Bar Codes, UPCs, and Amazon Labels – Everything You Need to Know
Bar coding is one the simplest concepts yet something that importers and retailers get confused by the most (I know I was). And for importers, we often wonder if our products need to be bar coded and if so, how do they get these bar codes?
Bar codes are extremely simple to understand but all of the literature available tends to overcomplicate things by getting into the exact technicalities of the bar code numbering system. Take for example this excerpt from HowStuffWorks.com:
Jeez! Can it be any more complicated? It's really not so difficult.
Understanding Bar Codes vs UPC Codes
The first thing to understand is that a bar code consists of a universal product code and a bar code that simply is a representation of that number and allows a product to be quickly scanned. As anyone who has ever bought anything knows, a cashier can simply type in those twelve numbers below, 0-51111-40759-2, and achieve the same thing as actually scanning the bar code.
You can generate a bar code for free from a million websites. Go ahead and try it. Type in your phone number into site 1 and site 2 – both generate the same, scannable bar code which is a representation of your phone number. So really, it's not the bar code that is difficult and costly to acquire, it's the UPC Code.
Buying Bar Codes UPC Codes
Here's the low down on UPC Codes. A UPC Code is simply a 12 or 13 digit code that is guaranteed not to be used by any other product. This is important. Pretend that Apple decided to give its Apple iPhone 6 the UPC Code of 0-51111-40759-2. And pretend that Samsung decided to give it's Galaxy S6 the same UPC code of 0-51111-40759-2. A store retailer could potentially have the same item, with the same UPC Code, and the same bar code. It would be insanity!
So to make sure no two products have the same two UPC Codes, a couple of different organizations, specifically GS1 in the United States and Canada, regulate all of these UPC codes. If you're familiar with how domain names work, it's similar to how ICANN allocates domain names. So for the pretty price of around $1000 a year, GS1 will give you about 1000 UPC Codes that they have never given to anyone else. But wait you ask, does GS1 store information about my product like it's name, dimensions, description, etc.? Nope. It simply guarantees to you exclusive use to some numbers.
Does that sound like an absurd amount of money to pay just to be guaranteed some numbers? It is absurd!!
Also keep in mind that every unique product needs its own UPC Code. That includes every size, style, and color variation. So if you sell sneakers in size 7, 8,9,10,11, and 12 in the color blue and the color red, you need 12 UPC Codes for those, even if they're identical besides the color and size.
Buying Individual UPCs
There are companies out there who will sell you UPC codes individually. They normally just pay GS1 $900 for their 1000 UPC Codes, and then sell these individually for $2 a piece or so (they just doubled their money!). Just like how a Vancouver Canucks Season ticket holder may part out individual tickets. You are implicitly buying a promise that one of these companies won't sell the same product to another company. If they do, that defeats the whole purpose – your UPC code will be in conflict with another company.
Most people who only need a few UPC Codes buy from resellers although big retailers forbid you from doing this.
But Do I Even Need Bar Codes and/or UPC Codes?
If you're selling all of your imported products directly to the consumer and not selling to any other retailer, you don't need bar codes or UPC Codes.
Remember bar codes and UPC Codes are strictly a retail phenomenon. No government agency cares if your imported products have bar codes on them.
When you do need bar codes is if you're selling to a retailer. Almost all retailers, big and small, need your items to be bar coded (imagine buying groceries from the corner store and the cashier had to type in the UPC code for every item). The big retailers like Walmart need you to actually purchase your bar codes directly through GS1 or other authorized dealer and not a reseller.
But What About Amazon? And Specifically, What About Amazon FBA?
If you're planning on sending your items to Amazon FBA, Amazon FBA requires a bar code on each item. But….
That bar code can be what is called an Amazon FNSKU. An FNSKU is just like a UPC Code, which is unique for Amazon Products (or ASINs in Amazon lingo). Amazon has essentially created its own version of UPC Codes.
If you private label your item to Amazon (which requires an Amazon Seller Pro account) they will assign your product an ASIN and an FNSKU if you make it fulfilled by Amazon. You can then print these labels for free through Amazon. Woo Hoo! Incidentally, when you're researching sending items to Amazon FBA, you may read about co-mingled inventory and having your products labelled by Amazon. If you're importing your products from China, this almost certainly won't apply to you and you will in fact need to have your items bar coded with one of the FNSKU bar codes like shown above.
If you plan on using Amazon FBA and not selling to any other retailers, you should have your Supplier in China stick the FNSKU bar codes on your products in China – it saves you the work of doing it yourself.
Conclusion
See, bar codes aren't that hard to understand. Hopefully that clears up any misunderstandings and confusion surrounding bar codes. If you have any other questions, please post in the comments section below.
To quickly generate barcodes online, I recommend http://barcode.online/
It’s free, no registration needed and over 30 symbol types supported.
Hi Dave,
I believe you still need a UPC for Amazon FBA private label. It’s how you set up the listing in the first place.
You are right, though, that once you have it set up, you don’t need to actually put it on the box. If you’re only doing FBA, you can actually print the FNSKU directly on the label.
