LCY is the identifier of a commodity position. LCY in trade

LCY is the product item identifier used in trade to create and track statistics of goods or services sold. This abbreviation appeared in the Russian language as a reading of the English denotation SKU - stock keeping unit, in translation - "warehouse unit".

Spectrum values

LCY in trade initially designated a real unit of production - both sold and still stored in a warehouse. In the future, with the development of the service sector and the expansion of sales of intangible goods, for example, licenses for the use of programs or online training courses, the LCY also began to apply to any realized positions.

In modern interpretation this term is also deciphered as an article - a combination of numbers and symbols, from which it is possible to obtain certain information about the characteristics of the product. Any sold thing or service receives an individual LCY - this is the code that distinguishes it from all others. This designation facilitates the calculation of distribution.

Features of the assignment of the LCY

The slightest difference in the characteristics of two similar commodity units entails the assignment of different identifiers to them. For example, 1% kefir in a 0.5 liter plastic bottle and 2.5% in the same container will be given different SKUs to track their movement in the warehouse and laying on store shelves.

The identifier can include both the digits under which the product is encrypted, and the symbols denoting the color, size and other versions of the product. SKY clothing, household appliances, furniture, office supplies are often formed using a combination of numbers and letters (for example, 123-SYN). In the relevant stores it is convenient to track the sales statistics taking into account the colors, sizes and other related characteristics.

In the assortment policy

Each accounting unit participates in inventory management in the enterprise. The organization and the order of deliveries occur taking into account the traffic for each LCY. The main sales volume is carried out at the expense of only 20% of the total number of positions, but, as the practice of trade showed, to refuse all the remaining 80% does not make sense. Buyers in the mass prefer to choose future acquisitions where the greatest quantity of LCY is represented, and not where only the most popular commodity is concentrated. For the successful conduct of trade, it is necessary to offer the population more qualitative varieties of products than average demand requires.

Simultaneously with the increase in the spectrum of the proposed product or service, it is necessary to monitor the oversaturation of the market. If too much excess of the required quantity of products by a particular company, the least popular varieties become noticeable, and the range has to be reduced due to unjustified production and storage costs.

Forming the assortment policy, the enterprise is obliged to take into account the peculiarities of the ways and channels of sale of each group of goods. According to the degree of demand and the volume of the share in the sale of the product, LCY are divided into:

• Basic - with consistently high demand and sustainable sales;
• Priority - the most popular, key products of the group;
• Additional.

Classification of identifiers by groups occurs using ABC or XYZ analysis.

Retail and warehouse

Retail trade in large volumes with a wide range of goods can not do without taking into account the LCY. This is necessary because in the presence of hundreds and thousands of warehouse units, the control over the receipt and consumption of products passes from the accounting to the logistics plane. For each SKJ of the goods, it is required to count the balances. Qualitative control over the unsold volume of production and calculation of the quantity that must be ordered gives a key to the rational use of each meter of the trading area and increases the total profitability of the enterprise.

However, in practice, difficulties arise with the correct account of the LCY. This situation, when the enterprise has a large number of goods with complex identifiers, for example, Bolt M30 GOST 15589-70 and Bolt M30 GOST 7805-70, there is a risk of confusion between these positions. There may be erroneous data about the absence of one LCY and an overabundance of another. To prevent such situations, each enterprise should take care of creating its own transparent system for coding goods, avoiding duplication of designations.