Stef wants me to think about Stock Keeping Units.
I realise that Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) are not, on the face of it, a subject that belongs on a site about creative self-expression. But the shop itself is an act of self-expression – a deliberate choice to sell my work directly, without a platform taking a cut or an algorithm deciding who sees what.
If I’m going to do that properly, I need systems that fit the way I actually work. So here, for better or worse, is my SKU convention.
That said: unless you have a powerful, nerdy interest in how I’m setting up my shop, please look away now.
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For my purposes, the main thing is that when an order lands in my inbox, I can tell at a glance exactly what someone has bought. And if I ever need to check what I have in stock, or look back at what sold well in a given season, a consistent naming system makes that possible without having to rely on memory or open every article individually.
After thinking through the range of products I’m likely to sell – art, books, courses and possibly digital downloads – I’ve settled on a SKU convention that should scale without becoming unwieldy.
A SKU identifies a product, not an individual item. So every A4 limited-edition print of the same picture shares one SKU; the numbering on the print itself (3/100 etc) is a fulfilment detail, handled by my printer.
Art
ART-[SERIES]-[PICTURE]-[TYPE]-[SIZE]
ART-MAG-EVNG-LTD-A4– Evening on Fortune Green Road, Magnolia series, limited edition, A4ART-MAG-EVNG-ORI-A3– Evening on Fortune Green Road, original, A3ART-MAG-GLDHR-LTD-A3– Golden Hour, Magnolia series, limited edition, A3ART-MAG-GLDHR-ORI-A2– Golden Hour, original, A2
PICTURE codes are kept short and memorable – EVNG, GLDHR, RAIN etc – enough to be recognisable at a glance when an order arrives. TYPE codes: ORI (original), LTD (limited edition), OPEN (open edition). SIZE follows standard paper sizes: A6, A5, A4, A3, A2. I aim not to offer more than one size of a given print simultaneously – so when a size sells out or the offer closes, I can open a different size as a new product with its own SKU.
Books
BK-[SERIES]-[TITLE]-[FORMAT]-[VARIANT]
Where there is no series, SERIES is omitted: BK-[TITLE]-[FORMAT]-[VARIANT]
BK-SPECCY-BRKDWN-HB-LTD01– A Speccy Man Has a Breakdown, hardback, first limited edition of 50BK-SPECCY-BRKDWN-HB-LTD02– second limited run or editionBK-SPECCY-BRKDWN-PB– paperback when it appearsBK-SPECCY-ARTHIST-HB-LTD01– A Speccy Man’s History of Art, first limited editionBK-PSALMS-PB– Psalms for the City, standalone, no series
VARIANT only gets added when I need to distinguish between versions. Until then, the SKU stays clean.
Courses
CRS-[TITLE]-[FORMAT]-[COHORT]
CRS-MICROMEM-LIVE-SP25– Micro-Memoir, live, Spring 2025CRS-MICROMEM-REC-AU25– recorded version, Autumn 2025
The cohort code (SP25, AU25 etc) matters because the same course run twice is not quite the same product – different dates, possibly different material.
General conventions
All caps. Hyphens as separators. Series, picture and title codes kept short and memorable. New codes added only when complexity demands them – the aim is to stay readable at a glance, so that when an order arrives in my inbox I know immediately what has been bought without having to look anything up.
For books, SERIES is included where a book belongs to a sequence of related titles. Standalone books omit it. If a standalone book later gains a sequel, the series code can be added retrospectively without disrupting existing SKUs.
For art, every picture in a series gets its own short PICTURE code, so that two prints from the same series at the same size and edition type remain distinguishable.
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