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SKU

Extended information on product and variant SKUs.

Overview​

Use the SKU to uniquely identify each product and variant. The SKU will be shown to customers who view your products online.

When to use​

  • Required for a simple product and for every variant.
  • Optional on a complex parent product, because it is the variants that are ordered.

Format​

Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure that Axiom understands the data that you're submitting.

Fieldsku
TypeString (Unicode characters. Recommended: ASCII only, using alphanumerics, underscores and dashes)
Limits1-191 characters
Variant inheritsNo. Each variant carries its own SKU

Note

Unlike the identifier, the SKU is not checked for uniqueness when you submit a product — nothing stops you reusing one by mistake. The guidelines below are what keeps your catalogue orderable and your order exports unambiguous.

Guidelines​

Follow these guidelines to make sure that you submit high-quality data for your products.

Minimum requirements​

These are the requirements that you'll need to meet to show your product. If you don't follow these requirements, we could reject your product.

  • Submit a unique SKU for each different product.
  • Don't use casing to make SKUs unique. SKUs are matched case-insensitively across the Axiom platform, so two SKUs that differ only by casing may be treated as the same one. For example, if you submit 'abc123' for one product and 'ABC123' for another, the two can be confused. Instead of casing, use unique combinations of letters and numbers to differentiate products.
  • Don't reuse or recycle the same SKU for different products. For example:
    • Don't reuse a SKU for different products in the same target country or language.
    • Don't reuse a SKU across the variants of a product. Each variant is ordered separately and needs its own SKU.
    • Don't recycle a SKU for new products. Even if you're not selling a product anymore or the product is out of stock, don't use that product's SKU for any other product.
  • Avoid white space. White space before and after the SKU is removed automatically, but white space inside it is kept.
  • Don't submit invalid Unicode characters. These characters are generally added during your file's encoding process. To avoid them, use UTF-8 encoding. Examples of invalid Unicode characters include:
    • Control characters (e.g. U+200D)
    • Function characters
    • Private area characters
    • Surrogate pairs
    • Unassigned code points

Best practices​

These best practices can help you go beyond the basic requirements to optimise your product data for performance.

  • Use your own pre-existing SKUs where possible.
  • Use the same SKU for the same product targeting different languages within the same country. The SKU is shared across every language of a product, so a translation payload that carries a different SKU overwrites the existing one rather than adding a second.
    • If you target a multilingual country, like Switzerland, use the same SKU for a product shared in each supported language such as German, French and Italian.
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