custom product id numbers

I would like to assign my own product id numbers to products. E.g., I want product A to have an id number 101 and product B to have an id number 102. Thanks in advance for any help.

The products_id is more of an internal number used everywhere to relate the product to all of the tables in the database ...

What do you need to do with it that you think you want to control it? :unsure:

Thank you for the reply. We create our own download-able products and the system that creates them assigns a unique number to each product. I would like to use the same number for product_id in Zen Cart. This way the two systems are always synchronized. In other words, I don't want the two systems to use different "product id" numbers.

Could you use a new field as a reference number rather than worry about re-writing how things work now?

Or, maybe try to customize the New Product to have an extra step and ask for the products_id number and test that it is unique before using it ...

That would help prevent a lot of re-coding and just need it in the one location ...

The ref. number will do the job but then I need to query the database to get both "product id" numbers used (one # for our system and one number for Zen Cart.) I would really prefer to just overwrite products_id number in Zen Cart. Thanks for your help.

When we sell our greeting cards wholesale, the only relevant ID we absolutely need is our internal model number. So we enter that in the, you guessed it, model number field. All lists of products can be sorted by model number in either admin or the store front. For us, and for our customers, the internally generated zen id number of each product is never looked at , and for that matter it is not visible to the customer at all (unless they can read the URL in the address bar.) So?

So... if you're not already using the model number field, use that for your own id number. If you are already using the model number field, I've seen discussions here on the forum about adding fields to product info for various uses, either in just the admin, or in the store front too.

In short, ignore the zen id number.

Rob