What are SKU numbers?
Stock keeping unit numbers, also known as SKUs are a thread of numbers and letters that represent each product your business offers. These codes help you and your department identify different products sold through your e-commerce site.
How do you identify an SKU number?
Each SKU number is unique to each product sold by the e-commerce site, only in some cases differs based on some minor variations like depending upon the brand, color, size, style, or price. For example, if it is an online clothing store and there are numerous choices of colors to choose from then the SKU number may be the same but with only a minor change at the end depending upon the color like
B denotes BLUE, G denotes GREEN, and R denotes RED.
How does an SKU number matter to your business?
SKU numbers are an integral part of your e-commerce site, let us look at some of the reasons behind their importance: –
Creating and organizing SKUs for your products from the beginning will help you get into the rhythm and groove of selling the items from the e-commerce site without facing any organizing difficulties later. Having an SKU number for a product for each item you offer to sell from your online business will help you get effective and valuable information about it and help you to: –Track the productHow many products soldHow many are currently in stockComparing the current stock with the inventory management system
Knowing these aspects about your products will help you give effective customer service, achieve growth for your e-commerce site, and help with various tax purposes.
Importance of SKUs in merchant-retailer relationships
A smooth and flexible merchant-retailer relationship is quite profitable and healthy for your e-commerce site cause the customers buying your products may not see the SKU number which is not important to them. So, let us have a look at what could be the reason behind this partnership: –
Having an effective SKU system in place for your products will help you develop a smoother and more efficient communication with your business’s retail partners. With time the business will grow and there will be more demand for different types of products so, implementing an efficient SKU system will let you manage your inventory more effectively and also help you in terms of forecasting the products. It will help the retailers anticipate the potential demand of the products needed by the merchant and communicate their needs smoothly. SKU numbers will you get over all the associated challenges regarding merchant-retailer relationships and have a streamlined service.
Now, after knowing the necessary details from the basic questions above regarding SKU numbers in e-commerce. The next thing that you need to know is how to create them, let us get into the process of it: –
Things that you need to keep in mind while creating SKU numbers for your e-commerce site
Never start SKU numbers with a zero cause some systems interpret that digit as nothing, which could create unwanted chaos for the products so, letters are used to begin the SKUs making them stand out from the rest in a spreadsheet and also easily identifiable among the others. The first 2-3 digits are the most important part of SKU numbers and should represent the highest category, it should include a broader line description of what it is that is being offered by your business, for example, in the case of T-shirts should be uniquely mentioned at the beginning. Do not use letters that could represent or interpret as numbers. For example, a lowercase L could be interpreted as the number 1 or with the capital ‘I’.
So, from the information given above, hopefully, you now have an idea about an SKU number in e-commerce and other information regarding it, which will help you with your online business efficiently and effectively.
Frequently answered questions
Are SKU and barcodes the same?
A barcode is a little different from an SKU number, it is assigned to a product that is unique to the seller, on the other hand, a barcode is assigned to a product regardless of the seller or where they are sold.
Can two products have the same SKU number?
No, SKU numbers are unique for the company selling the product. Although, they can have the same barcode or UPC numbers.
