There are many options, what will work best depends on the industry, vertical - military for example may have very specific formats.
It also depends on how many items, and variants and the rate of change and whether the goods are uniquely bar coded.
Consider what formats do your customers and vendors typically use?
Does product already come in pre-labelled?
The longer the number/description the more room it takes on reports and screens.
Item id can be just a numerical running sequence but often adding a simple prefix and suffix can help to search sort.
Is the product id shared across companies? Does each use the same product description language?
Is there a legacy item code you also want to retain in a spare field or embedded in the description? (legacy inventory- if you change does stock need to be relabelled, how much data do you need to convert - BOMs open orders etc).
Have you looked at the set up and use of number sequences?
Have you looked a the use of the item Search field?
For descriptions you need to think about on which screens it appears/doesn't appear.
The days product /sales/purchase categories makes life much easier to find the right item
Attributes can further qualify descriptions but you need to customise to bring those to transaction screens .
Do you have interfaces to other systems - do their systems have limitations on item id length? e.g third party pos, edi, WMS system. other erp?
The system allows you also to map and use customer item ids and descriptions, and similarly for vendor id codes and various other GTIN codes, bar codes etc.
Photos and attachments of spec sheets are additional options.
Storemen handle inventory most and are likely to make most mistakes so ask what suits them
