Product ID to be same as SKU

You cannot specify the Product ID – it is generated automatically by WordPress.

thanks, is there no way of overriding that ?

No – the ‘Product ID’ is the same thing as a Post ID, Page ID etc in the database (products are essentially custom post types) and WordPress uses these to identify each post – it generates them automatically to ensure that an existing ID isn’t used again.

Hi there @nickthebadgeman,

I understand that you’re transitioning your eCommerce site from Joomla to WordPress and you’ve encountered some issues with your Product ID and SKU.

Just as @seank123has shared, in WooCommerce, the Product ID is automatically generated by WordPress and cannot be changed. However, you can use the SKU as a unique identifier for your products. During the import process, you can map your SKU’s to the SKU field in WooCommerce.

You may find more details on importing your products from this guide.

I hope this helps! If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask.

thank you, I am still pursuing this, as I have 4000 items from my old site with each item mapped to existing cross sell/up sell product IDs, if I were to use new woocommerce product ID to it would take weeks of work to remap

Hey, @nickthebadgeman!

I understand this would be a lot of work.

Can you share more details on how you are importing the products and setting up the cross sells so we can try to find a solution or alternative for you?

Are you using a specific plugin or using a CSV file?

Looking forward to your reply.

Have a wonderful day!

My developer was able to import my products with the Product ID the same as the SKU as per my current system. I don’t know all the details but basically my understanding is that in Woocommerce and WordPress most actions create at ID so the Product ID is an auto generated function. After several testing he worked out that Woo/WP take up 14 IDs when you first create a database and the key is to do the Product Import as the first step. In this way when you import it accepts the SKU number as the ID for all products except the first 14, which I am very happy with as I have over 4000 products and so my Product ID are identical to my old system. He did a great job and tried many things and was finally able to succeed.

Hi @nickthebadgeman,

It’s great to hear that your developer was able to find a workaround to import your products with the Product ID the same as the SKU. This indeed is a unique approach and we appreciate you sharing the solution it with the community too! ??

While it’s true that in WooCommerce and WordPress, the Product ID is an auto-generated function, your developer’s method of importing the products as the first step to allow the SKU number to be accepted as the ID for all products except the first 14 is quite innovative.

We’re glad you’re satisfied with the results, especially considering your store’s large number of products. Your developer, indeed did a commendable job!

Should you have further inquiries, kindly create a new topic here.

Thanks!