SKU Uniqueness: Keeping Your Inventory Clean

What Is a SKU and Why Enforce Uniqueness?

A SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is a unique code you assign to each product in your inventory. It helps you quickly identify products during sales, repairs, barcode scanning, and reporting. When two different products share the same SKU, it becomes impossible to tell which product was actually sold, used, or restocked — leading to inaccurate stock counts and confusing reports.

How Unique SKU Enforcement Works

When enabled, Fixmo checks every product you create or edit. If the SKU you entered is already used by another product in your shop, the save is blocked with a clear error message showing the conflicting product's name and a link to view it.

• Two SIMPLE products with the same SKU — blocked
• Two COMBO products with the same SKU — blocked
• Two VARIABLE parent products with the same SKU — blocked
• A SIMPLE product and a COMBO product with the same SKU — blocked
• A VARIABLE parent and a child of a different parent with the same SKU — blocked

The Parent/Variant Exception

Variable products have a parent item with one or more variant children (e.g., a phone case in different colors). Variants within the same family are allowed to share SKUs, because they belong to the same product.

• A VARIABLE parent with SKU 'CASE-01' and its children also using 'CASE-01' — allowed
• Children of the same parent sharing any SKU among themselves — allowed
• A child of Parent A using a SKU from Parent B's family — blocked

How to Enable or Disable

The setting is found in Settings > Inventory, under the 'SKU Settings' section.

1. 1Go to Settings > Inventory
2. 2Scroll down to the 'SKU Settings' section
3. 3Toggle 'Enforce unique SKU per product' on or off

Fixing Existing Duplicate SKUs

If you try to enable unique SKU enforcement but your shop already has duplicate SKUs, Fixmo will show you a list of conflicts. You must fix all duplicates before the toggle can be turned on. For each conflict, either change one product's SKU to be unique, or delete the duplicate product.

SKU Uniqueness During CSV Import

When importing inventory via CSV, the same uniqueness rules apply. If a row in your CSV has a SKU that already exists in your shop (or duplicates another row in the same CSV), that row will be skipped with an error message. The rest of the import continues normally.

SKU Comparison Rules

SKU comparison is case-insensitive and trims whitespace. This means 'ABC', 'abc', 'Abc', and ' ABC ' are all treated as the same SKU. Internal spaces and special characters are preserved — 'USB-006' and 'USB 006' are different SKUs.