What is a SKU in WooCommerce?

When setting up a product in WooCommerce you’ll be presented with a number of boxes to enter some data. If you’re new to eCommerce or retail in general, it’s likely the abbreviation “SKU” will have you wondering what is a SKU?

What Does SKU Mean in WooCommerce?

SKU isn’t a WooCommerce term, SKU is a “retail” term and there’s no such thing as a WooCommerce SKU.

SKU Stands for Stock Keeping Unit.

But what does Stock Keeping Unit mean?

It’s basically a number, code, string of letters and numbers or something similar that represents that unique product.

The same SKU CANNOT be used for two different products – it’s a unique code for each product in YOUR store. More on that below.

Can I just make up a code for the SKU in WooCommerce?

Yes!

Unlike a globally recognised code like a UPC or EAN Barcode from someone like GS1 a SKU is to be used for YOUR purposes.

That being said, these don’t need to be and probably shouldn’t be “descriptive” – they can just be a string of numbers.

It doesn’t matter if you pick a SKU that already exists in someone else’s store – there’s no cross referenced database between your WooCommerce store’s SKUs and anyone else’s.

So don’t overthink this!

You could literally start with: PROD-00-01A

That’s a decent SKU for the purposes of running your store and adding more products.

PROD could be changed to something relevant to your store if you wanted.

If you sold fancy jewellery at a store called “Georgies Jewellery” you could change it up like this:

GJ-00-01A

as in “Georgies Jewellery-00-01A”

Equally, you can be far less inventive and simply make your SKU:

000001 for the first product

000002 for the second product

and so on…