In which field I should store my product identifiers (SKUs)?

[user2076]

In the PrestaShop back-office I can see a number of places where I possibly could store a product identifier (also known as SKU).

As an example, in PrestaShop version 1.7 inside a product page, there are the following fields:

    "Reference Code"

    "EAN-13 or JAN barcode"

    "UPC barcode"
    "ISBN"

 

...I am a bit lost, is there a standard place where I should store the product identifier? What is a most common approach? and why? 

Thanks for the help in advance.

Edited August 25, 2017 by user2076 (see edit history)

[DataKick]

Use Reference Code.

 

Unfortunately prestashop doesn't require this field to be set, or to be unique. But you should always strive for uniqueness, it will ease your integration with third party services.

 

Some people send product ids as a SKU, but that's a big mistake - id's can change, for example if you delete and reimport your products from csv. Also that makes transferring to other platforms quite hard.

[user2076]

Thanks for the advice and quick response!

[user2076]

As DataKick pointed out, and I agree, that it is not reliable to use product ids (that are generated automatically by PrestaShop for every new item in the product catalogue) as SKUs. 

Our store randomly generates unique alphanumeric identifiers with variants for colour & size. 

The question still remains, in which of the following fields we should save the ids? 

• Reference code
• EAN-13 or JAN barcode
• UPC barcode

What is the most common place? (E.g. which field 3rd party plugins takes when they need to extract the product SKU.)

 

I've attached a screenshot to illustrate it better:

Edited August 30, 2017 by user2076 (see edit history)

[oliiix]

It is clearly the reference field as DataKick said! Just view your source code.  It's clearly visible that the reference code has the itemprop="sku" attribute.