A SKU system for clothing brands
Apparel is the hardest category for SKUs: one style quickly becomes dozens of size-color combinations, and every single one needs its own unique code. Here's a system that stays consistent from your first drop to your hundredth.
The variant explosion problem
A single hoodie in 4 colors and 5 sizes is 20 SKUs. Ten styles per season and you're managing 200 codes. Typing them by hand in a spreadsheet is where duplicates, skipped sizes, and inconsistent color codes come from — and marketplaces reject imports over exactly those mistakes.
A pattern that works for apparel
The proven structure for clothing is style → color → size → sequence:
| Segment | Codes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Brand / style | 2–4 letters | NRD (Nordic) |
| Color | 2 letters, one master list | BK, WH, NV, GY |
| Size | Standard letters/numbers | XS S M L XL |
| Sequence | Padded number | 0031 |
Result: NRD-BK-M-0031 — anyone on your team reads it instantly: Nordic, black, medium.
Golden rule: one master list of color and size codes for the whole brand. The moment "Navy" is NV on one style and NAV on another, reporting and reordering break.
Generate all combinations in one click
This is where a generator beats a spreadsheet outright. In OtterLabel you:
- Load the Apparel template — Size, Color, and Material attributes with standard codes are set up for you.
- Enter the style name once, tick the colors and sizes you're producing.
- Hit Generate variants: all combinations are created with correct, unique SKUs and a shared product handle.
- Export — the Shopify CSV groups the variants under one product, exactly how the importer wants them.
Apparel-specific tips
- Keep size codes sortable. If you use numeric sizes (EU 36–46), pad them (
36,38…) so they sort correctly everywhere. - Don't encode season into the SKU. Use tags or categories for seasonality — carry-over styles shouldn't change codes between seasons.
- Barcodes are separate. Each variant still needs its own EAN/UPC for retail; keep it in the barcode field, not inside your SKU.
- Watch stock per variant, not per style. Your best-selling style can be out of stock in the only size that matters. Unique SKUs per variant are what make that visible.
Set up your apparel SKUs in minutes
Free, no account, runs in your browser. Apparel template included — sizes, colors, and materials with standard codes.
Open the free SKU builderExports for Shopify, WooCommerce, and plain spreadsheets.