Getting Your Product Retail Ready
Getting a barcode is one step in a sequence, and the order matters. Testing artwork after you’ve printed is too late; a verification report before you’ve printed is impossible.
Most people are done after step 4. Steps 5 to 8 depend on your retailer.
1. Check what your retailer requires
Do this first. It can change every decision after it.
Our barcodes are accepted by the overwhelming majority of retailers worldwide, but some large chains require barcodes issued directly by GS1, and a few others accept ours but ask for extra documentation. Which applies to you depends on your country and your retailer.
Check barcode acceptance in your country before you buy anything. If your retailer isn’t listed, ask them directly.
Selling on Amazon? Check our page on Amazon Barcodes first, as there are conditions in place.
2. Work out what you need
How many: one barcode per product, and one per variation. Retailers use barcodes to track stock as well as price, so sizes, colours and flavours generally each need their own. More on this.
Which type:
| Your product | What you need |
|---|---|
| Ordinary retail product | Retail barcode package |
| Book | ISBN book barcode |
| Magazine, newspaper or journal | ISSN magazine barcode |
| CD or DVD | CD / DVD barcodes |
| Outer cartons and cases | ITF-14 carton barcodes |
| You already have a number | Barcode images only |
3. Buy the barcode
From $39 USD. One payment, no renewals, yours for life. You get the number, images in three formats (PDF, PNG and SVG), a guarantee certificate, and free registration. Delivered by email within minutes.
Buy it before your packaging goes to design. Fixing the barcode in an artwork file is free; fixing it after a print run isn’t.
4. Place it on your packaging
Your images arrive at standard size and work as supplied. Problems come from what happens to them in the artwork file.
- Size: reduce no further than 80% of standard, enlarge no more than 200%
- Quiet zones: the blank margins on either side are part of the barcode; don’t crowd them
- Contrast: dark bars, light background, never over artwork
- Placement: flat and visible, not across a seam or fold
Full specifications · How to use your barcode · We can do the artwork for you
5. Test the artwork before you print
$20 USD. Email us a PDF; we test it on verification equipment and send you a graded report. Just over 10% of official reports fail, almost always due to a dimension or quiet-zone mistake made at this stage, even though it still costs nothing to fix.
6. Get a verification report, if required
$59 USD. Only some retailers ask for this (see step 1). It’s a test of the barcode as printed on finished packaging, so it happens after your print run. Post us a sample; reports take 2–3 days from the time of arrival.
7. Get a GLN, if required
A Global Location Number identifies your business rather than your product. Some retailers and EDI systems require one.
8. Register your barcode
Free with any package. Puts your product in the International Barcodes Database, so phone scanners and search engines find it instead of nothing. Your barcode works either way.
9. Supply the retailer
Your number arrives blank and contains no product information. The retailer scans it, enters your product and price into their system, and from then on it brings up your product at checkout. That’s why the same number works in any store, in any country.
Not sure where you fit? Ask us; we’d rather tell you that you don’t need something than sell it to you.