Every corner of this industry has its own shorthand, and nobody hands you a decoder ring when you start. If you’ve ever seen “LPN,” “HPC,” or “RTV” on a manifest and had to guess what it meant, this glossary is for you.
Sourcing and Load Type Terms
AMZ: Shorthand for Amazon-sourced inventory, used to describe loads pulled from Amazon’s returns and overstock streams.
3PL: Third-party logistics provider. Many liquidation loads pass through a 3PL’s warehouse before reaching a reseller, and “3PL truckload” listings usually mean mixed inventory from multiple retailers rather than a single-source load.
FTL: Full truckload — an entire trailer of inventory, typically 24-26 pallets.
LTL: Less than truckload — a shipping method for smaller loads that don’t fill an entire trailer, usually priced by weight and pallet count.
FOB: Free on board — indicates the buyer is responsible for freight costs once the load leaves the seller’s dock.
Amazon-Specific Terms
LPN: License Plate Number — a unique barcode Amazon assigns to returned or removed inventory. “LPN loads” generally means Amazon-owned returns, which carry more risk but also more upside since they often include higher-ticket branded items.
FC: Fulfillment Center — refers to inventory pulled directly from an Amazon fulfillment center rather than a returns stream. FC loads are typically cleaner and more resale-ready, with less guesswork than LPN loads.
ASIN: Amazon Standard Identification Number — the unique product ID Amazon assigns to every listing, useful for looking up an item’s actual sale history and price point before you commit to buying a lot that includes it.
Condition and Grading Terms
HPC: High Piece Count — a load with a large number of individual units, common in bin store sourcing since volume matters more than per-item value.
RAW: Unsorted, ungraded inventory straight off the truck, with no quality control or category separation done yet.
CWP: Customer Will Pay, or sometimes “condition with packaging” depending on the supplier — always confirm the specific definition with your source, since this one isn’t standardized industry-wide.
GM: General Merchandise — a mixed-category load spanning multiple product types rather than a single niche.
Retail and Supply Chain Terms
RTV: Return to Vendor — inventory a retailer sends back to the original manufacturer instead of liquidating, often because of a recall, defect pattern, or contract terms. RTV product sometimes leaks into liquidation channels through secondary routes.
MSRP: Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price — the “listed value” on a manifest, which is almost always higher than realistic resale value and should never be used to estimate your actual profit.
SKU: Stock Keeping Unit — the unique code retailers and resellers use to track a specific product and variant in inventory systems.
Bottom Line
None of these terms are complicated once you’ve seen them defined once — the confusion is just that nobody standardizes the vocabulary across suppliers. Bookmark this list, and the next manifest or supplier listing full of acronyms will make a lot more sense.
