A Seller SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is an important consideration if you sell or plan to sell products on Amazon. Amazon SKUs can help you better manage your inventory, deliver your products to customers faster, and keep track of your sales and products sold more precisely.
As a result, sales reporting is a breeze. Inventory management, which is closely related to an Amazon seller’s SKU, is critical. Inventory management has an impact on Amazon warehouse storage allocations.
In other words, effective inventory management combined with a comprehensive product identification system may determine the difference between profit and loss.
What is a Seller SKU on Amazon?
Amazon SKUs are unique alphanumeric codes assigned to each of your products and variations. These were designed for inventory management in warehouses. An SKU can be any combination of letters and digits as long as the system is consistent and applied to all of the products in your inventory.
SKUs are used in traditional retail settings, scanned as barcodes, and in e-commerce contexts, linked to a specific product in the database. To describe different item details, use hyphens (dashes) to separate the characters in an SKU. An SKU’s total character count, including hyphens, should not exceed 40.
In addition, Amazon does not use a predetermined blueprint or methodology to create SKUs. The sellers are responsible for creating SKUs in whatever format they see fit. An SKU can be as short as AA-001 or as long as ABC-001-R-M-0921-N. The length of the SKU is determined by how much information, like product details and qualities, you want to include in it.
Why is Amazon SKU Necessary?
If you want to make sure your Amazon business is manageable, learning about SKU can be highly beneficial.
You can use a seller SKU to:
- Sort products according to color, size, and type.
- Just Pick, pack, and ship products from the warehouse quickly.
- Inventory that is sold through multiple channels must be managed.
Consider including identifiers such as:
- Model/style identification
- Product identification
- Identifier of color
Remember that Amazon SKUs will not be the only SKUs your company will have to deal with. Including an identifier for where the product is sold helps maintain consistency and organization for inventory and order tracking. In this case, that would imply including an Amazon marketplace indicator, such as “AM.” Moving forward, all new products should use the same SKU format.
Amazon SKU Examples
What Is the Difference Between an Amazon Seller SKU, FNSKU, Barcode, UPC, and ASIN?
These are the differences between Amazon Seller SKU, FNSKU, Barcode, UPC, and ASIN:
Amazon Seller SKU: A unique identifier (Stock Keeping Unit) assigned to a seller’s product for internal tracking and inventory management. A seller (or platform) typically creates a combination of numbers and letters.
FNSKU: A Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit (FNSKU) is a unique identifier assigned automatically by Amazon to a product when it is enrolled in the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program. The FNSKU is a one-of-a-kind barcode that is used to identify the product and track its progress through the fulfillment process (important for FBA sellers).
Barcode: A series of vertical bars with different widths and spaces representing a numerical or alphanumeric code. In a retail environment, barcodes are used to identify products and can be scanned with a barcode reader.
A Universal Product Code (UPC): is a 12-digit code used to identify a product in a retail setting. UPCs are typically found on product packaging and can be scanned with a barcode reader.
ASIN: in other words, An Amazon Standard Identification Number is a one-of-a-kind identifier assigned by Amazon to a product listed on its platform. The ASIN is a 10-character alphanumeric code that identifies the product and its attributes, such as brand, model, and color.
What is the difference Between an Amazon Seller SKU and FNSKU?
Amazon FNSKU (Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit) is a recognized convention for products shipped via Fulfillment by Amazon, also known as Amazon FBA. This one-of-a-kind SKU is used during the fulfillment process to ensure your product is associated with your company.
Because Amazon manages so many products, including many that may be identical to yours, this is a critical step in ensuring you receive the income you’re owed from sales on the platform. This simple step simplifies things for Amazon while assuring you that you’ll get credit once it’s sold. It’s a win-win situation.
If you use Amazon FBA, your product will be assigned an FNSKU. You must include this number on the shipping label before sending it to one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
When Should You Use FNSKU and SKU?
There are 2 types of Amazon sellers. A seller can choose between the Amazon Vendor Central (AVC) program and the Amazon Seller Central (ASC) scheme. Participants in AVC are typically those who sell goods in bulk to Amazon (also known as first-party sellers). This is a more prestigious club for wholesalers and large-scale manufacturers.
If you’re a typical seller looking to resell items such as a used book or a childhood baseball bat, you’ll most likely fall under the ASC program. The main distinction between SKU and FNSKU is drawn in the ASC program. Sellers in the ASC program can use Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) or Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM).
How to Create Amazon Seller SKU?
There is no special software or application required to generate SKUs. Furthermore, no specialized knowledge is required to develop these seller-focused product identifiers. If you have sufficient knowledge of the provided product and a notebook, you can create SKUs.
Furthermore, there needs to be a set format to follow when creating SKUs. Any format you find easy to remember and use is acceptable if your SKU is at most 40 characters.
Should I Create My Own SKUs or Let Amazon Do It?
As a best practice, most Amazon small business merchants recommend creating your own SKUs for product listings. Consider some of the drawbacks of having Amazon generate SKUs for you rather than creating them yourself.
Generating your SKUs:
- Products that are selling well can be easily grouped together.
- You can create an inclusive product identification system that includes the type of product, size, color, and even the collection to which the item belongs, allowing you to identify the product with a single glance. S19T-FLO-RS, for example, could be the SKU for a small red floral t-shirt from your summer 2019 catalog. Another advantage of designing an SKU system in this manner is that it is easily expandable.
- Standardize your sales reporting across channels better to understand sales by season, channel, and product.
Amazon-generated SKUs:
- If you sell the same products on two different Amazon stores, Amazon will assign those products to different SKUs. So, in one store, the SKU for a small blue t-shirt might be ST-21-GRO-5, while in another, it might be XY-52-ZTW-06. Keeping track of the number of units sold across channels becomes difficult at this point.
- Amazon-generated SKUs will be meaningless to you and your team, making it difficult to remember them, especially as your inventory grows. One of the advantages of using SKUs is that it allows for a quick search for products—long meaningless codes detract from this purpose.
Conclusion
A good SKU system will make inventory management easier. In addition, product browsing on Seller Central will be more user-friendly with carefully considered SKUs. Similarly, using SKUs rather than product names and titles simplifies the use of data and management software and applications.