6 Item Types
Merchandising supports creating a number of different types of items, as well as a number of different item format types. This section outlines some basic information about the different item number formats and types of items supported to help you understand how you may want to configure this for your business.
Item Number Types
Merchandising supports a number of different item number formats. However, for most implementations, there is a much smaller subset of these types that are used. It usually is helpful to hide the types that not relevant for your business to assist your users in setting up items and ensure that they follow the standards you define. This can be done by updating the used flag for code type UPCT, following the directions in the Codes and Descriptions section of this document.
The most commonly used number types for transaction level items and above are the Oracle Retail Item Number or Manual to account for any unique item formats or for legacy items that might require an alpha numeric character. The majority of the rest of the item types are various barcodes - some of which are applicable for individual items and some of which are more applicable to packs.
Table 6-1 Item Number Type Codes and Code Descriptions
| Code | Code Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
EAN13 |
EAN/UCC-13 |
|
EAN13S |
EAN/UCC-13 with Supplement |
|
UCC14 |
EAN/UCC-14 |
|
EAN8 |
EAN/UCC-8 |
|
ISBN10 |
ISBN-10 |
|
ISBN13 |
ISBN-13 |
|
MANL |
Manual |
|
NDC |
NDC/NHRIC - National Drug Code |
|
ITEM |
Oracle Retail Item Number |
|
PLU |
PLU |
|
SSCC |
SSCC Shipper Carton |
|
UPC-A |
UCC12 |
|
UPC-AS |
UCC12 with Supplement |
|
UPC-E |
UCC8 |
|
UPC-ES |
UCC8 with Supplement |
|
VPLU |
Variable Weight PLU |
Item and Transaction Levels
Merchandising has a flexible three-level item hierarchy that allows you to choose how to configure your items to best suit your business. You may choose to use all three levels, or you may use only one or two, depending on the types of items you buy and sell. It is also flexible enough to allow you to use different configurations for different parts of your business. For example, if you have a portion of your business that sells clothing that has a style, SKU, and barcode level, you may use all three levels. But, another part of your business may not have the style level, and so you could choose to use only two-level items for that division.
Determining how you want create your items in the various areas of your business is a key implementation activity. As part of that decision, the transaction level - or the level at which key item activities like inventory management occurs - must also be determined. The most common models for items and the transaction level used for each are as follows:
Table 6-2 Item and Transaction Levels
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Transaction Level | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Fashion |
Style |
SKU |
Barcode |
SKU |
|
Hard-lines |
SKU |
Barcode |
n/a |
SKU |
|
Grocery |
SKU |
Barcode |
n/a |
SKU |
|
Packs (Simple and Complex) |
Pack |
Barcode |
n/a |
Pack |
As part of the initial configuration of the solution, you may want to update the labels that Merchandising uses for each of these levels to better suit your business and make it easier for your users to understand which options to select when creating new items. The labels for the levels are managed as codes and can be updated in the Codes and Descriptions download/upload process described in this document. The codes applicable codes are described below.
Transaction Level Descriptions (code type = TLVL)
This code type is used for the transaction level dropdown when a user creates non-pack items, or when searching for items using Item Search.
Table 6-3 Transaction Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Level 1 |
|
2 |
Level 2 |
|
3 |
Level 3 |
Item Level Descriptions (code type = ILVS)
This code type is used to populate item level dropdowns in Item Search.
Table 6-4 Item Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Level 1 |
|
2 |
Level 2 |
|
3 |
Level 3 |
Pack Item Level Descriptions (code type = PITL)
This code type is used to populate the transaction level dropdown when a user creates a pack or to display the label for a pack item.
Table 6-5 Pack Item Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Pack |
|
2 |
Reference Item |
Transaction Level 1 Item Level Descriptions (code type = T1IT)
For items that have their transaction level set to level 1, this is the label that is displayed when viewing the item in the Item workflow. This is usually used for hardline and grocery items that don't utilize differentiators.
Table 6-6 Transaction Level 1 Item Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
SKU |
|
2 |
Reference Item |
Transaction Level 2 Item Level Descriptions (code type = T2IT)
This code type is used for display labels for a level 2 transaction item. This is usually used for fashion items that utilize differentiators.
Table 6-7 Transaction Level 2 Item Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Style |
|
2 |
SKU |
|
3 |
Reference Item |
Transaction Level 3 Item Level Descriptions (code type = T3IT)
This code type is used for display labels for items that have the transaction level set to level 3. This is a less common item configuration, but may be used when you wish to track inventory at the barcode level in Merchandising.
