Brand Autopsy

love it... way better than SKUs

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for this useful thread!

I'm a musician, we're self-releasing a single and an album, and hope to get these products into major record shops.

Barcode resellers seem a much cheaper option for us, but I'm concerned about this statement from upthread: "most major retailers require their product suppliers to have their own company-specific ID code".

Does this mean that it's a bad idea to use a barcode from a reseller?

Any insights will be vastly appreciated!

Thanks

Hi Leighton:

I'm a musician and have bought several UPCs from a reseller and it is not a problem. I did my homework and uncovered the urban legend of sorts that retailers care about or require "company-specific ID codes". That is simply not the case. All the retailers seem to care about is that the number is unique so they don't have a conflict when entering your number and product into their database. I'd save your precious money and go with the cheapest and most reputable reseller. For me, I used the company mentioned above and found them to be very fast and professional and they have really good customer service folks on phone and email (I pretty much drilled them!).

When we did our research of many of these resellers, we found it funny that most were side ventures for failed businesses. The reseller listed is used to sell some wood products. Others sold peach and fishing lures. It's ironic that these particular companies only sell on price. As a graphic designer, I can tell you that the only file you should ever use for UPC is vector based. Companies that provide jpg are simply preying on your ignorance. Buyer beware.