My customer uses their own product codes — how do I match them to my Shopify SKUs?
Keep a mapping from the customer’s wording to your Shopify variant and apply it to every order from that customer. NeatPO calls this an alias: “SH-1L-PRO” or “Pro Shampoo litre” on the PO maps to your variant, for your whole store. Exact SKUs and aliases you confirmed are the only things allowed to pick a variant on their own; everything else is a suggestion.
No install needed for the sample. Plans start at $149/month, billed by Shopify, with a 7-day trial.
Do it now
- Upload the order. Lines whose code is not one of your SKUs show suggested variants from your catalog, with the reason each was suggested.
- Pick the right variant on the review screen, then save the customer’s wording as an alias in Rules → Aliases.
- The next order with the same wording is matched to that variant automatically, and the review screen says which alias did it.
Why fuzzy matching is not enough
Title similarity is good at finding candidates and bad at choosing between them. “Repair Mask 250ml” and “Repair Mask 500ml” differ by one token; a tool that picks the closest string will pick one of them with confidence. NeatPO ranks candidates by title, options and size, marks each with a confidence band, and leaves the choice to you until you have confirmed it once.
Order of matching
First an exact SKU match (if two active variants share the SKU, both are shown and nothing is chosen). Then an alias you saved. Only then title and option suggestions. Archived or deleted variants are never selected; the line says the variant it found is no longer sellable.
Stores without SKUs
Plenty of Shopify stores never filled in SKUs. Matching then relies on titles and options for suggestions, and aliases become the way you teach it your customers’ words. It is slower for the first few orders and much faster after.
Keeping the aliases honest
A wrong alias is worse than none, because it is trusted. Each alias records who saved it and when, shows how many times it has been used and when it was last used, and can be disabled rather than deleted, so you can see what it did before you stopped it. To correct one, disable it and save the right one; the disabled alias stays visible with its history.
The honest limits
- Rules apply to your whole store. A rule meant for one buyer only is not applied to documents yet, so keep buyer-specific wording store-wide for now.
- Aliases are exact (after normalising case, spacing and punctuation); a customer who spells the same product three ways needs three aliases.
- Nothing is learned automatically or shared between stores.
Checked against the product on October 7, 2026.