SKU

The merchant decides what an SKU looks like. According to the Shopify Help Center, it is an internal code for tracking stock and reporting on sales. SKUs are optional, and each product variant should have its own. Shopify Shopify Shopify is a subscription-based commerce platform: merchants either have Shopify host their online shop or build their own shop front on its Storefront API. Read in the glossary → treats them separately from barcodes, which serve a different purpose.

The GTIN (Global Trade Item Number), by contrast, identifies a product across all companies, not just within the one that sells it. GS1 Germany, which issues official GTINs in Germany, describes it as a globally unique number for identifying products. EAN (European Article Number) is the old name for the same number; GS1 has officially used the term GTIN since 2009. A GTIN is usually 13 digits long and purely numeric. It consists of a base number of 7 to 9 digits issued by GS1, a product number of 3 to 5 digits that the company assigns itself, and a single check digit.

Two of our projects show both numbers at work. On rollenrampe.de, a product finder lets customers choose width, core diameter and length and takes them straight to the right product, and so to the right SKU. On a QR platform we built for EU energy labels, each QR code carries the appliance's GTIN and its production batch; the product data is imported automatically from the manufacturer's PIM system PIM PIM (product information management) means keeping product data in one central system and distributing it from there to sales channels such as online shops. .