Translate a unique product identifier to different languages

[JohanNi]

Hi,

We have our shop in central Europe, meaning different languages around.
For different countries we have different languages on the product labels, meaning different SKU & EAN.
On the website we translate it, currently using Translate & Adapt.

My question is, how do we technically identify this difference in the orders? So that if someone orders in German they'll get the German product.
I really wish to avoid create different product in the backend, the extra complexity to handle that would be above our capacity. Just having a translateable unique identifier would solve it I believe.

Our warehouse normally use SKU as unique identifier, however I haven't found any app that allows translation of SKU, or GTIN (Translate and Adapt has a field for GTIN, but only one no matter how many variations a product has). We could choose a different unique identifier, however we have to be sure that it'll never change if so.

[JohanNi]

No ideas?
This must be a very common thing for any shop selling items to more countries.
Every country need a label in the local language and therefor has a different EAN & SKU.

How's it otherwise solved?

[Brian_McKinley]

This more an operational issue than anything.  You should not need a different EAN, although a different SKU may be benificial depending on the systems involved.  Ideally your warehouse would have a WMS (warehouse management system) that supports a solution to this problem.  Many warehouse systems support the concept of a lot code, the intended use of which is for recalls, but the feature can also be used to solve this type of problem.  If the WMS does not support lot codes, or if you have a pure Shopify solution, then "virtual warehouses" may be only option.  In Shopify you create a location for each language specific region and map areas of the warehouse (or virtual warehouses) to those regions.  That way you have visibility of how much inventory you have in each packaging and can map those locations to the warehouse system if they have an interface with Shopify.