Wholesale Glossary

B2B correspondence is dense with abbreviations that nobody defines mid-conversation. Each term below is defined from how it is actually used in a wholesale or OEM exchange, not from a dictionary.

MOQ

Minimum order quantity — the smallest quantity a factory will schedule as one production run. For Slow Duo the wholesale minimum is 300 units, mixed across models, and the reorder minimum is 200.

AQL

Acceptable quality limit — the defect count at which a sampled lot is accepted or rejected under an attribute sampling plan such as ISO 2859-1. See the four-stage quality control page for how it is applied here.

OEM

Original equipment manufacture — you supply the design or the specification and the factory builds it. In practice on this range it usually means an existing model with your branding, colour and retail box. Details on the OEM programmes page.

ODM

Original design manufacture — the factory owns the design and you adapt it. Distinct from OEM because the drawing, and usually the tool, already exist.

Private label

An existing product sold under your own brand, with your logo, packaging and colourway. The fastest route to a branded line because nothing is engineered from scratch.

Tooling

The moulds and jigs a product is made with. Commissioning one is a capital cost and typically 45–60 days to first article; ownership is a contract term, and ours transfers to the buyer permanently.

First article

The first physical part off a new tool, inspected and approved before production begins. Everything downstream depends on this being signed off.

Lead time

The elapsed time from a defined start point to shipment. Always ask which start point — sample approval, deposit, or artwork sign-off each give a different number. See lead time, stage by stage.

IPX5, IPX6, IPX7

Degrees of protection against water defined in IEC 60529: 5 resists a water jet, 6 resists a powerful jet, 7 survives temporary immersion. Which rating a model holds is stated on its own page; see water-resistance ratings explained.

Platinum-cured silicone

Silicone cross-linked with a platinum catalyst. It produces no cross-linking by-products, so it needs no extended baking step to remove them, which is why it is the expectation for skin-contact parts.

REACH

The EU chemicals regulation restricting substances of very high concern in articles placed on the EU market. Compliance is evidenced by a third-party report, not by a declaration alone.

RoHS

Restriction of Hazardous Substances, EU Directive 2011/65/EU. Restricts lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and certain flame retardants in electrical equipment.

21 CFR 177.2600

The US FDA provision governing rubber articles intended for repeated use. Cited on this site as the material benchmark for silicone because no FDA standard is written specifically for this category — see our issued document set.

CE marking

A manufacturer declaration that a product meets the applicable EU directives. For this category it is self-declared, which is why the test reports behind it carry the weight rather than the mark.

UKCA

The UK conformity mark replacing CE for goods placed on the Great Britain market. Prepared on request for Slow Duo shipments to the UK.

UN38.3

The transport test regime lithium cells must pass before air or sea freight. Supplied per shipment when the freight mode requires it.

Incoterms

Standard trade terms — EXW, FOB, CIF and others — defining who bears cost and risk at each point of a shipment. Always compare quotations on the same term.

Exclusivity

A contractual restriction preventing the factory from supplying the same product into your territory for a defined term. Discussed from 3,000 units a year on this range.

CMF

Colour, material, finish — the three things a private-label brief can change cheaply, and usually the first three it does.

3-D Secure 2 (3DS2)

The current version of the EMVCo cardholder-authentication protocol for card-not-present payments. It sends a far richer data package to the issuer than the first version, so most transactions are approved silently (the "frictionless" flow) and only the ones the issuer distrusts are challenged. When authentication completes, liability for fraud chargebacks moves from the merchant to the issuing bank. It covers fraud only — a "not as described" or "not received" dispute is unaffected, which is the part sellers in this category most often get wrong.

MATCH file

Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants, formerly the Terminated Merchant File (TMF). A database, maintained by Mastercard and queried by every major network's acquirers, of merchants whose card-acceptance accounts were closed for cause. The acquirer that terminates an account files the entry with a reason code; entries stay for five years from the listing date, and only the filing acquirer can remove one early. It is neither a credit record nor permanent, but a hit declines most applications on sight.

Product data feed

A structured file — CSV, XML or JSON, one row or node per SKU — carrying the fields a marketplace or storefront needs to build a listing: title, dimensions, material, attributes and image URLs. Distinct from a specification sheet because it is machine-readable and column-mapped to a particular destination, which is why the same range needs a different feed per channel.

HS code

Harmonized System code — the commodity classification that sets a duty rate. The first six digits are international, maintained by the World Customs Organization; every digit after them is national, and the rate attaches to the national part. That is why the same device can carry different codes in the US, the EU and the UK without an error having been made, and why a code quoted without its schedule is half a code. How classification is actually decided.

Customs value

The amount a duty percentage is applied to. Usually the price actually paid or payable for the goods, adjusted for items the tariff schedule says belong in it — assists, certain royalties, packing. It is not automatically the invoice total, and because every value-based charge sits on top of it, an error here compounds through the whole landed cost rather than staying in one line.

Landed cost

The full cost of one unit once it is in your warehouse: supplier price plus freight, insurance, duty, any additional duty layers, entry fees, brokerage and inland delivery. The last three are charged per shipment or per entry, so they do not shrink with the order — the reason a small first order carries a worse unit cost than the same product at volume. The seven layers, drawn.

De minimis

The low-value threshold below which an import used to clear duty-free with minimal paperwork. The United States suspended its de minimis treatment in 2025 — first for China and Hong Kong origin goods, then for all origins — so a parcel that once cleared on a customs declaration alone now needs a classification and a duty payment. For this category it ended the cheap test shipment.

Binding ruling / BTI

A written classification decision from a customs authority — a binding ruling in the United States, Binding Tariff Information in the EU — that fixes the heading for a described product in that market. It costs time once and removes the question for as long as the product does not change. It does not travel: a ruling in one jurisdiction binds nobody in the next.

Tariff stacking

Additional duty layers charged on the same customs value as the base rate rather than instead of it — Section 301 and Chapter 99 style measures are the ones that reach goods of Chinese origin. They are why a base rate that reads as low can still produce a landed cost nobody budgeted for, and why the rate on a previous entry is not a safe assumption for the next.

1. International Chamber of Commerce (2020). Incoterms 2020, ICC Publication No. 723. Paris: ICC.
2. International Organization for Standardization (1999). ISO 2859-1: Sampling procedures for inspection by attributes. Geneva: ISO.
3. European Parliament and Council (2011). Directive 2011/65/EU (RoHS). Official Journal of the European Union.
4. European Parliament and Council (2015). Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market (PSD2). Official Journal of the European Union, L 337.