Summary of SKU Types

1. Standard
   • A standard product.
   • Standard SKUs may be sold individually or as parts of assemblies, bundles, or collections.
2. Component
   • Component SKUs are parts included on assemblies, bundles, and collections.
   • Component SKUs cannot be sold as standalone products.
3. Assembly
   • A product that must be assembled prior to shipment. The assembly process may be as simple as putting all associated SKUs into the same box. Or it may be as involved as welding pieces together.
   • All associated SKUs needed for the assembly must be located within the same facility, whether that’s your local facility or the facility of a Dropship/JIT/3PL vendor.
   • To sell assembly SKUs, all needed quantities of all associated SKUs must be available.
4. Bundle
   • A product that includes associated SKUs that do not need to be assembled together prior to shipment.
   • Associated SKUs included in the bundle may be sent to customers from different fulfillment sources.
   • To sell bundle SKUs, all needed quantities of all associated SKUs must be available.
5. Collection
   • A collection of associated SKUs linked for marketing purposes to upsell or cross-sell related products.
   • The SKU set to Collection acts as a sort of parent SKU for all the associated SKUs. However, the Collection SKU itself cannot actually be sold. Only its associated SKUs may be sold.
   • Associated SKUs in the collection may still be sold if any of the other associated SKUs sells out.
6. Virtual
   • A SKU which does not need to be physically fulfilled, such as a magazine subscription or gift wrapping fee. 
   • These SKUs do not require inventory, and operate with an inventory level of 0.
   • Virtual SKUs do not sync catalog presently, but will associate with orders that import with a matching SKU. 
   • To report on these SKUs, add SKU.Type to your reports, and look for Type: Virtual
7. Untracked
   • A SKU whose inventory is not deterministically allocated to order items and instead is loosely allocated resulting in faster order routing.
   • Untracked SKUs do not ensure that the available inventory for a given SKU is routed to the highest priority order I.E the oldest order. 
   • Untracked SKUs are meant to be enabled when the client is sure that the given quantity of a SKU will be enough to fulfill all orders for that SKU. 
   • Example Use Cases for an Untracked SKU might include; Gift With Purchase items, Order Inserts/give-aways, situations where the customer is not expecting the item, or gift wrapping.

*Generic SKUs are used for special situations, please contact RetailOps Support for more information.