In terms of function, inventory can be roughly divided into two types: effective inventory and invalid inventory. Effective inventory refers to inventory of goods that can be sold. Invalid inventory includes two situations. One is inventory that has little effect on current sales, such as slow-moving goods and out-of-season goods. This type of inventory is also called fake inventory. The other is inventory that cannot be sold due to damage, expiration, or removal from the shelves, which is called dead inventory.
SKU is the basic unit for measuring inventory in and out, which can be in units of pieces, boxes, etc. SKU is an important concept in the logistics management of large chain supermarket distribution centers. It has now been extended to the abbreviation of the unified number of goods. Each product corresponds to a unique SKU number. For the same product, when any of its attributes such as brand, model, configuration, grade, color, packaging capacity, unit, production date, shelf life, purpose, price, origin, etc. are different from other products, it corresponds to a SKU number, which is called a single product. For an online store, if a pair of slippers has three colors: blue, red and black, then the slippers have three SKUs.
The different batches of the same SKU can be either valid inventory or dead inventory. For example, a certain brand of 350ml juice has a total inventory of 1,000 bottles, but 200 of them are expired products, which are dead inventory, and 100 bottles are defective products, which are fake inventory. Therefore, the valid inventory of this product is only 700 bottles.
Stores can use the “total quantity-structure-SKU” system to gradually decompose the composition of store inventory from the macro level to the micro level.