I figured out the problem with sku's

[miamiwax]

ilja

Isn’t he point of SKU to be unique and fixed? If you regenerate your SKU, so some listings now have SKUs previously assigned to other listings, wouldn’t that make it hard to determine what listings belongs to an SKU?

Yes after they are uploaded they should be fixed but I’m talking about modifying contents of a folder after I have generated sku’s but before I have uploaded them. There is a numbering problem if I need to add or delete items to a folder after it has been sku’d.

I have found you can’t re-sku a box correctly unless you slightly modify the prefix.

For some reason GS will permanently remember a prefix. Once you generate sku’s for a certain prefix you can never correctly regenerate new sku’s unless you modify your prefix, even slightly by adding 1 character like an extra space or symbol.

Your prefix 2 - would have to get changed to 2 - (added space) or 2 – ( added -) etc

Ex. I generate sku’s for a folder that has 30 items. It has start value of 1 and prefix 2 -

Sku generator will number

2 - 1
2 - 2
…
2 - 30

If for some reason I need to erase 5 non sequential items, there will of course now be gaps in the numbering. Also I now need to now have my folder numbered up to 2 - 25 not 2 - 30

I found I can no longer use the prefix 2 - to re-sku the folder

I would have to modify it in some way
ex.
2 –
2 —
2 -
etc.

Once you create a prefix it will never generate sku’s correctly again. You get the error message…

Skipped __ already existing sku’s

and the numbering will be off for the folder

So please either don’t permanently remember prefixes OR have a sku reset function that will make all the sku’s in a folder go back to blank and will allow you to simply and quickly re-sku a folder as if it had never been sku’d before.

Even if I highlight all items in a folder and bulk erase all the sku’s it does not reset them. It will permanently remember the prefix and that prefix can never correctly regenerate sku’s for the folder.

Hope I explained this ok

[miamiwax]

Hello any response to my problem?

[Vaguery]

I think most of us don’t really understand the use case here. The way I use them, a SKU shouldn’t ever be reused, even if you assign a “new item” to a folder or location or whatever, and even if you don’t launch the listing associated with it. There’s no need for them to be consecutive or “all used” because there is no extra information stored in a SKU. It’s the unique ID of that “thing”. It doesn’t indicate anything else.

So it sounds like what you’ve described here is wanting to use the SKU value to indicate something involving a “folder”? Does the folder mean something in terms of storage location or kind or something?

If so, maybe you should be using a User Property to store that information?

I’ve been adding a “box number” User Property to my listings lately, and making sure it has an indicator of which box that item is stored in. Is that more what you’re looking for?

Alternately, if what you want to do is enter a specific SKU manually, you can certainly do that by just editing the text in the SKU field in the GS interface. For fancier things, you can also use AppleScript to write a program to calculate the SKU value algorithmically and write that field with the script.

[miamiwax]

It’s pretty simple if you sku a group then add or delete items you should be able to re-sku it with no problem.

Once they are listed and sold the sku should be fixed. This isn’t the issue.

If you are preparing an auction sometimes you need to add or delete items before they are uploaded. As it stands now once you sku a group you can’t re-sku it unless you modify the prefix.

If I am working on an auction and I have already sku-ed a group and for some reason I delete 5 items, the assigned sku numbers are no longer correct because there are now gaps for the items i’ve deleted. I should be able to simply click “generate sku” and the group will now correctly be numbered and the items I deleted will be accounted for with the gaps removed. As it stands now the only way to do that is to modify the prefix I assigned to the group or else I will get error message and it will not generate sku’s correctly.

Skipped __ already existing sku’s

If you don’t understand what I mean just create a group and add any number of templates.

Generate sku for group.

Randomly delete a few templates. In a real world scenario maybe you have found these items are broken, lost etc and need to be deleted before you upload them to ebay.

Again generate sku for group. You will see error “Skipped __ already existing sku’s” and the numbering will not be correct.

You have the same problem if you add items also, not just delete them.

[Vaguery]

@miamiwax

Randomly delete a few templates. In a real world scenario maybe you have found these items are broken, lost etc and need to be deleted before you upload them to ebay.

See this is what I really don’t understand. First of all, are we talking about listings when you mention “templates”? GS 8+ doesn’t have templates as such any more.

Technically a SKU refers to the specific item (or class of item), not a listing or auction.

If (like me) you only ever have one unique item of any kind (like one book of a given title), then the way to use a SKU is to assign it to that particular unique physical object. If (like many other folks here) you sell commodity things, like shirts or CDs or candy, then the SKU refers to the particular kind of thing, a class.

In the case where they’re unique, then if the item is broken or lost, the SKU should never be re-used. A new unique item is a new SKU, since the inventory amount for every SKU is exactly 1 or 0, forever.

In the case where there is a pool of substitutable commodities, like candy, then the SKU refers to for example “white chocolate KitKat bars, 300g” or whatever, and you associate an inventory amount to that SKU to determine how much remains.

I don’t understand what you’re describing at all. Are you talking about Items in the inventory sense, using the GarageSale Item view? Or Listings (which refer to auctions being prepped or run or completed on eBay)?

And when you mention a group or folder, and “generate a SKU for a group”, what is happening? Are you creating a combination item from multiple items in inventory? Or a listing for many things? Or are you trying to set the SKU values so they all match some other inventory scheme?

I think I just need to have a better sense of what you’re trying to do, is all. I mean, unless you store some kind of extra information in the SKU (which is beyond GS’s ability right now), an absolutely random string would be the best SKU for every item, so they are all always unique. That’s why I use UUID strings for mine.

[rlmartin]

Oops sorry wrong thread

[Vaguery]

OK @miamiwax I think I may understand the behavior you’re describing.

