Blog 3: Sabarcodes.co.za
BUYING PRODUCT BARCODES ONLINE Barcoding has truly transformed the nature of business across the world, be it speeding up our daily shopping, tracking the assets of companies or streamlining ticketing procedures. Barcodes have gone as far as helping scientists in keeping track of insects like bees. Unfortunately product barcoding process can appear quite daunting When launching the product, the thought of bar-coding comes to the mind of manufacturers only when the retailers are approached, then the owners approaches GS1 Company, the global distributor and regulator of barcodes. It is the body that is responsible for distributing the unique 12 digit or 13 digit numbers that can be transformed into images and then linked to specific products. Though most businesses and individuals get online barcodes through GS1, many others get their barcodes through barcode resellers. These resellers are found online across the world providing EAN and UPC codes. As a result of standardization of the barcode system across the world, numbers from any GS1 or barcode reseller can be used in any country across the world. The barcode resellers also sell supplementary barcode services such as ISBN barcodes for books, ISSN barcode for magazines and newspapers, printed labels and specialized equipments like barcode printers and scanners. Once the barcode is purchased the next step is to attach images of the barcode to the product packaging. Then the sample of the product is taken to retailers where they scan the product and link the relevant information to the product barcode. Most barcode companies are very helpful and guide the product owners at every step.