Unique Product SKU - change php

[marcoscoelho]

Hi.
i noticed that in virtuemart 2.026a permits articles with same sku.
i can go to php admin and edit the table virtuemart_products and set the field "product_sku" to unique.

buts what happens to the virtuemart/site if already exists products with the same sku?

Thanks

Joomla 2.5.17
virtuemart 2.026a

[jenkinhill]

No idea! Bound to cause some problem.  SKU's are designed not to be unique. eg some clothes have the same SKU for one design but with several colours.

[AH]

Odd

SKU's are supposed to be unique

They are Stock Keeping Units that represent a distinct item, such as a product or service, as it is offered for sale that embodies all attributes associated with the item and that distinguish it from all other items.

For a product, these attributes include, but are not limited to, manufacturer, product description, material, size, color, packaging,  When a business takes an inventory, it counts the quantity of each stock keeping unit.

I was not aware that the new VM did not ensure that they were unique, old VM1 did

Clearly the team have a different approach to SKU's than most retailers out there.

Maybe vm 2.1 will have unique SKU's (lol)

[jenkinhill]

UPC plus product identifier is unique (as used in bar codes) but as different manufacturers can use their own SKU system they are only unique for each manufacturer, so if a retailer who has products from a range of sources uses the manufacturer assigned SKU there may be some duplication of numbers.
I have personally worked on a store site that used a product indentifier that applied to a basic design, but with variants within that design, in this case it was colour. Their identifier became used as the SKU but was obviously not individual product specific, what was specific was the SKU+colour. And for some items, SKU+colour+size. It suited their operation.

For retailers who assign their own unique SKU to products, eg for stock identification and control, then they can ensure they are unique (useful information for businesses setting up their own SKU system is here.)

[AH]

Thanks Jenkinhill

I did read that link before I posted my earlier response.  Having started out working in retail systems development (some years ago) I am familiar with manufacturers coding.  However, when goods are moved into your stock, you should ensure that SKU is unique for inventory purpose and that it is possible to identify exactly what you have in stock for any variants.

Seems that other gloabl e-commerce packages operate the old VM approach of uniqueness

http://www.anyknowledge.com/magento-what-is-sku-all-about/
http://www.simplehelix.com/blog/magento/best-practices-for-magento-skus/

Supplier coding is NOT SKU - these are open to change and, as you noted, suppliers may have the same codings for completely differing products.

SKU is based on the business handling the goods - and therefore, if you can, you should keep away from using the manufacturers code as a key component of your inventory management (Unless of course it is EAN, ISBN etc as they are controlled by industry groups and they help ensure uniqueness across manufacturer)

I suppose that if someone wanted a unique id for each item in their store, they could use the product_id (which is unique after all)

I will try and maintain a unique SKU using separate software for now or might just mess with the dbase and php to achive this

Maybe an option for unique/non-unique SKU could be achieved in in Vm 2.1

As we only have 11 months of support for Joomla 2.5 - it seems pointless to consider it for VM 2.0.xx as this software is nearing end of life.

[marcoscoelho]

No idea! Bound to cause some problem.  SKU's are designed not to be unique. eg some clothes have the same SKU for one design but with several colours.

So i guess its better to leave as it is.
Thanks!

[AH]

I would leave it and manage uniqueness manually