Shrinkage* - The difference between actual physical stock in the store and book records of stock.

Shrinkage represents actual losses of merchandise through shoplifting, employee theft, record keeping errors, breakage, etc. Assortment :* The range of choice offered to the consumer within a particular classification of merchandise. In terms of men's shirts, for example, it is the range of prices, styles, colors, patterns, and materials that is available for customer selection. Category Signage :* A signage system that is used to call out and locate specific merchandise categories in a store. In-Store Coupon :* A certificate redeemable only at one specific retail store or chain. The coupon generally is distributed through newspaper advertisements, flyers, or within the store. Push Money :* Cash or other incentives paid directly to retail salespeople by the manufacturer to encourage sales of the manufacturer's brand over competitive brands. It also is used to influence the retail sale of specific products. Fringe Benefits : Also called employee benefits, it is the general term used to describe any of a variety of supplemental benefits (such as pensions, insurance, paid holidays, etc) that employees receive in addition to their regular wages. Vestibule Training :* A form of training conducted outside of the workplace to acclimate newly hired employees with procedures and equipment or tools to be used in their jobs. Yellow-Dog Contract :* It is a common tactic used by employers wary of union influences. It is an agreement either written or oral entered into by the employee with his employer which compels the employee to resign from, or refrain from joining, a union. Aftermarket : *A market for parts and accessories used in the repair or enhancement of a product. A secondary market created after the original market sales are finished. Alpha Release :* A very early release of a product to get preliminary feedback about the feature set and usability. Forward contract* - A forward contract is a financial contract to buy or sell a certain quantity of a financial product at a price, determined at the time of entering the contract, on a specified future date. A currency futures contract is a type of contract that involves buying or selling of one currency against another currency at a specified exchange rate and on a specified date in the future. Database Marketing : *The process of building, maintaining and using customer databases for the purpose of contacting, transacting and building customer relationships.

Permission Marketing : *Coined and popularized by Seth Godin, permission marketing is the opposite of traditional interruption marketing. Permission marketing is about building an ongoing relationship of increasing depth with customers. In the words of Seth Godin, "turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers." Place Advertising or out-of-home advertising is where many creative and unexpected forms of advertising is done to grab the customers. This includes billboards, public spaces, product placement and point of purchase.

Opinion Leadership :The process by which one person (Opinion leader) informally influences the consumption actions or attitudes of others, who may be opinion seekers or opinion recipients. Market Mavens: Individuals who influence stems from general knowledge and market expertise that lead to an early awareness of new product and services.

Cross Licensing Agreement :An arrangement in which a company licenses valuable intangible property to a foreign partner and receives a license for the partner's valuable Knowledge reduces risk of licensing. Fuzzy Logic Systems* *:* Computer-based systems that can process data that are incomplete or only partially correct, that is, fuzzy data. Such systems can solve unstructured problems with incomplete knowledge, as humans do. *GIGO :* An acronym of "Garbage In, Garbage Out", which emphasizes that information systems will produce erroneous and invalid output when provided with erroneous and invalid input data or instructions. Virtual Private Network : *A secure network that uses the Internet as its main backbone network to connect the intranets of a company's different locations or to establish extranet links between a company and its customers, suppliers, or other business partners. Fault Tolerant Systems : *Computers that have multiple central processors, peripherals, and system software and that are able to continue operations even if there is a major hardware or software failure. Categorical Variable :* A variable with values that range over categories, rather than being numerical. Examples include gender (male, female), paint colour (red, white, blue), type of animal (elephant, leopard, lion).