SKUs and barcodes are how LVK identifies every product in your inventory. Keeping them accurate and consistent between your store and LVK's warehouse system ensures your orders ship correctly and your inventory counts stay accurate.
What Is a SKU?
A SKU (stock-keeping unit) is a unique number or name you assign to a product for inventory tracking.
LVK uses the SKUs you create in your store to identify your products. SKUs must be unique for every product and variant. For example, if you sell a red dress in two sizes, the SKUs might look like this:
- red-dress-small
- red-dress-large
What Is a Barcode (UPC)?
A barcode, or UPC (Universal Product Code), is a machine-readable code made of parallel lines and spaces that represents a product's data.
Examples of Compliant Barcode Placement
Examples of Non-Compliant Barcode Placement
Why Are Barcodes and SKUs Important?
- In the warehouse, LVK organizes products by location and scans each product's SKU before moving it to the picking area.
- Matching SKUs and barcodes let LVK's warehouse team pick the correct item and avoid shipping the wrong product to your customers.
- Accurate barcodes and SKUs keep operations efficient and orders shipping on time.
- The SKU and barcode in your store must match the SKU and barcode on the product when it's stocked or received at LVK's facility.
Important
LVK is not responsible for incorrect shipments caused by incorrect barcode or SKU labeling from the vendor or supplier.
Barcode Requirements
Barcodes must meet the following formatting requirements to scan correctly during receiving and fulfillment.
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Length | At least 5 digits, no more than 25 digits. |
| Characters | No non-standard characters (for example, emojis). |
| Spacing | No spaces before or after the barcode. |
| Size | Preferred: 52.5 mm × 29.7 mm. Maximum: smaller than 2″ × 3″. |
| Print color | White background with black ink. |
Important Reminders
- You can add multiple barcodes to one SKU (for example, when updating a product's UPC), but a barcode cannot be shared across multiple SKUs. SKU A can have two barcodes, but neither of those barcodes can also be assigned to SKU B.
- For master cases, the case barcode does not match the barcodes on the individual units inside it. The case barcode represents the quantity in the case, while each unit keeps its own barcode. Learn more about case barcodes.
- If you don't generate a UPC for a product in your store, the LVK app automatically generates one for you.
- The barcode data in your store must match the barcode data on the LVK product page.
- You can print barcodes directly from the LVK application or apply your own.
- Change the barcode field for a product before adding it to a shipping plan. If you need to change it after that, open a support ticket.
Supported Barcode Types
- BOOKLAND EAN
- Codabar
- CODE 39
- CODE 39 ASCII (EXTENDED)
- CODE 39 Trioptic
- CODE 93
- CODE 128
- DISCRETE 2 OF 5
- EAN 8
- EAN 13
- EAN 128
- EAN 128 + COMPOSITE
- EAN-UCC 128
- GS1 128
- GS1 DataBar-14
- GS1 DATABAR
- GS1 DATABAR EXPANDED STACKED
- GS1 DATABAR EXTENDED
- GS1 DATABAR LIMITED
- ISBT 128
- KOREAN 3 OF 5
- MATRIX 2 OF 5
- MSI
- PLESSEY
- RSS EXPANDED STACKED
- RSS-14
- TELEPEN
- UPC A
- UPC E (0)
- UPC E1