SKUs in fetch_stock.json are case sensitive and probably should not be

[Nicholas_P]

If a client has a SKU set to "TurkeySandwich" in Shopify, but they entered it as "Turkeysandwich" (for example, a lowercase 's') in our system, then when Shopify calls our fetch_stock.json and we return a "Turkeysandwich", Shopify fails to update the inventory for "TurkeySandwich".

Then the client yells at us that inventory is not syncing for some SKUs, and Shopify Support does the typical "oh it's an app, ticket closed" response.

So I just wasted three hours over some capital letters.

Would you please update your SKU matching in your fetch_stock.json logic to be case insensitive?

[Michael_AG · Accepted solution]

Hi,

SKU is a case-sensitive string in Shopify for purpose. From brief looking into this a bit outside of Shopify, it appears that case insensitivity is not the norm, and numerous platforms with SKU integrations are also case sensitive, just like Shopify.

To help merchants avoid any issues with SKU capitalization, it would be helpful to inform them to keep the capitalization when typing their Shopify SKUs into an app, like how Shipwire explicitly mentions SKU case sensitivity in their help docs.

We will cover this at our dev docs, thank you for pointing out.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. 

[Nicholas_P]

In 16 years of working at a 3PL, I can't think of a single instance where case sensitivity during the fulfillment of an order was intentional, because humans are not case sensitive.

In my experience, systems transacting EDI would either key based off of GTIN where it doesn't come up or normalize all SKU input to uppercase text. That entire sentence is meaningless to the average Shopify shop owner, where getting a non-duplicated SKU entered at all is a challenge.

Thank you for pledging to document that SKUs are case sensitive somewhere within the Shopify documentation, where it does not currently exist.