• Online Stores · OpenCart

SKU system: when the same product has three different numbers

An SKU system for an online store is a rule under which one item always has exactly one number. Until there is such a rule, the same product lives on the website under one SKU, in the accounting system under another, and in the supplier's price list under a third. The consequences do not show at once: stock levels do not match, a manager ships the wrong item, and the catalog can only be reconciled with the warehouse by hand. We put this in order, from checking how many unique items you really have to the scheme under which new products are added.

See how it works
Price
after a free audit
Guarantee
30 days after project sign-off
Focus
online stores, mostly OpenCart
after a free audit
Price
Guarantee

days after project sign-off

online stores, mostly OpenCart
Focus
Timeline

to 38 working days

free catalog review
Start
Warranty

days from the date the acceptance act is signed

within 2 hours
Reply
under a written contract
Terms
What's included

Complete list of work and what you get as a result

  • a single SKU scheme, described by rules rather than a set of examples
  • a list of duplicates with a proposal on which items to merge and which to keep separate
  • merging duplicates without losing order history and reviews
  • separating products from variants: size and color stop being separate listings
  • matching the website's SKUs with the accounting system for every item
  • a field for the supplier's SKU, so price lists are picked up automatically
  • rules for adding new items, so the scheme does not fall apart within a month
  • a check after the changes: stock, prices and orders have to match
  • a short guide for the content manager in Ukrainian
When this service isn't right

What's not included — so there are no surprises at delivery

  • day-to-day catalog maintenance after rollout — that is your content manager's job
  • changing the accounting system on the client's side
  • arrangements with suppliers about the format of their price lists
  • promises of sales growth: SKUs bring order to the data, they do not create demand
  • moving the catalog to another platform — that is separate work
Who it's for

Situations where this service delivers results

Scenario 1 of 4

A catalog maintained for several years by several people

Items were added by different managers at different times, each following their own logic. Duplicates piled up unnoticed, and now nobody can name the exact number of products in the store.

We'll review your situation in a free audit

A free SKU review of your catalog

We take your catalog and count how many truly unique items it contains and how many are the same product under different numbers. That is the figure any work on a catalog starts from.

What we measure

  • How many products have no SKU at allAn item without a number cannot be reconciled with the warehouse or with a price list; it simply drops out of every automated process.
  • How many SKUs repeatOne number for two different products is a direct source of wrong shipments. We find every such pair.
  • How variants are structuredSize and color as separate products or as variants of one listing: both stock accounting and how the catalog looks in search depend on this.
  • Whether the numbers match the accounting systemWe compare a sample of website SKUs with what is in your 1C, BAS or spreadsheets.
  • What comes in supplier price listsWe look at which field, if any, can be used to match their item with yours. Often there is no such field, and that is the main reason for manual updates.
  • Whether there are artificial duplicatesOne item added twice by different people at different times is a typical situation for catalogs maintained over several years.

What you get

  • a figure: how many unique items the catalog really has
  • a list of duplicates and SKU conflicts
  • a proposed SKU scheme for your assortment
  • an estimate of the work broken down by stage

Timeline: 3–5 working days

Why is it free

An SKU scheme cannot be proposed without seeing the catalog: a store with 500 items and a store with 50,000 have different tasks and a different cost of error.

What's next

You receive the list and the scheme. You can implement it with us or on your own; the document stays with you either way.

Short form: your contact and site URL

We work officially

Contract, act and invoice — for every project, not just large ones.

Trusted by6 brands

Trusted by: Kvant Energy, GYPSUN, Naturel Cosmetics, Pancer Protection, LUGI, BeeTech

Terms fixed in writing8 points
  • 01

    Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • 02

    Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • 03

    Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • 04

    Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • 05

    Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • 06

    Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • 07

    Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • 08

    We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

  • 01

    Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • 02

    Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • 03

    Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • 04

    Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • 05

    Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • 06

    Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • 07

    Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • 08

    We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

We sign NDAs on request. After completing the work, we delete our access to your services ourselves.

