SKU is acronym for stock-keeping unit, which is basically a number or code used to identify products for sale in a store or business. dbDirector assigns each product and sub-product with a unique SKU number which you may keep or replace with your own. Using SKUs enables you to easily manage inventory, track product availability and find and retrieve products from their storage location.

Sometimes you may want to update many products in bulk rather than manually edit one product at a time. For example, you received your wholesale re-order of existing items and would like to update your store database with the new quantity-in-stock value. With the dbDirector Import tool you can easily import an Excel or a CSV file with your new quantities to automatically update the products on your website. To do so, simply include the product’s SKU in the first column of your spreadsheet.

SKUs are not only used for actual physical items, but also can be given to services which you are promoting or selling online. Basically, any item which you would like to classify as a billable entity should have its own unique SKU.

The product’s SKU value can be displayed as a barcode (Universal Product Code, International Article Number and others) on the order printout, which makes the packing-shipping process faster. The product barcode also appears on merchandise return form, making it easier to update inventory when shipped back from a customer for exchange or return. dbDirector is compatible with various barcode readers, enabling you to easily assign and retrieve SKUs. The barcode reader assists mainly in locating products in large warehouses, placing inventory wholesale re-orders, stocking inventory when it arrives at the warehouse and monitoring products location at any given moment.

dbDirector sets a unique SKU per sub-product (product variant) which is purchasable. For example, you can choose whether to sell a yellow shirt, blue shirt and a red shirt separately and assign three unique SKUs, or sell those three shirts in a bundle and assign the bundle one unique SKU. In addition, If you choose to sell these three shirts individually, you can set them in your database either as completely individual products or as sub-products grouped under the same parent product. Though the parent product isn't a physical item, it receives its own unique Parent SKU to help in administrating sub-products, importing and grouping sub-products from Excel and CSV, and displaying sub-product together on the website. For example, to import 5 color variants of 10 sizes each, total of 50 products, simply specify the same Parent SKU in your Excel or CSV spreadsheet. dbDirector will automatically group the sub-products and display them together on the website. To import new sub-products into an existing group, simply enter the existing Parent SKU into the Parent_SKU column in your spreadsheet. You can find the Parent SKU value on the product card in the dbDirector control panel.

In addition to a unique SKU value, dbDirector assigns each product with its own Database Primary Key Identification Number, in short- db PKID.

You may use the dbDirector SKU module with your preferred tracking method, such as: Universal Product Code (UPC), International Article Number (EAN), Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), Japanese Article Number (JAN) and more. Notice: the Australian Product Number (APN) and European Product Number are now using the EAN code.