If you’re selling your unique products on Not On The High Street (NOTHS) and using Veeqo to manage your inventory, understanding how to use Placeholder SKUs is crucial for smooth operations. This guide will walk you through why NOTHS requires a specific approach to SKUs and how Veeqo’s Placeholder SKU feature can prevent common inventory and order errors.
For businesses utilizing Veeqo, managing product variations is typically straightforward. For example, if you sell a “Superman T-Shirt” in multiple sizes, Veeqo allows you to assign distinct SKUs for each variant like so:
- Large = SUP-008
- Medium = SUP-007
- Small = SUP-009
This detailed SKU system in Veeqo ensures accurate tracking of stock levels for each size variant.
Example of setting up distinct SKUs for product variations in Veeqo, showcasing SKUs for Large, Medium, and Small sizes of a Superman T-Shirt.
However, Not On The High Street (NOTHS) operates differently. Unlike Veeqo and many other platforms, NOTHS only allows a single SKU at the product level, not at the variant level. This means you cannot assign unique SKUs for different sizes or options of the same product directly within your NOTHS listings.
Screenshot illustrating the NOTHS listing interface where only one SKU can be set for the entire product, regardless of variations like size or color.
Consider again our “Superman T-Shirt” example. If you were to list this on NOTHS and set the SKU as SUP-008 (which in Veeqo corresponds to the Large size), NOTHS would apply this single SKU to all size variants – Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large.
This discrepancy creates a significant problem. If a customer orders a Small Superman T-Shirt from your Not On The High Street store, Veeqo, upon receiving the order, would interpret the SKU SUP-008 as a Large size item being ordered. This is because Veeqo is directly linked to your SKU SUP-008 representing the ‘Large’ variant. Consequently, your stock levels for the Large size would be incorrectly reduced, and you risk shipping the wrong size to your customer. This leads to inaccurate inventory management and potential customer dissatisfaction.
To prevent these errors when selling on Not On The High Street, Veeqo recommends using a Placeholder SKU. Instead of using a SKU that matches a specific variant, you should use a generic SKU for your NOTHS listings in Veeqo. For our Superman T-Shirt example on NOTHS, we advise using a Placeholder SKU like SUP-NOTH.
In Veeqo, you would set up your product variants as usual (Small, Medium, Large) with their specific SKUs (SUP-009, SUP-007, SUP-008). Then, you would add another variant specifically for your Not On The High Street listing. This new variant would use the Placeholder SKU SUP-NOTH.
Now, when an order comes in from Not On The High Street for a Small Superman T-Shirt, the order in Veeqo will correctly show the line item with the Placeholder SKU SUP-NOTH. Crucially, the order details or line item notes will contain the actual size ordered by the customer (Small).
Screenshot of a Veeqo order detail showing the Placeholder SKU “SUP-NOTH” and order notes specifying the actual size “Small” ordered from NOTHS.
Before fulfilling the order, your team can easily identify the correct size from the order notes and replace the Placeholder SKU line item with the accurate size variant SKU (SUP-009 for Small in this case). This ensures accurate stock depletion and correct order fulfillment for all your Not On The High Street sales.
By implementing Placeholder SKUs for your Not On The High Street listings in Veeqo, you ensure accurate inventory management, prevent order fulfillment errors, and maintain customer satisfaction. This simple yet effective strategy bridges the gap between Veeqo’s detailed inventory system and Not On The High Street‘s single SKU limitation, allowing for seamless multi-channel selling.