What affects the price

Why two seemingly identical tasks are priced differently

  • Catalog sizeFive hundred items can be reviewed almost in full. Fifty thousand require sample checks and automated rules: work of a different nature, not just longer.
  • Number of duplicatesEvery merge has to be done so that orders, reviews and links to the old listing are not lost. The more duplicates, the more such transfers.
  • Whether products have variantsMoving sizes and colors from separate listings into variants is the most visible part of the work: the catalog structure changes, and with it the filters, the product page and the exports.
  • Number of data sourcesOne price list from one supplier is a simple case. A dozen price lists in different formats means separate matching for each.
  • Exchange with the accounting systemIf the website syncs with 1C or BAS, SKU changes have to be made on both sides in coordination, otherwise the next exchange will roll everything back.
  • Whether the exchange can be pausedWorking with sync switched on needs extra safeguards and checks, which takes longer than with the exchange paused.
Cases

Tasks and results in numbers — all metrics measured by us

Pancer Protection

an online store of tactical and military gear with a catalog of more than 50,000 SKUs

Task
Hold an oversized assortment of tactical gear (body armor, clothing, footwear, backpacks, comms, optics) in a single store with detailed filtering by attributes — without losing page response speed.
Solution
A store on OpenCart 3 (chameleon theme + NeoSeo modules) behind Cloudflare. Two language versions. Full local-store JSON-LD markup: Store, Place, GeoCoordinates, PostalAddress, OpeningHoursSpecification, ContactPoint, WebSite, SearchAction. At checkout: LiqPay, card online, cash on delivery, cash on collection, bank transfer and online installments (dataLayer events). Binotel telephony, eSputnik email marketing, Google sign-in, GTM, GA4, Google Ads.
Result
54,302 products and 635 categories — the figure confirmed by two independent methods: a sitemap index of 32 product files gives 110,096 URLs across two languages, and a cross-check through OpenCart search gives 54,501–54,600 items (a 0.4% discrepancy). A catalog of 54,000 SKUs returns the first response in 0.41 s, full HTML load in 0.51 s at 422 KB. Nine JSON-LD types on the home page. Five payment methods, including LiqPay and online installments. Measured 31 July 2026.

LadyLand

an online store of professional cosmetics and care products, a catalog of more than 5,000 SKUs

Task
Bring a large range of professional cosmetics into one catalog, with navigation by brand and product type, product pages with detailed ingredients and purpose, and payment and delivery terms that a retail shopper can understand.
Solution
A store on OpenCart 3 (lightshop theme, nginx). Catalog by brand and product type. Free delivery on orders from 4,000 UAH; payment either in full upfront to the sole proprietor's account or cash on delivery with a 200 UAH deposit. Organization and PostalAddress microdata. Social channels: Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.
Result
5,561 products in the live catalog (measured on 31 July 2026 via OpenCart search with an empty query: 56 pages of 100 items, the last one with 61). Home page HTML 154 KB, TTFB 0.80 s. The home page carries Organization + PostalAddress microdata.

Did not find your case?

Describe how it works on your side — we will tell you whether “SKU system” fits and what it means in your situation. No brief and no call: one question, one answer.

Process steps

Transparent stages with approval at every step

Total duration:7–30 days

  1. Catalog review

    3–5 working days

    We export the catalog and count: how many items have no SKU, how many numbers repeat, how many products are actually unique. The result is figures, not impressions.

  2. SKU scheme

    2–4 working days

    We propose the rule by which a number is formed: what it encodes and what it does not. The scheme has to survive new categories being added, so we discuss it together with whoever adds the products.

  3. Merging duplicates

    3–10 working days

    We merge twin items so that order history, reviews and old page addresses are not lost. We work on a copy of the catalog and do not touch the live store.

  4. Products and variants

    3–10 working days

    We move sizes, colors and volumes from separate listings into variants of a single listing. At the same stage we check that filters and stock levels are calculated correctly under the new structure.

  5. Matching with accounting and price lists

    2–6 working days

    We reconcile the website's SKUs with the accounting system, add a field for the supplier's number, and check that the exchange runs without creating new unnecessary items.

  6. Rollout and handover

    1–3 working days

    We roll the changes out to the live store, reconcile stock and prices after the first exchange, and hand over a guide for the content manager. After that, the 30-day warranty applies from the date the acceptance act is signed.

