive option first so the option you want chosen reads as reasonable next to it.; AnchoringAnchor Price
Pricing Ladder: The set of quantity tiers a buyer chooses between, and the discount depth at each step.
Principal Display Panel: The front of the package, as a customer sees it on a shelf. Carries the statement of identity and the net quantity.; PDP (label)
Principal Register: The main federal trademark register. Carries the presumption of ownership and nationwide rights, and is what Amazon Brand Registry looks for.
Priority Date: The date your claim to a mark is measured from. Filing an intent-to-use application sets it before you have made a single sale.
Private Label: Your brand on a manufacturer's existing formula. Used interchangeably with white label, though some manufacturers reserve the term for a base modified for you.; Private Labeling
Probiotic: A supplement containing live beneficial bacteria, usually sold for digestive health.; Probiotics
Processor Reserve: A share of your revenue the processor holds back for months before releasing it.; Rolling ReserveProcessor Reserves
Product Detail Page: The main e-commerce page where a customer selects a product and adds it to their cart.; PDP
Product Liability Insurance: Coverage for claims that your product caused harm. Distinct from general business liability, which routinely excludes ingestible products.
Production Run: A single manufacturing batch. Your formula and label are locked once it starts.; Production Runs
Products and Completed Operations: The separate aggregate limit covering harm caused by a product after it leaves you. For a supplement brand this is the limit that matters most.
Proposition 65: California's toxics disclosure law. Its maximum allowable dose level for lead, 0.5 micrograms a day, is far below any federal reference level and is effectively the operative limit for anyone selling supplements online.; Prop 65
Proprietary Blend: A list of ingredients where the total weight is given, but the individual amounts of each ingredient are hidden.
Purchase Order: The document that commits you to a production run, and to the cash behind it.; POPurchase Orders

Quality Assurance: The protocol of physically inspecting products (taste, smell, texture, packaging) before full production to ensure they match approved samples.; QA
Quarantined Stock: Inventory a warehouse holds but cannot pick, pending written release. Makes holding the default so that shipping an untested lot requires a deliberate decision.
Quiet Hours: The hours marketing texts may not be sent. Federal rules allow 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, and some states set a narrower window.

Recall: Removal or correction of product on the market that violates the law. Most are started by the company, and the FDA classifies each as Class I, II or III by how serious the health risk is.
Recall Exclusion: The clause in a standard commercial liability policy that excludes the cost of recalling your own product. That cost is covered only by separate recall insurance.
Red Ocean: A market that is saturated with competitors fighting for the same customers (e.g., 'Generic Multivitamins'), leading to price wars and low margins.
Regimen Velocity: How often the label requires the product to be taken. Daily use compounds into repeat revenue; occasional use does not.
Registered Agent: The person or commercial service designated to receive legal service and state correspondence on the company's behalf, at a non-residential address in the state of formation.
Release Testing: Testing a finished batch against its specification before it ships. Covers potency, microbial contamination and heavy metals.
Reorder Point: The stock level at which the next purchase order has to go out: weekly sales times the full lead time, plus safety stock. It arrives while the warehouse still looks well stocked.
Replenishment: The prompt to reorder, timed to land just before the customer runs out.
Representment: Submitting evidence to contest a chargeback after it has been filed. Worth doing, though the mark against your ratio stays either way.
Request for Quote: The identical brief sent to every shortlisted manufacturer so that the quotes coming back describe the same product and can actually be compared.; RFQ
Research and Development: The process of developing a new product formula. Manufacturers often try to retain ownership of the R&D to prevent brands from moving to a different factory.; R&D
Responsible Person: The manufacturer, packer or distributor whose name appears on a supplement label. Federal law makes them the party that must receive and report serious adverse events.
Retargeting: Serving ads specifically to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your content.
Retention: The strategy of keeping existing customers active and purchasing again.
Retroactive Date: On a claims-made policy, the earliest incident date the policy will answer for. Anything before it is uncovered.
Return on Ad Spend: A metric calculating the efficiency of an ad campaign. Revenue ÷ Ad Spend. (e.g., $300 Revenue / $100 Spend = 3.0 ROAS).; ROAS
Revenue Per Session: Revenue divided by visitors. The check on AOV, since a bigger cart at a lower conversion rate can earn less per visitor.; RPS
Review Gating: Filtering for happy customers before asking for a public review and routing unhappy ones to a private form. The FTC's endorsement guides treat it as distorting reviews, and the major review platforms prohibit it.
Rich Snippets: Enhanced search result listings (such as Star Ratings) that appear in Google Search, helping to increase click-through rates.
Risk Reversal: Removing the financial risk from the buyer, typically through guarantees or trials.
Rolling Reserve: A percentage of your revenue held back by the processor for a set period before release. Common on high-risk accounts, and revenue you have earned but cannot spend.
ROSCA: The federal law requiring online sellers to disclose recurring billing terms before taking payment, get express consent, and offer a simple way to cancel. The FTC enforces it.; Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act
Runway: How long your cash lasts at the current rate of spending before it runs out.

Safety Stock: Stock held above expected demand to absorb a late batch, a failed test or a sales spike.
Satisfaction Guarantee: A refund promise that removes the buyer's risk. Longer windows usually lower return rates rather than raise them.
Save Offer: An alternative shown when a subscriber goes to cancel, such as a skip, a later date or a smaller order. Generally allowed when it is shown once, with a clear way to decline and carry on cancelling.; Save Offers
Scarcity: Limiting availability to prompt a decision. It only builds trust when the limit is real.
Search Volume: How many times a term is searched per month. Used to confirm demand exists before you build.
Self-Insured Retention: The dollar amount you eat before coverage kicks in. Similar to a deductible.; SIR
Self-Reported Attribution: Asking buyers how they heard about you on the order confirmation page. Unreliable answer by answer, useful across a few hundred, and the one attribution source no platform controls.; Post-Purchase Survey
Selling Plans: A configuration in Shopify that maps specific subscription rules (e.g., 'Subscribe & Save 20%') to product variants.
Semi-Custom: A stock formula changed to your spec, usually a raised dose or a swapped ingredient. Where most first products should land.
Serious Adverse Event: A death, hospitalization, disability, birth defect, or outcome requiring medical intervention associated with a supplement. The responsible person must report it to the FDA within 15 business days.; SAESAER
Service Recovery Paradox: The phenomenon where a customer who experiences a problem and gets it resolved quickly is often more loyal than a customer who never had a problem at all.
Serving Size: How much of the product counts as one dose, and the basis for every number on the Supplement Facts panel.
Shelf Life: How long the product stays within spec, and the basis for the expiry date printed on the bottle.
Single Point of Failure: A specific part of a system (like a single merchant account) that, if it fails or is frozen, causes the entire business operation to stop immediately.; SPF
Social Proof: Evidence that other people trust your product (Reviews, Testimonials, UGC).
Softgel: A sealed capsule for oils and fat-soluble ingredients. Higher minimums and tooling costs than a standard capsule.; Softgels
Sole Proprietorship: The default structure when you sell without forming anything. There is no separation, so a product claim reaches the owner's personal assets.; Sole Prop
Solubility: How well a powder dissolves. Poor solubility is the most common reason a powder gets returned.
Stability Testing: Lab testing that confirms a formula holds its potency and safety across the shelf life you claim.
Standard Operating Procedure: A set of step-by-step instructions compiled to help workers carry out routine operations.; SOP
Standardized Extract: An extract guaranteed to contain a set percentage of its active compound. Specify this amount, never the raw herb weight.; Standardized Extracts
Statement of Identity: The product name together with the words "Dietary Supplement". Required on the front panel and required to be prominent.
Statement of Use: The filing proving you are actually selling under the mark, which converts an allowed intent-to-use application into a registration.; SOU
Sticker Shock: The bounce that happens when the first price a buyer sees is higher than they were prepared for.
Stock Keeping Unit: A unique code used to identify each specific product variant (e.g., Vanilla Protein 2lb is one SKU; Chocolate 2lb is another).; SKU
Stockout: Running out of sellable stock. For a supplement brand it also interrupts subscriptions and reorder flows, and it can happen while stock sits in the warehouse waiting on release testing.; StockoutsStock-Out
Stripe: A popular 'Payment Aggregator' that allows for instant setup but uses automated risk algorithms that may freeze funds if sales spike or high-risk ingredients are detected.
Structure/Function Claim: A statement describing how a nutrient affects the normal structure or function of the body (Legal), as opposed to treating a disease (Illegal).
Structure/Function Claim Notification: The notice a supplement marketer must submit to the FDA within 30 days of first marketing a structure/function claim, filed on Form FDA 3955. Triggered by a live product page as much as by a printed label, and owed by whoever is named on the label.
Subscription Cliff: The sharp drop in active subscribers early in a program, usually before the second shipment, from people who signed up for the first-order discount.
Substantiation: The evidence behind a claim. The FTC requires it no matter how carefully the claim is worded.
Substantiation File: The dated evidence behind every claim you publish: your own specifications and lab reports, plus screenshots and panel photographs for anything asserted about a competitor.
Suggestive Mark: A name hinting at the benefit and requiring a small leap to connect. Registrable, and it carries meaning from day one. Where most durable supplement brands land.
Sunset Flow: A last message to subscribers who have stopped engaging, followed by removing those who don't respond. Protects inbox placement for everyone else.
Supplement Facts Panel: The regulated box listing serving size, ingredients, and the amount of each per serving.; Supplement Facts
Supplemental Register: The secondary register offered to descriptive marks refused the Principal Register. No presumption of ownership, and not accepted for Amazon Brand Registry.
Surplus Lines: The market that writes risks standard carriers decline. Supplement product liability is often placed here, which is why an instant online quote rarely fits.
Swipe File: A saved collection of competitor ads, emails, packaging, and inserts kept as reference material.

