Stored does not always mean dependable
Audit identifiers at the boundary between Shopify and everything else.
Shopify can hold a SKU or barcode that looks harmless in a product editor but becomes ambiguous when another system expects one stable identifier for one variant.
A repeated SKU may point a warehouse import at two items. A leading space can break an exact match. A barcode can contain the right number of digits and still fail its check digit. HBN: SKU Barcode Audit takes a read-only snapshot of the full catalog and explains those cases in operational terms, without treating every blank barcode as an error.
Review by consequence, not by field count.
Errors identify invalid structure, conflicts show identifiers shared by variants, warnings flag values that may be fragile downstream, and information-only findings provide context that often needs no change.
Use the standard audit before inventing a stricter policy
The default checks cover missing values, exact duplicates, normalized or canonical collisions, whitespace, control characters, portable SKU formatting, and GTIN shape and check digits. Start there. A store that uses internal SKUs but no retail barcodes should not manufacture values merely to make a report look empty.
