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Manage SKUs and Barcodes

Josh Chamberlain
Josh Chamberlain
  • Updated

What is a SKU?

A SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is a unique ID for each individual product you're selling.

Best practice

  • A mix of letters, numbers, and hyphens (-).
  • Suggested 12 characters or fewer
  • avoid slashes and backslashes
    • we'll escape these characters but they can still cause problems in URLs and API queries if SKUs are also Originator IDs

Requirements

  • 255 characters or less
  • no spaces
Generally, you will already have a SKU system set up, but if not, you will need to do so prior to getting set up with Whiplash. If your product has an official UPC, you should use that for your SKU instead of creating one.  
 

Example

Let's say you've got a shirt called 'Bird on a Wire' that comes in red and black, men's and women's sizes S-XL. That's a total of 16 SKUs. A good way to create them is like so:

DESIGN-COLOR-GENDER-SIZE

So your 16 SKUs might be:

  • BRD-BLK-M-S
  • BRD-BLK-M-M
  • BRD-BLK-M-L
  • BRD-BLK-M-XL
  • BRD-RED-M-S
  • BRD-RED-M-M
  • BRD-RED-M-L
  • BRD-RED-M-XL
  • BRD-BLK-W-S
  • BRD-BLK-W-M
  • BRD-BLK-W-L
  • BRD-BLK-W-XL
  • BRD-RED-W-S
  • BRD-RED-W-M
  • BRD-RED-W-L
  • BRD-RED-W-XL

For each SKU, you also need to enter a title, such as 'Bird on a Wire T-Shirt', and a Description ('Men's Medium'). Creating unique SKUs that hold to a pattern will make your life much simpler as your business grows!

Barcodes and Scancodes

A barcode is a machine-readable code in the form of numbers and a pattern of parallel lines of varying widths. In Whiplash, the result of the scanned barcode is called a Scancode.



Everything in a Whiplash facility needs a barcode to maintain accuracy and keep track of your inventory. Each item has at least one barcode and accompanying scancode associated with it.
  • If the product has a barcode printed on it, that is assigned in Whiplash as its scancode.
  • If the product doesn't have a printed barcode on it but does have a SKU, we'll assign the SKU as the product’s scancode in Whiplash, and attach barcode stickers for a fee.  Note that Whiplash-generated barcodes are not UPC codes.  UPC codes must be purchased from a UPC vendor.
 

Required barcode formats

We support a broad range of barcodes, including but not limited to:
  • UPC/EAN
  • Code 128
  • Code 39
  • Code 93
  • Code 11
  • Various 2 of 5 types
  • GS1
  • 2D (QR codes), with advance notice for sourcing scanners and limited to specific facilities

Duplicate SKUs

You can learn more about managing duplicate SKUs here.