Best Practices for Creating & Editing SKUs

Goal: Foundational workflow and strategic sync logic for your catalog.

Overview

Having your products properly identified and labeled is critical to maintaining accurate inventory management. Each unique item that will be stored at a MasonHub warehouse – including packaging – must have a unique SKU (stock keeping unit) and barcode. 

Keeping your inventory organized begins with having descriptive item names and SKUs. Developing a standard naming convention is recommended. 

• Item: Each item should be named with a unique combination of item variants (product, name, size, color). For example: ‘Red, long sleeve tee, size medium’. To ensure seamless integration across multiple systems, we strongly recommend using only alpha-numeric characters for SKUs and barcodes.
• SKU: Each item will also have its own SKU used to identify and track inventory. We recommend your SKUs correlate to your item name (e.g., SKU: LStee-red-med).
• Barcode: Scannable barcodes are required on all products. The barcode should consist of the machine readable barcode as well as the unique barcode ID. The SKU and Barcode must be clearly labeled and scannable on the outside of each item. 

You can request MasonHub label your inventory, for an additional fee, by contacting your Client Success Manager.

Creating SKUs

If you're connected to MasonHub through our Shopify app, by default, we will automatically create and update SKUs that are in ‘Active’ status in Shopify.

The Relationship Between SKU & Barcode

It is important to understand that the SKU Name and the Barcode serve two different functions, but they are tethered together in the MasonHub system to ensure order accuracy.

• The SKU is the Identity: This is the digital "name" of the product used by Shopify and the OMS to communicate which item has been sold.
• The Barcode is the Physical Key: This is what our warehouse team scans during receiving and picking to verify that the physical item in their hand matches the digital SKU on the order.

Critical Rule: Every SKU must have at least one unique barcode. You cannot use the same barcode for two different SKUs. If you change a SKU name in Shopify but keep the same barcode, our system will attempt to update the link; however, if you change both without coordination, the link between your store's sales and the physical inventory in our warehouse will break.

This SKU and Barcode combination must be unique to SKUs in your catalog. Do not use the same barcode on another SKU. If you edit the SKU name, your inventory for the original SKU will no longer be linked to your store. You must reach out to MasonHub Support before making any changes to these two fields.

Risks of Duplicating Products and Variants

When you use Shopify's "Duplicate" feature, the system often carries over the existing SKU and Barcode values to the new copy.

To avoid catalog corruption:

1. Check Status First: Ensure the duplicated product is set to Draft status and does not contain the sync_draft tag while you are editing it.
2. Update Both Fields: You must change both the SKU Name and the Barcode to their new, unique values.
3. Prevent Errors: If you only change one of these fields (e.g., you update the SKU but leave the old Barcode), the sync will fail because of the MasonHub unique constraint. If you accidentally leave the product as "Active" or tagged for sync while it still has the old data, you may inadvertently overwrite or create "ghost" SKUs in the OMS that do not represent your actual inventory.

Be very careful and mindful when duplicating a Product or Variant in Shopify.

If you duplicate a variant, you need to do more than change the Options like Shopify says. You must also change the SKU Name and Barcode to ensure they are unique and are not used on other SKUs. If you just change the SKU Name or just change the Barcode, then the SKU will not sync. 

Stay Informed: To stay on top of any potential issues, you can sign up for daily SKU sync error notifications. Navigate to your Account page in the MasonHub OMS to opt-in to 2x daily email updates detailing any errors occurring during the Shopify-to-OMS sync process.

Syncing Drafts & New Variants

You can also sync a ‘Draft’ product by adding a "sync_draft" tag to your Shopify product. This is essential for creating SKUs in our OMS so you can upload an ASN and we can receive inventory before the product goes on sale.

Read more about syncing draft SKUs from Shopify.

Editing SKUs

Edits made to your SKUs in Shopify update to MasonHub in real-time. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: While Shopify gives you full edit capability, you need to notify MasonHub before editing or removing a SKU name or primary barcode. Failure to do so may result in inventory sync errors.

The following product attributes can be updated at will without notifying MasonHub:

• Product title, Type, Description, Image, Price, and Vendor. 

Contact MasonHub Support before making any of the following changes to products that exist in MasonHub's OMS

• Editing or removing the SKU 
• Editing or removing the barcode 
• Reorganizing how SKUs are structured, e.g. combining different styles into one product.

It is a best practice never to edit these fields. But if you must, send a spreadsheet to support@masonhub.co with the current SKU and barcode followed by the requested change. We will coordinate any updates, fees, and minimize the impact this may have to your inventory and our operations.

The following product attributes can be updated at will without notifying MasonHub:

• product title
• type
• description
• image
• price
• vendor 

Additional Tips

• SKU Length: Keep SKU names concise and limited to 40 characters (ideally 20).
• Weight: Recommended for all products to ensure accurate shipping rates.
• HS Codes & Country of Origin: Required for all international shipments.
• Packaging Materials: Must have unique SKUs so they can be added to an ASN for receiving. Create these in Shopify and remove them from active sales channels.