You started an ecommorce store selling a key product, say cool beach hats. And then the sales started to trickle in, you add in beach towels and then umbrellas and then eskys.. before you know it your business with 5 products has become 50 products.

These 50 products all have 5 colours, now you have 250 product lines..

On top of this, you start sourcing from different suppliers, whilst keeping on top of your costs and sales.

Does this sound familiar?

It is a common journey new ecommerce stores go through. Start with a simple naming technique to keep your inventory consistent. This also makes tracking your inventory through the supply chain simpler.

Source > Manufacture > Purchase Order > Receiving Stock > Sell to customers > Process Order > Pick/Pack > Ship > After Sales Care

Best practice is for each SKU to have its own unique code.

SKU = Stock Keeping Unit, or unique product line

3PL = third party logistics company, someone that offers pick, pack and shipping services

Using our Beach Co store example.,

Group all your products into categories

Clothing

Furniture

Accessories

Then in each category, you can set a range or style code.

And then add in a colour or size.

For example, a Plain Black T-shirt codes would look like-

BE-CLO-B01-BLK-S

BE-CLO-B01-BLK-M

BE-CLO-B01-BLK-L

BE = Beach Co – our sample company name prefix

CLO = Clothing – our category

B01 = the style code for that seasons range

BLK = the colour black

S = small, the size

There are 100s of ways to set SKUs, but we have found this type of method works best for newer companies. As looking at the SKU on a product, you can determine exactly the key information.

If you have any questions on generating SKUs for your business, feel free to ping us on Instagram.