Guides

Practical answers to the operational questions that come up when you run purchase orders through Lightspeed Retail.

• How to add a new color to a product you already carry

  Add the colorway to the variant group you already have, as new children, rather than creating a separate product. Creating a new product for a color you already carry is the single largest source of duplicate SKUs, and it fragments every number you buy from.

• Why duplicate products keep appearing, and how to stop it

  Duplicates appear when a line on a vendor document is created as a new product instead of matched to something you already carry. Three causes account for nearly all of them: color codes that do not match, style numbers that change format between seasons, and imports that never check.

• How to structure product categories so your reports mean something

  Build the tree around the decisions you make, not the way products sit on a shelf. Every report you run groups by category, and sales history does not move when you reorganize, so the shape you choose is close to permanent once a season of trading sits behind it.