Frequently Asked Questions
If you cannot find an answer to your question, please contact us.
Please see our Difference Between UPC-A and EAN-13 Page for more details.
This means that if the retailers only use barcodes for option 1, you can get away with having the same barcode for 2 product variations (i.e. different colours of the same product). However, if the retailer uses barcodes for option 2, then a different barcode will be required for each product variation.
In general, retailers prefer to stock products that will be straightforward to manage. Some retailers may prefer not to stock products if they have to manually count how many are left of each size and reorder accordingly. Therefore it is recommended that you have a different barcode for each variation.
We can also arrange independently accredited verification reports which mean that more stores accept our barcodes than any other retailer.
For more information on which stores do not accept our barcode and require verification reports, please see Barcode Acceptance.
Europe – Belgium, Bulgaria, The Channel Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United Kingdom.
North America / Caribbean – The USA, Canada, The Bahamas, Barbados, Curaçao, The Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago.
Central / South America – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela
Australasia – Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu
Asia – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
Africa – Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
The Middle East – Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine (Gaza Strip), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE.
1. Affordable prices
2. No Ongoing fees – the barcodes are sold for a one-off cost, so you only pay once
3. Barcode Images Provided – we also provide high resolution (600 dpi) barcode images in 4 different formats (jpeg, png, SVG, & pdf) for your convenience
4. No compulsory membership – These include time-consuming forms and money consuming fees
5. Quick Service – you will either receive your barcodes immediately (If you order a retail barcode) or within 12 hours. We can speed up service if you require something urgently.
6. Can provide accredited verification reports – we can provide independently accredited verification reports which mean that more stores accept our barcodes than any other reseller.
Please see ‘why buy from us‘ for more information on this.
In the 1990s, GS1 was established in most parts of the world. They licensed their 13 digit barcode numbers to their members (and, as discussed previously, charged both membership fees and joining fees). However, there was a separate organisation in the USA – the Uniform Code Council (UCC) – which sold 12 digit barcode numbers to their members for a one-off cost (there were no ongoing license fees). The UCC was effectively competing with GS1. Their 12 digits numbers were effectively a subset of the 13 digit system.
In the late 1990s, the UCC merged with GS1, becoming GS1-US. As part of this change, they decided to start charging annual license fees for all of their members, including those who had paid a one-off fee for barcode numbers in the 1990s. Of course, many of these members weren’t happy with the new annual license fees, and so a group of them ended up in a class-action lawsuit with GS1. The members won in the courts in the early 2000s, resulting in a multi-million-dollar settlement by GS1. A further consequence of this court case is the proof that the original numbers issued by the UCC in the 1990s are outside of GS1s control now, and hence no license fees are required. These are the numbers bought by resellers and onsold. They are ‘new’ numbers in that they have never been used on a retail product and are part of the GS1 system.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us. If you are ready to purchase your barcodes, you can do this here. Or here for CD barcodes, DVD barcodes, ISBN book barcodes and ISSN magazine barcodes.