We would also be in need of serial numbers added for warranty and layaway purposes. We retail furniture and appliances. Every appliances has a SKU, Barcode and Serial Number. We could sell the a customer multiple freezers which would have the same SKU and Barcode but each have individual Serial Numbers. This should be a standard feature and would benefit many businesses.
Topic summary
A merchant seeks functionality to assign unique serial numbers to individual products for self-checkout, warranty tracking, returns, and inventory management. They emphasize this goes beyond standard SKUs or barcodes—each item needs a distinct identifier tied to orders.
Current Shopify Limitations:
- Native Shopify supports SKUs and barcodes per variant, but not unique serial numbers for identical items
- A Shopify representative initially suggested using SKU/barcode fields and the Retail Barcodes app, which doesn’t fully address the need
Community Demand:
Multiple merchants confirm this is critical for their businesses, particularly those selling:
- Electronics (phones with IMEI numbers)
- Luxury watches
- Products requiring warranty validation and historical tracking
Some merchants report migrating away from Shopify (e.g., to Lightspeed) specifically due to this missing feature.
Available Solutions:
Several third-party apps have emerged:
- Fakesburster (announced in the thread)
- Serializer - Product Tracking (most recently updated, allows serial number assignment to order line items, warranty tracking, and custom templates)
Developers continue soliciting feedback to build or improve serial number tracking apps. The discussion remains active with ongoing requests for native Shopify implementation, though no official timeline has been provided.
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