iOS SKU In iTunes Connect

[robbieduncan]

I am just about ready to upload my first application to the app store D). I've started looking at the steps required to add a new application to iTunes Connect and the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is the SKU.

The documentation just says "Unique Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) for each major version of your application". So is this just a number I make up? Or is there some (no doubt complicated) process I am expected to complete to generate it?

 

[tawpie]

I made mine up -- a SKU is normally used to track inventory (it is often associated with the scannable UPC code on the package) and is unique to each manufacturer/distributor/retailer. As near as I can tell, the SKU doesn't matter much but it might (to you, for your organizational purposed) if you have lots of different apps.

 

[robbieduncan]

In the end I made one up too. I've decided to follow a semi-sensible pattern of 99xxxxyyyy where xxxx is an ID for the app (so starts at 0001) and yyyy is the release of the app (so again starting at 0001). I added the 99 to ensure the leading 0s didn't get removed. All sorted, app submitted.

 

[dejo]

Also, realize that the SKU doesn't need to be solely numeric characters; alphas are allowed too.

 

[JLakes]

Different SKUs

Those SKUs look way different than what we see in our reports as iTunes affiliates helping sell your software/music/etc through iTMS.

The SKUs iTunes reports back to us are all Q####.
(http://dsounds.com/showthread.php?tid=6)

I wonder where your SKUs go and our SKUs come from?

 

[kimabg]

I'm using the following formula:

com.theevilboss.[application name]

So for my free application Hiragana Lite I use
com.theevilboss.hiraganalite
and the paid version has
com.theevilboss.hiragana

I think the SKU is solely for you own use, helping you identify which application got downloaded and such.

 

[Lisapple]

Hello!
On the "Publishing on the App Store" video from ADC itunes, we can see the SKU ID of the example application and this SKU is: TOUCH_FIGHTER_001 for an application which call touch fighter (of course). It's unique for an application, every application have an unique ID and ID is independent of the app version. It's can't be changed and users can't see this ID.
Hope this will be useful.

 

[firewood]

Think Big.

Assume you will eventually have over a hundred apps in the store, and you need a concise sort field to sort all the data by app in your company sales spreadsheet or accounting program.

So give each unique app a unique tag (maybe 7 digits or characters, like the part number on the iPhone Box: MB716LL, etc.).

 

[RobertD63]

I just use what Apple gives me on the "App ID" which is something like this: