Creating SKU Numbers for Your Shopify Store

Before you can create an SKU number for your Shopify store, you need to understand what it is.

An SKU (Shop Keeping Unit) number is usually less than ten digits long and is used primarily to keep track of how much stock your store has. Various products are assigned different SKU numbers depending on their attributes such as color, price, type, etc.

Why Are SKU Numbers Important?

SKU numbers are important because they accurately track and prevent phantom inventory from occurring. Additionally, SKU numbers assist in identifying when to re-order items so that your store never runs out of stock. SKU numbers also allow you to effortlessly use a service that keeps track of your multi-location inventory so you don't have to worry about losing track of any of your products.

How to Create SKU Numbers for Your Shopify Store

Shopify makes sure that product organization is effortless for anyone of any level opening a store. As well as making it easy to add or hide new products, you can also have more than one Shopify store under one account. If you have a Shopify store, the Shopify inventory management is also one of the best in the business, making it easy and simple to keep track of stock levels and location.

When creating an SKU number, you can do it manually while keeping the characteristics of your products in mind (size, type, price, manufacturer, etc.), or you can use various paid or free online SKU number generators that are available.

If you do decide to create your SKU numbers manually, here are a few things you should keep in mind:

1. Keep your SKU distinctive. In other words, no two items should have the same SKU in their details.
2. You can use a mix of numbers and letters—or just numbers.
3. Keep it simple so that product names can be searched for easily.
4. Dashes and underscores are your friend—but special numbers, symbols, characters, or spaces are not.
5. Your SKU numbers could be four to eight characters long, but it's a good idea to stay below 16 characters if possible.