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Logistics & Supply Chain vocabulary · Inventory Management

SKU

Meaning in logistics & supply chain, with examples

abbreviationCore term

In logistics & supply chain, SKU means: Short for stock keeping unit: a unique code for one specific version of a product, so that each size, colour or pack type can be counted and tracked separately.

In Turkish: stok kodu, stok birimi, ürün kodu

How it is used

Used in retail, e-commerce and warehouses. People talk about how many SKUs a company carries, fast-moving and slow-moving SKUs, and adding or delisting SKUs. Said as letters, S-K-U, or as one word that sounds like 'skew'.

Example sentences

  1. The same T-shirt in five sizes and three colours means fifteen SKUs.

  2. We store about 12,000 SKUs in this warehouse.

Common collocations

  • number of SKUs
  • fast-moving SKU
  • SKU level
  • add a new SKU
  • SKU rationalization
  • inventoryAll the goods and materials a company holds at a given time, including raw materials, work in progress and finished products.
  • barcodeA pattern of printed lines or squares that a scanner reads to identify a product, package or pallet quickly and without typing.
  • pickingThe warehouse task of taking the right items in the right quantities from their storage locations to fill customer orders.
  • cycle countA stock check in which a small part of the warehouse is counted on a regular schedule, so that all items are counted over time without closing the warehouse.
  • WMSShort for warehouse management system: software that controls warehouse operations such as receiving, put-away, stock locations, picking and shipping.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Inventory Management

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