Bulk edit SKU and barcode on Shopify

SKUs and barcodes are invisible on the storefront and critical everywhere else: picking, stock takes, accounting exports, marketplace feeds and every integration that matches products between systems.

A supplier change or a migration usually leaves them inconsistent, and inconsistent identifiers are a problem that grows quietly until a feed rejects half the catalog.

Identifier operations

• Change to — set a value on a narrow, deliberately filtered selection.
• Find and replace — swap an old supplier prefix for a new one.
• Add to the beginning or end — prefix a warehouse code or append a size marker.
• Remove text — strip an import artefact such as a trailing dash.
• Barcodes take the same operations, which is how a GTIN prefix gets corrected across a range.

Selecting variants

• By SKU — contains, is empty, is equal to.
• By barcode — the same operators, for feed problems.
• By vendor — supplier codes usually move supplier by supplier.
• By option value — when only one size or colour is affected.
• Use variant filters here: SKUs and barcodes live on the variant, not the product.

A worked example: re-prefix one supplier’s SKUs

1. Filter: vendor is equal to “Northwind”, SKU contains “NW-”.
2. Editor: SKU → find “NW-”, replace with “NWD-”.
3. Preview the variant list and check a handful against the supplier’s file.
4. Run it. The log records the old and new SKU for every variant.

Identifiers are worth a preview

A wrong price costs margin for an afternoon; a wrong SKU can misroute stock for months. Run the filter, read the preview, and start with one vendor rather than the whole catalog.

If something does go in wrong, the task keeps the previous identifier and can be reverted.

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