A merchant ontology provides a structured vocabulary for commerce data. It can define product categories, variants, dimensions, compatibility, sellers, prices, availability, delivery terms, returns, and how those concepts relate.
Shared meaning helps agents exchange product knowledge without relying on ambiguous free text. The ontology still needs governance because merchants may use different names, units, category boundaries, and evidence standards for similar information.
ELI5
A merchant ontology is a shared map of what commerce information means. It tells different systems that terms such as product, size, seller, price, stock, and return policy have agreed definitions and relationships.
For example, one shop may list a shoe size using UK numbers and another using EU numbers. A shared ontology can record the sizing system explicitly so an agent does not compare the numbers as if they meant the same thing.
