SKU Planning Strategy
The Juice vs. The Squeeze
One of the most important decisions when setting up your inventory is choosing how specifically to track each type of item. More granular SKUs give you better data — but they also require more work across every part of your operation: purchase order construction, receiving, tagging, signage, and checkout.
We call this the juice vs. the squeeze: is the data you gain worth the effort it takes to track it that way?
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This isn't an all-or-nothing decision. You can track 4" annuals generically while breaking out Snapdragons and Pansies as separate SKUs — because your buyer cares about those numbers. Each department can be decided independently.
The Two Key Factors
The right level of SKU specificity is driven by two things:
Unit Price — Higher-priced items justify more tracking overhead. You want to know exactly how many 45-gallon specimen trees you have. You care less about tracking every individual 4" annual.
Sales Volume — High-volume items that sell in multiples create checkout friction when tracked individually. A customer buying a flat of mixed herbs shouldn't require 15 individual scans at the register.
The Four Zones
Generic SKU — High volume, low price
Items like 4" annuals, mixed flats, and herbs are sold in high quantities at low price points. Customers often buy several different varieties at once — requiring a cashier to enter each one individually slows checkout significantly with minimal data gain.
Best approach: One SKU per cell size or category (e.g., "Annual 4-inch").
Tip
If your supplier ships pre-barcoded plants, vendor barcodes can change this equation — they eliminate the tagging and checkout friction, making individual tracking feasible even for high-volume items.
Specific SKU — Lower volume, higher price
Shrubs, trees, perennials, and specialty items are bought deliberately. Customers research specific varieties. Inventory accuracy directly impacts your purchasing decisions and profitability.
Best approach: Track by variety (e.g., "Echinacea 'Magnus' Quart", "Cornus florida 'Cherokee Chief' 7-Gal").
Flexible — Use your judgment
Many items fall in the middle. Ask yourself:
- Will my buyer use this sales data to make better purchasing decisions?
- Will tracking this way slow down checkout in a meaningful way?
- Is the variety mix important enough to justify separate SKUs?
If the buyer benefit outweighs the operational cost, go specific.
The Workflow Exception: Bagged Goods
Bagged mulch, soils, and aggregates appear to be high-volume, low-price items — which would normally suggest generic tracking. But they're a workflow exception.
Unlike potted plants, bagged goods are: - Requested by the customer at the register, then loaded from the pallet after the fact - Not individually tagged or signed - Available in a small, fixed number of SKUs
Because the usual sources of friction (tagging, signage, individual checkout scan) don't apply, tracking bagged goods by specific product adds no meaningful overhead — and it's worth doing.
Consistency Across Departments
One of the most important things to get right: your buyer, your receiving team, and your cashiers all need to be working from the same SKU structure.
If a buyer puts a plant on a purchase order under "Perennial Quart" but it gets received into "Salvia Quart" and sold out of "Salvia 'May Night' Qt.", your on-hand counts will be wrong no matter how carefully everyone works.
Before setting up a department's SKU structure, align on:
- What level of detail matters for purchasing decisions
- How items will be tagged at receiving
- What cashiers will see at checkout — and whether it's practical
Common Examples
| Item | Typical Approach | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 4" Annuals (mixed) | Generic — one SKU per cell size | High volume, mixed checkout, minimal per-variety value |
| 4" Snapdragons | Specific — if buyer tracks them | Buyer may care; still feasible if not mixed with others |
| 4" Herbs / Vegetables | Generic preferred | Customers buy 10+ mixed varieties — checkout bottleneck |
| Seed packets | Specific | Low friction (vendor barcodes), variety data is valuable |
| Hanging baskets | Specific by variety | Mid-price, sold individually, helps purchasing |
| 1-Gal Shrubs | Specific | Price and individual purchase decisions justify it |
| 45-Gal Specimen Trees | Specific — track every unit | High value, low volume, accuracy matters most |
| Bagged Mulch / Soil | Specific | Workflow exception — no tagging/checkout friction |
| Fertilizer bags | Specific | Vendor barcodes available, variety mix matters for buying |
Warning
The more granular your tracking, the more places errors can occur. A well-maintained generic SKU structure is often more accurate — and more useful — than a highly specific one with frequent receiving and checkout mistakes. Start simpler than you think you need to, and add specificity where the data proves its value.