Who needs barcodes? Where to start? With such a massively broad spectrum of uses of barcodes today, we will mainly be focusing on the use of GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) barcode numbers in this article, who needs them and why they are a requirement.
If you are intending to sell your products in retail stores you will require a GTIN barcode number on your products. It could be either a UPC format or an EAN format barcode; this depends entirely on your individual retailers. When creating and manufacturing a product, in all the excitement and planning, one tends to overlook or not be aware that their product will require its own unique barcode number before the store will even consider stocking the item. Sound familiar? This is not only the case with Barcodes South Africa, but worldwide as well. Retailers require barcodes for two main reasons; one reason being for sales and the other being stock inventory. Therefore, this allows your product information to reflect whenever it is scanned by any of the scanners in the store. This is a necessity for the point of sale system at the tills. With regards to stock inventory, it allows the store to be able to record and count how well your products are selling and if the physical stock balances with the recorded stock in their database. Is this not 100 times more efficient than manually entering product information one by one as used to be done before barcoding was invented? Most definitely it is.
Therefore, the answer to the big question is that anyone wanting to sell a product in any major retail store in SA or worldwide, needs to buy barcodes.
This often brings up the question of why you cannot create your own barcode number for your product. You may be able to go this route if selling to an individual small shop or boutique that does not work on the GS1 database and has a very limited number of items that they sell. Whereas if you will be approaching large retailers, they will most definitely require a GS1 barcode on your product. If you purchase your barcodes directly from GS1 SA, the store will search your code in GS1’s database to confirm it belongs to you, and if you purchase from a barcode reseller, you will then be provided with a certificate of ownership which goes along with your barcode numbers to the store to verify ownership.
You may also be wondering, what happens if you purchase a barcode and have labels printed and the store then advises you that they would like to first put your product in their store as a trial to see how well it sells before making the big decision? This may make you wary of spending money on a barcode and barcode labels you may not use. There are solutions to this believe it or not; most stores are willing to provide you with a temporary barcode number and a few labels with the barcode on them for the products they will be stocking. This barcode number will belong to them as a company though and if they then decide your product is a hit and they would like to permanently stock and sell it, you can go ahead and invest in your own unique GTIN barcode number. Do not get stuck by printing their code number on all your product labels as you will be required to either have them removed or to place your barcode sticker over their number.
Perhaps you have decided to start your own small business and become a successful entrepreneur. You could be thinking that as you are starting off small there would be no need to barcode your items, but have you thought about the benefits of getting your products barcoded right from the start? You could keep a stock record and know at any time how much stock you have and where you may be running short, what items are selling well, and which are not. Dreading the date when your audit comes along? Barcodes always relieve the stress by having an inventory on hand. The same as if you are hiring staff to man your point of sale system, the training process will almost be eliminated as all the information is provided by one scan of the barcode upon purchase.
Ah, the beauty of having barcodes do all the hard work for us. Great, isn’t it? And it is only getting better from here on out. The barcoding world is expanding day by day.
If you would like to find out more information regarding the purchasing and registering of barcodes, have a look at the user-friendly website www.sabarcodes.co.za. They are always eager to assist in your barcoding experience.
