Getting a UPC Barcode

Haven’t you wondered where the UPC barcodes we see in products come from? I have and thanks to Kelly Spors of the Wall Street Journal, I now know the process for getting a UPC Code. [ARTICLE LINK]

Universal Product Codes (UPC) are given out by GS1, a nonprofit group responsible for setting standards for international commerce. A company must pay $750 to join GS1 and then an annual maintenance fee of at least $150. Once a company joins GS1, they are given a unique identification code and barcode(s) for use on their portfolio of products. (You can fill out a GS1 membership form online here.)

Kelly gives small businesses a smart tip to getting a UPC on the cheap. Buyabarcode.com resells discarded/unused UPC barcodes from less than $100. A small business doesn’t have to join the GS1 in order to get a UPC barcode. However, the drawback to this route is that most major retailers require their product suppliers to have their own company-specific ID code. But if you only sell to independent retailers or through your own means, using a discarded/unused UPC identification number will work just fine.

And now we all know how to get a UPC barcode.

Comments

[Pat Nerr]

love it... way better than SKUs

[Stephen Macklin]

If you're interested in the sample:
0 - refers to the type of code symbology - in his case UPC A.

12345 would be the manufacturer's unique ID

67890 is a product identifier that references the product name and price in the retailer's database

The 5 is called the check digit. It is determined by running all of the other numbers through a formula. Most barcode software will generate this number automatically. If two different calculations yield the same check digit you have the numbers right.

[Susan Gunelius]

This is such a helpful post for small business owners, John. Thanks for posting it! I'm going to share it on MarketingBlurb, too! I remember back in college I did a paper in one of my marketing classes about barcodes, but there was not a website back then, nor did I come across the info about getting cheap barcodes. It hadn't even occured to me that barcodes would get discarded. So interesting!

[Betsy]

I notice you have some manifesto links; none of these are the Quirky/alone manifesto. Come on!

[Brian]

Nice post. Once you have your UPC code and need to put them on labels, you can find blank barcode labels at this site that can be printed with a basic barcode printer and ribbon. This way a small business owner can run lots of labels to price mark their products.

[David Arp]

Another site which offers individual UPC with printed labels is www.singleupc.com The cost is $75 for 1000 labels and includes the UPC. Good site.

[John]

Sorry to say but there is some misinformation in the comments above. First, company prefixes are 6-9 digits, not 5, and the 6th position is not a standard indicator digit. UPC-A codes are 12 digits, with 11 digits being unique, the 12th being calculated by the previous 11 and constitutes the check digit, ensuring proper barcode format (otherwise people could just put random numbers together). The 5 digit example above is not referring to a UPC-A, but rather a UPC-E, an abbreviated UPC used by specific distributors and large manufacturers for extra small packaging like chewing gum.

Furthermore, barcodes are not "discarded" as is referenced above. There are several companies offering subset numbers of their company prefix because they have a legal right to do so if they purchased their company prefix from the not-for-profit UCC (now called the GS1 and it is NOT non-profit) prior to August 2002. When you purchase from a reseller like that, you are not buying "discarded" numbers, you are still buying unique numbers originating from the GS1/UCC that the reseller is transfrerring ownership to you forever.

The reseller with the best prices, customer service and guarantees is EZ UPC at http://ezupc.info.

You can get singles for $24.49 and the prices go way down to as little as $6.29 each for 100 numbers, plus they appear to be the only reseller that provides barcode files for the numbers in both UPC and EAN format for international use, as well as using the GS1 standards compliant file format of a Vector EPS.

Furthermore, if a barcode reseller goes "belly up" as someone else referenced, that has nothing to do with any UPCs you may have purchased from them, because you have a contract that shows you now own those numbers. They own their company prefix for life from the GS1, so even if they go out of business, the prefix and it's subset numbers will remain intact.