SKU is an acronym for Stock Keeping Unit. This is a unique number code used to track and organize products in their inventory. This method is often used by retailers to identify and track inventories or stocks. This code is a mix of letters and numbers, which are there to help them identify characteristics about specific products such as the production company, manufacturers, brands, style, color, and even size. In this article, you will learn more about the best practices, as well as the naming conventions. In the end, you will also read about how to create unique identifiers for products.
What Are the Best Practices?
Let’s start by talking about what the best practices are for an SKU generator. First of all, it is important to mention that one of the most important aspects of SKU management is clarity, as well as simplicity and consistency. What you need to do is make sure that each SKU is unique and that important characteristics are easy to identify. As mentioned, characteristics often included are related to the brand as well as size and color. Creating a properly organized SKU system should include codes that use the exact characteristics of your products in an easily recognizable way. This is easy to do, and it also gives you the space to add additional characteristics.
It is also important to calculate your SKU ratio, a practice that can help you determine the impact of each product on your sales. To do so, it is good practice to create a spreadsheet with sales price, cost, and gross profit. After having done that, you should also organize them into gross profit ranges, and once that’s done, you can multiply the number of SKUs by 100%, to establish a correct SKU ratio. This is useful for you to figure out which products are selling the most.
It is also crucial to make sure that your SKU creation can also be scaled. Think about your current inventory, but also your plans and goals, and how your inventory would look like if you achieved those goals. Aside from a nice manifestation exercise, this is a great practice to consider as it can help you plan in light of the future.
Naming Conventions
It is important to follow some naming conventions when working with SKU. A great initial tip is to start with the most purchased product to simplify work for everyone – that’s the name your company will see more often. Additionally, it is a good custom to follow an easy pattern that can be remembered without any issues. Do not use zeros and special characters, which can be difficult to identify when performing shop floor control. Another important thing to do is to use the same number of characters for all products, which is normally a number between 8 and 12 characters. You can also start your SKU with letters; one example of this could be using the initials of your manufacturer.
How to Create Unique Identifiers for Products
In this article, you found a list of good practices and naming conventions to use when creating SKUs. To recap, it is good practice to work with methods. Make sure all your products have SKUs with the same amount of letters and numbers. You should also know which products sell the most and the least, to be able to recognize these SKUs easily. Another important aspect of this process is the scalability of your naming system, as you should always consider the future of your company.
Creating SKUs is a great practice that people use to create inventories and be able to find products more quickly. Because of this, another great thing to implement in this process is to add to the actual SKU the main characteristics of a certain product, so as to have names that actually match how products look, and what they are. This way it will be easier to recognize them, and this will add a layer of simplicity and efficiency to your naming system. It is also important that each product will have its own name, so to avoid overlapping products by mistake. SKUs are an efficient way to catalog your products, and with the right practices, you will be able to make the most out of it.