Table 6-8 Transaction Level 3 Item Level Descriptions
| Code | Base Descriptions |
|---|---|
|
1 |
Style |
|
2 |
SKU |
|
3 |
Reference Item |
Item Types
There are several different types of items that are supported in Merchandising. You may use all or just a subset of the item types in your business. For those item types that are not used, you can hide the options in the lists displayed to users to prevent them from choosing the wrong item types, if desired. This can be done in a few ways. If you have some users that work with grocery items and others who do not, you can assign the grocery privilege to the users that will set up the grocery item types (transformable items, deposit items, or catch weight items) and not to other users. Or if none of your items are considered "grocery" you can set the Grocery system option to unchecked to hide these item types from all your users. To further limit the list for either group of users, can also set the Used indicator to No for code type ITNG, for non-grocery items, or ITMT, for the full list of item types described below. See Codes and Descriptions for more details on how to make this update.
Regular Items
This is the most common item type. It can be used to represent a barcode, a fashion style or SKU, a hard-lines item, or a grocery item that doesn't fall into one of the other categories below. Regular items can be classified as inventoried, sellable, and/or orderable.
Complex Packs
Complex packs are a collection of other items that are either sold or ordered under a single identifier. Complex pack components can include individual items or another pack, often referred to as a nested pack. If adding a pack as a component of another pack, the component pack cannot have a nested pack as one its components. There are two types of complex packs - vendor and buyer. Buyer packs are primarily created to facilitate ordering or to represent a sellable only pack; whereas vendor packs are often defined by your supplier. Typical examples of orderable complex pack are fashion prepacks where all the component items are SKUs in a single style or display packs that contain a variety of sellable SKUs, where the shipping container may also be used for display in the store, such as for selling batteries.
The table below shows which types of component packs can be nested pack inside which types of packs.
| Pack Types -> | Buyer Pack | Vendor Pack | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component Types | Orderable/Sellable | Non-Orderable/ Sellable | Orderable/ Non-sellable | Sellable | Non-Sellable |
|
Buyer Pack (Orderable/Sellable) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Buyer Pack (Non-Orderable/Sellable) |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
|
Buyer Pack (Orderable/Non-Sellable) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Vendor Pack (Sellable) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Vendor Pack (Non-Sellable) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Simple Packs
Simple packs are similar to complex packs, but they only contain a single component item. Simple packs are always orderable and optionally can be sellable as well.
Deposit Items
Deposit items are defined as a product that has a portion which is returnable to the supplier and is sold to the customer, with a deposit taken for the returnable portion. In Merchandising, there are actually four distinct types of deposit items that work together for purchasing, sales, and returns. A good example of this type of item would be soda sold in bottles.
Content Item
This type of item is created as a sellable, orderable, and inventoried item and represents the contents of the deposit item, for example the actual soda in the soda bottles. All content items must be linked to a single container item.
Container Item
The container item is sellable only and is associated with one or more content items. Usually this item will be set up with a retail that is the equivalent of the deposit value. Although this item is sellable only, because of its link to the content item, it will be automatically added to transactions involving the content item. For example, if you create a return to vendor transaction for the content item, the container item will also be added.
Returned Item
This would represent the empty container that is returned by the customer in order to receive their deposit back. The retail price associated with this item should be the deposit amount that will be refunded to the customer. This item type is always created as sellable and inventoried, but not orderable. This is managed as a separate item so that it can be tracked as a financial liability while in the possession of the customer.
Crate Item
This is optional, but may be used to represent a container containing multiples of the content/container item combinations. For example, a box containing 12 bottles of soda. These crate items are always created as sellable, inventoried, and orderable.
You may also create a complex pack that contains the container and content items, with an associated barcode for selling or ordering purposes. The crate item can also be optionally be included. If that type of pack is created, then it will be searchable by the item type of Deposit Complex Pack. This item type is not selectable when creating items, but rather is system derived after the complex pack has been created based on the component items. This is also a type of complex pack that can be setup on replenishment, as it is technically a simple pack, even though there are multiple items included, since replenishment is really driven based on the content item.
Transformable Items
Transformable items are items that are purchased in one form and sold in another. Most commonly this is used in grocery where butchering or other breakdown of products is performed in the store or warehouse. There are two types of transformable items that must be created - sellable and orderable.
Orderable
Orderable transformation items cannot be sold, and so do not have a retail price, but their inventory is decreased based on sales of the sellable items that are linked to it. One or more sellable items can be associated with the orderable item, with each sellable item having a percentage of the orderable items defined. You can also define a percentage of the orderable item that is considered production loss. For example, if your orderable item is a side of beef, the sellable components may be a specific cut of streak.
