Getting Your Product Retail Ready
Getting a barcode is one step in a sequence, and the order matters. Checking your 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, and if they mention requirements you’re unsure about, ask us before you order.
Selling on Amazon? Check Amazon barcodes first, as there are conditions.
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 CAD. One payment, no renewals, yours for life. You get the number in both EAN-13 and UPC-A formats, 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
5. Test the artwork before you print
$20 CAD, and the cheapest insurance in the process. Email us a PDF of your artwork, A4 or smaller at 100%. We print it, test it on barcode-testing equipment, and email you a graded report.
Most verification failures come down to a dimension or quiet-zone mistake made at the artwork stage, the point at which it still costs nothing to fix.
6. Get a verification report, if required
Some retailers (usually supermarket and hardware chains) require an official verification report before they’ll list a product. It’s a test of the barcode as printed on the finished packaging, so it happens after your print run, not before.
We arrange these on request. Get in touch, and we’ll sort it out.
7. Get a GLN, if required
A Global Location Number identifies your business rather than your product. Some retailers and EDI systems require one from their suppliers.
We arrange these on request. Get in touch.
8. Register your barcode
Free with any retail barcode package. Register in our customer portal, and your product details appear on the International Barcodes Database, so phone scanners and search engines find your product instead of nothing. Your barcode works either way.
9. Supply the retailer
Your number arrives blank; it holds 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.