I created a folder with four dummy listings in it. I selected them, and gave them consecutive SKU values.

Then I deleted #2, and created one new one, and the SKU generator said there were four “already existing” so it wanted to assign #5 to the new listing I had just created.

HOWEVER the deleted one is still in the Trash folder. When I empty the Trash, the SKU generator algorithm makes a new #2, and skips the ones I have already generated.

When I select items that already have SKU values and generate new values for them, the same thing happens: The algorithm (correctly) skips the numbers of the items I have selected, and gives them new numbers that are the next ones available.

So apparently to fill in “missing” SKU numbers in the way you are describing, you will need to delete the originals and also make sure they can’t be recovered from the Trash. This makes sense, since you can always pull anything out of the Trash folder/group and restart it, and allowing a SKU to be non-unique is the whole problem.

Of course you can also always manually edit the SKU field of any listing you want to, and there is no validation to check if it already exists in a different Listing. If it does, and there is an Item with that SKU, they will both be associated with the Item.

And of course you can also always select everything in a folder/group and give it the same SKU, manually, by editing the SKU field while all the listings are selected. They do not need to be generated algorithmically.

So you can always select everything in a folder, delete the SKU manually first (and empty the trash if there are any stragglers there), and then you will get new SKU values without conflicts.

[miamiwax]

I don’t get why this is so hard to understand. I have 5 items in a group and I generate sku with prefix 1 -

Sku generator create

1 - 1
1 - 2
1 - 3
1 - 4
1 - 5

If I delete 1 - 2 and 1 - 4 now I only have 3 listings in a folder and 1 - 5 needs to be 1 - 3

If I add or delete items to a group after sku has been generated I can’t again simply click generate sku and have items numbered correctly. I have to modify the prefix instead of 1 - it would have to be

1 –
1 —
etc

If somebody hasn’t figured that out it would be infuriating to try to get the group correctly sku’d. I’m just saying if you sku a group and add or delete items you should be able to simply and easily re-sku it.

As far as inventory I sell old records. A box of records would be considered a group in GS. The title of the physical box is the sku prefix and also name of GS group they are in. There are usually 100 records per box. They are sequentially listed in the box front to back. They are physically stickered with corresponding sku number. The numbers on stickers are also automatically sequentially generated by the sticker company Avery. I was actually the one who has been suggesting GS create sku generation and used Avery’s numbering system as the example.

[Vaguery]

Yes, as I said in my last message, if you clear the SKU values of the items in the folder first (select the items, and edit the field manually to be empty) then the generator should work as you want it to do. But you can always manually edit any of the SKU values yourself if one is not correct after fiddling with the box contents.

You do not need to generate the SKU values programmatically.

[Vaguery]

OK I have just checked and what I described worked in the way that matches what you wanted.

1. I created a group of four listings, titled “A”, “B”, “D” and “C” which were positioned in that order in the folder representing their inventory box.
2. gave them SKU values, and they were ordered numerically in the correct order (“D” was “SKU-3”, and “C” was “SKU-4”).
3. I deleted listing “B”, and replaced it with a new listing in position 2 of the folder named “replacement”

Now it looks like there are three ways to number the listings in the way you want, as I said in my message from yesterday. In simple-to-complicated order, these seem to be:

1. I can select the “replacement” listing, and just type the correct SKU number into its SKU field. That’s it. Select the text, backspace, type the correct text.

2. I can regenerate the SKU values for the entire folder, including the replacement. BUT to do that I need to de-accession the used SKU values. So I select the items still present in the folder (including the new one), and remove their SKU values. That “frees” the currently active numbers.

   To clear the SKU values, I select the listings all at once, and the SKU field shows “multiple values”. I put the cursor into it, and just hit backspace/return to enter “nothing”. The SKU values are gone then.

   Then when I select the “Generate SKUs…” menu item, it will permit me to start the numbering over. Again, they are numbered in the order they appear in the folder, so when I do this I get “A” as SKU-1, “replacement” as SKU-2, “D” as SKU-3 and so on, as expected.

3. The most complicated way I’ve found is to just be aware that items in the Trash that have a SKU value assigned “use it up”. So starting from the folder of four original items “A”, “B”, “D” and “C” (in that order), when I delete “B” I need to empty the trash before generating new SKU values. Because “B” is still in there; occupying the SKU-2 slot.

   Once I have deleted the Trash items, when I select “Generate SKUs…” menu item again (with all the items selected), it will “skip” the already assigned SKU values *but it will assign the correct value to “replacement”.

Does that help?

I am also working on a box-based inventory system, and having many of the same problems you are doing. Manual entry and editing works best for me when there are only one or two things to file or move. But it sounds like the next-simplest thing for you, if you want to regenerate an entire box-full of SKU values, is to just hit backspace once you’ve selected the listings, clear their set values first, and then the generator will work as you expect.

[Vaguery]

… But having written all that out, it certainly does feel like there should be a user interface change when there is a “skipping SKU” event. Either a checkbox that will “force SKU values to be re-used”, or a dialog box asking if you are absolutely sure that you want to remove the SKU values from the items they’re attached to before assigning them here.

Having it in your face, asking if you’re sure, might be most helpful. It shouldn’t crop up very often, after all. But it would arguably be removing the SKU from stuff in the Trash so…

When @ilja and @kristian reappear after the summer holidays, maybe they have some insights.

[ilja]

Wow, that’s been a pretty long thread and I am afraid I don’t get every nuance of it.

What I got so far is that if we’d add a checkbox “Allow duplicate SKUs” that wouldn’t skip an SKU if it is already used, everybody should be happy. Is that correct?