Tail Coverage: An extension bought when a claims-made policy ends, so claims filed afterwards about the covered period are still answered.; Extended Reporting Period
Take Rate: The share of customers shown an offer who accept it. The usual measure of a post-purchase upsell.; Take Rates
TCPA: The federal law governing marketing texts and calls. Penalties run per message, and consent for SMS has to be captured separately from an email opt-in or a purchase.
Temperature Excursion: A period when stored product goes outside its stated temperature range. A warehouse holding supplements should log each one and report it to you with the lots affected.; Temperature ExcursionsExcursionExcursions
Theme: The template controlling how a store looks and how fast it loads. Most of your page speed is decided here, before any app is installed.
Third-Party Certification: A mark issued by an outside body after it verifies something specific about a product or facility. Each one covers a defined scope, and displaying it beyond that scope is a claim about testing nobody performed.
Third-Party Logistics: An outside warehouse that stores your inventory and picks, packs, and ships your orders.; 3PL
Tiered Price Schedule: A quote given at several volumes at once. Shows where the price breaks fall, which is what sizes the second production order.
Traffic: The flow of users visiting your website.
Transactional Message: A message about an order or an account, such as a shipping update or a renewal reminder. Consent to these doesn't cover marketing, so the two are kept on separate lists.; Transactional MessagesTransactional EmailTransactional Text
Transparent Background: A render or photo with no background, so the same file drops onto white, into a composite, or into an ad without re-editing.; Cutout
Trust Bar: A visual section on a website displaying authority signals (e.g., 'Made in USA,' 'GMP Certified,' Press Logos).
Trust Bar: The short row of proof points sitting directly under the hero: rating, testing, facility, guarantee, shipping. Every item in it is a claim you must be able to evidence.; Trust Badges
Typical Results: What customers generally achieve. Since the FTC's 2023 endorsement guides, showing an atypical testimonial requires disclosing and substantiating this figure, and a "results not typical" disclaimer no longer covers it.

Under-Dosed: The right ingredient at an amount too small to do anything. The label looks impressive and the customer feels nothing.; Under-DosingUnderdosed
Underwriting: The manual vetting process where a bank reviews a business's financials and documents (Bank Letters, EIN) before approving a dedicated merchant account.
United States Patent and Trademark Office: The US agency where trademarks are searched and registered.; USPTO
Upsell: An offer to buy more of what the customer is already buying, such as the three-month supply instead of one bottle. Made in the cart, on the post-purchase page or on the thank-you page.; Upsells
Use in Commerce: A trademark filing basis available once you are already selling under the mark across state lines.; Section 1(a)
User Generated Content: Content (videos/photos) created by consumers or creators that features your product, often used in ads.; UGC
UTM Parameter: Tags appended to a link (source, medium, campaign, content, term) that tell your analytics where a visitor came from. The values cannot be renamed later, so the naming convention is set before the first ad runs.; UTMUTMsUTM Parameters

Value Equation: A way of seeing where an offer is weak: dream outcome and likelihood of success, over time delay and effort.; Value Model
Value Stack: Listing all the components of an offer (Bonuses, Guides, Community) to show that the total value is higher than the price.
Velocity: The speed at which inventory is being sold.
Venture Capital: Outside investment that funds growth ahead of profit. Brands holding it can spend past what your own unit economics allow.; VC

Warm Traffic: People who are aware of your brand but haven't purchased yet.
Warning Letter: A public FDA or FTC notice that your labeling or advertising breaks the rules, and a demand to fix it.; Warning Letters
Web Pixels API: The supported way for tracking code to fire on a Shopify storefront and checkout, configured through a platform's official channel app or a custom pixel under Settings, Customer events. It replaced the old Additional Scripts box.; Customer Events
Weeks of Cover: Stock on hand divided by weekly sales. Compared with the time a new lot takes to arrive and clear testing, it tells you when to reorder.
White Labeling: Putting your brand on a stock formula the manufacturer already produces. Cheapest and fastest route to market, with no exclusivity.; White Label
Whitelisting: The process of getting an influencer to grant you advertising access to their social media handle, allowing you to run ads that look like they are coming from their profile, not your brand's.; AllowlistingAllowed List
WHOIS Privacy: Masking of the registrant details attached to a domain. Free with some registrars and sold as an add-on by others.
Win-Back: Messages to a customer who has stopped buying, sent after their supply should have run out. Usually asks why before offering anything.; Win-Back Flow
Work for Hire: The contract term assigning ownership of something developed for you, such as a custom formula, to you rather than to the party that developed it.
Working Capital: The cash that funds your reorder while the first production run is still selling.

This is one module of The Foundry