Technologies & integrations

What we build on and what it connects to

Stack

  • OpenCart
  • WooCommerce
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • MariaDB
  • PostgreSQL
  • Python
  • SQL
  • Git

Integrations

  • 1C
  • BAS
  • XML/YML price feeds
  • CSV exports
  • Excel
  • Google Sheets
  • supplier REST APIs
An SKU scheme or manual reconciliation now and then

How this option differs from the alternative

What happens with new productsthe number is formed by the rule, no duplicate appears
How long reconciliation with the warehouse takesautomatic, by the SKU field
Updating prices from price listspicked up by the supplier's number
What will happen in a yearthe rule is written down and new employees follow it
One-off costone-off work with an estimate in advance
What we need from you

We can't start without this — best to prepare in advance

  1. a catalog export in a convenient format: CSV, XML or database access
  2. examples of the supplier price lists you accept
  3. what items are called in the accounting system and who is responsible for it
  4. who in the company adds new products and what rule they follow now
  5. whether the exchange with the accounting system can be paused during the work
  6. a list of categories you plan to add in the near future

If something is missing — let us know, we'll help you gather it or do it as a separate task.

FAQ

Most frequently asked questions — with concrete answers

How many products are really in my catalog?

That is exactly what the free review answers. The figure in the admin panel is almost always higher than the real number of unique items: it includes duplicates, disabled products and separate listings for every size. We count in several independent ways and show the discrepancy between them — and the discrepancy is usually the most interesting part of the answer.

What happens to old links after duplicates are merged?

We set up redirects from the merged listings to the one that remains. This is a mandatory part of the work: without it, pages that are already in search results and in links from other sites will start returning an error. Order history and reviews are moved to the listing that stays.

Why turn sizes into variants if everything works as it is?

While there are three sizes, there really is little difference. The problem appears at scale: a shopper sees five nearly identical listings in the results, the warehouse cannot count stock per model, and the size filter has to be maintained by hand. If your catalog is not growing, you may well not need this, and we will say so.

You will change the SKUs, and we run 1C. Won't everything break?

That is exactly why the change is made in coordination on both sides and on a copy. A one-way exchange calls for one procedure, a two-way exchange for another, because otherwise the next sync will bring the old numbers back. During the review we look at how exactly your exchange is set up and build the plan around it.

How long does it take?

14 to 38 working days. The longest part is not changing the numbers but merging duplicates and converting variants: every operation has to go through without data loss, and that is checked. We give the exact timeline after the catalog review, once the number of duplicates is visible.

Can it be done in stages?

Yes, and for large catalogs that is usually the better way. First the scheme and new products under it, then merging duplicates category by category, from the best-selling to the rarest. The store keeps working the whole time.

Do you guarantee there will be no more duplicates?

We guarantee that the rule is described and tested, and that there are no duplicates at the moment of handover. Whether new ones appear depends on whether the rule is followed when products are added, and that is your team's job. That is why the handover includes a short guide, not just the technical part.

Who owns the result?

You do. Property rights to the code and materials pass to the client after full payment, and the result is handed over under an acceptance act. The SKU scheme and all exports stay with you whether or not we continue working together.
Demo

Your catalogue on a phone screen

This is how your store can look on a phone: a collection banner, popular products and a cart one tap away. Tap “Add to cart” and the counter in the header updates, just like in a real store.

  • Collection bannerThe first screen shows what is new, not a logo.
  • Product cardsPhoto, price and a button — no extra page to open.
  • One-tap cartThe counter in the header updates instantly, like in a real store.
Stores in the portfolio

This is a demo interface, not a client's store. Live projects are in the portfolio.

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Let's count how many products you really have

The catalog review is free: we will show you the number of unique items and a list of duplicates. We reply within 2 hours.

From measured cases54,302 products and 635 categories

View cases
  • Reply within 2 hours
  • No commitment
  • We work under a contract

There is no price list on the site on purpose: the same work differs several times over between two clients, and a “from” figure explains nothing in that case. First a free audit — we count your pages, duplicates and speed — then we name the sum and the deadline and fix both in the contract.