Definition

Stock Keeping Unit - a unique identifier for a product variant, crucial for inventory and sales tracking. It's the number that makes you realize you have 247 'different' versions of the same thing.

Example Usage

We discontinued 30 SKUs that were generating 0.1% of revenue but 30% of support tickets.

Origin

From retail inventory management, standardized in the 1970s

Fun Fact

Product proliferation (too many SKUs) is a common problem that marketers blame on product managers and vice versa.

Source: Retail and E-Commerce Operations

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shelf talker

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