Sellable
This item type is created as a subset of the orderable item that exists post-transformation and is what is ultimately sold to the end consumer. When sold, these items decrease the inventory of the orderable item based on the transformation details defined for the orderable item.
A sellable item can be associated to more than one orderable items as well. For example, if you have a sellable item called Meatloaf Mix, which is comprised of equal parts of ground beef and ground pork. If you choose to have a sellable item associated with multiple orderable items, then you'll also define the percent of the sellable item that comes from each orderable.
Note:
Deposit and Transformable item types will only be visible to users when creating new items if they have the Grocery privilege assigned to them in Merchandising.
Other Item Variations
Catch Weight Items
Catch weight is a variation of a regular item or simple pack that allows for the ordering and management of items that vary by weight from one instance of an item to the next. Examples of this are primarily in the grocery industry, where items such as fresh produce, deli, butchery, and prepackaged cheese and meat are often purchased by weight and may be sold by weight or as individual products (eaches). Catch weight items can have a varying cost by unit of measure (UOM) and have an average weight maintained for the items, which is used by any transactions involving the items where a weight is not captured.
Four different types of catch weight items are supported, which are driven by two main attributes selected when creating these types of items - the order type and the sales type.
Order Type
There are two order types supported, fixed weight and variable weight. In both cases, you'll be ordering by weight from your supplier. But, for fixed weight items, the price you pay your supplier doesn't vary based on the actual weight of the product when it is received. This is usually used for product where you have an agreed upon cost per case, like for a crate of fruit. Variable weight on the other hand can vary more from shipment to shipment, and so the weight received is the weight that you would pay the supplier. This works well for items like a whole ham that will be sliced in store when sold to a customer.
Sales Type
There are also two sales types supported, loose weight and variable weight. Items sold in varying weights, like bananas or deli meat, are sold by weight and also inventoried by weight. Whereas other items that are pre-packaged may be inventoried as eaches, even though they are sold by weight. A good example of a variable weight each would be pre-packaged steaks or cheese sold in the store.
Table 6-9 Sales Types
| Order Type | Sales Type | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Type 1 |
Fixed Weight |
Loose Weight |
Bananas |
|
Type 2 |
Variable Weight |
Loose Weight |
Deli meat or cheese |
|
Type 3 |
Fixed Weight |
Variable Weight Each |
Pre-packaged cheese |
|
Type 4 |
Variable Weight |
Variable Weight Each |
Pre-packaged steaks |
For more information on creating and using catch weight items, see the Catch Weight Overview white paper found on My Oracle Support under ID 1585843.1.
Consignment and Concession Items
Consignment and concession are two different business models used for items that are owned by the supplier until the point that they are sold in your stores. Consignment is a marketing arrangement where physical control of merchandise, but not the title of ownership is transferred from the consignor (the supplier) to the consignee (the retailer). The title to the goods remains with the consignor until the goods are sold. Upon sale of the goods, the consignor bills the consignee via an invoice. Concession is an arrangement where a retailer rents floor space in their store to a supplier in return for a percentage of sales turnover for items sold. The retailer does not own the inventory being sold and ownership is not transferred when the items are sold. Instead, a record of concession sales is recorded and the retailer bills the supplier.
In Merchandising, the designation of the ownership type for an item is made based on the primary supplier/country. You can use the same ownership model for all locations for an item or have some items with one ownership model and others with another. However, for a particular item it cannot be concession at one location and consignment at another.
The cost that you pay your supplier for consignment and concession items is also defined at the supplier/country or supplier/country/location level. It can be based on a set cost (like owned items) or based on a percentage of the selling price.
Like regular items, consignment and concession items can be inventoried and included on inventory transactions, such as purchase orders and transfers, but will not impact your stock ledger until they are sold to an end consumer or you otherwise take ownership of the items. For example, if you transfer an item from a location where it is consigned to a location where it is considered owned. Similarly, if a customer return is made at a location where the inventory is consigned, the item is "returned" to the supplier from a financials perspective, although it still exists in your location.
The primary difference between consignment and concession items is generally how you invoice your supplier. For consignment items, purchase orders and invoices are generated for sales and return to vendor transactions and debit memos are generated for returns. However, for concession items, the sales data is instead staged for direct billing via accounts receivable; POs, RTVs, invoices, and debit memos are not generated for concession items.
Other Notes:
-
The following item types in Merchandising cannot be designated as consignment or concession: transformable, deposit, packs (simple and complex), or catch weight items.
-
The ownership model for a particular item must be the same for all virtual warehouses in a particular physical Warehouse.
-
The ownership model for all child items under a single parent must be the same.