Many FBA people make the mistake of printing the UPC code on the label and then paying somebody to put a sticker over top of it!
Chris
If you have a professional selling account you don’t need a UPC for private labeling. You *might* need to have your brand registered at Amazon now, but if so that only takes a few minutes.
If you use a UPC instead of FNSKU there is also the issue you need to comingle your inventory which brings in a host of other problems.
Hi Dave,
I an Amazon US seller and now trying to expanding to UK. Before this, I do not require any barcode but it seems I can’t list a product without it.
Hmm, I’ve never sold in the UK but this seems peculiar. I wonder if you don’t have the ability to list private label products in the UK? In any case, Seller Central should be able to answer this.
Hi Dave,
Thank you for the info.
If I have a private label, wouldn’t just printing UPC/EAN on the box and use it for FBA (comingle) be easier and time-saving?
What are the downsides of comingle when I am the only one selling the item on Amazon as I am the owner of that private label?
The downside is someone can hijack your listing, send in a bunch of empty boxes with a bar code on it and Amazon will never know whether you or the hijacker sent in the empty boxes. Rare but possible.
Do you need the UPC for customs (bringing in product from China to US)? My product already has a printed FNSKU, but I am worried that customs might scan it and don´t know if it comes up since it is not a UPC? Amazon has my UPC in their listing though. I had to put it in so I could then get the FNSKU from them.
No, customs does not care about bar codes or UPCs.
Hi David!
Thank you for this info. It is some of the best I have found on UPC info. I am creating a product in China that is not listed on Amazon so I needed a UPC # to create an Amazon listing. I am going to have my supplier add the Amazon ASIN to the packaging. Do I need to need to have the UPC # attached to my product as well? It sounds like I may just need the UPC to create my listing and it doesn’t need to be attached to my product as long as I have the ASIN on the packaging.
Thank you,
Lindsay
You need a bar code one way or the other. The Amazon bar code, an FNSKU, is based on the ASIN but Amazon does not care if you print that human readable ASIN (i.e. B300VS03040) anywhere on the box. You NEED to have the bar code. Amazon doesn’t care if you have a UPC based bar code or ASIN based FNSKU bar code.
I am brand new so please excuse the ignorance. I am still a little confused and have a few questions. If I am importing an item from China to Amazon FBA, do I need to obtain a UPC and send it to my manufacturer to apply to the item? Also, then is this considered a “private label” item? You mentioned purchasing the UPC’s from GS1 at xxx rate, however, I see many, many people purchasing the UPC’s on eBay and the like with no problems, thoughts? One other question, it sounded like when just importing and selling on Amazon and not to other retailers there’s an FNSKU, so is there a way to get around having to have an actual official UPC and if so, how? I tried listing my product and it needs one of 6 numbers (ASINEANGCIDGTIDGTINUPC). Thank you a ton in advance for your assistance!!
Yes, Amazon requires you to have either a FNSKU or one of the other 6 numbers you listed (UPC and EAN being the most common). To get an FNSKU you need to either be brand registered with Amazon or get a UPC exemption. You can technically use a UPC code from a reseller (at much cheaper rates than GS1) but Amazon officially forbids this – many people still do it though (and I have myself at times).
David, sorry but this is article is full of bad advice. Please do not post things with the internet information without consulting a real expert.
-buying reseller is safe : there are tons of legal penalties happened as well as supply chain disruptions.
-sellers buy for 900 usd and sell for 2: In the contract, it says numbers are not transferable, ownership stays with the registrar, once your product becomes popular they have the legal right to claim patent fee.
-amazon asks for GTIN if you have. plus for every retailer YOU SHOULD NOT PRINT BARCODES. this is exhausting. no one does that!
– free website you refer provides wrong resolution images. that is why free. Your products will bounce in the first quality check in retailer. Plus you want your items to scan fast, so high quality.
– barcodes are not UPCs. UPC is a symbol. the data is GTIN.
– GTINs are class level codes, not every color, size etc requires new GTIN. see GTIN management rules
-prices on GS1 subscriptions even wrong! you never made an application. There are one off GTINs, different fees by different member organisations. You can easily get a code LEGAL from GS1 for almost 50 USD.
… sorry I gave up too many mistakes in this article. just too many. I have to write this to protect anyone who really seek for expert advice.
Hi,
I appreciate your feedback – keep in mind the advice here is geared towards the readers of this blog, small and medium sized eCommerce companies, many of whom are just starting off. For large brands selling into Home Depot and Walmart, I hope they have better sources of advice than this beginner article meant to give a basic overview of bar coding. Discussions about supply chain disruptions, retailer quality checks, etc. is not applicable to 99.9% of the readers of this blog. Most readers, for better or worse, want to get their items into Amazon cheaply and easily.
Good article! One benefit to using UPC codes to label your products instead of FNSKU is that the UPC doesn’t change for each marketplace (Europe, Japan, Australia) whereas the FNSKU does. Since my products have many variations and are brand registered, I tried to save money by using Style Codes instead of UPC codes to create new products. In such cases Amazon creates the product labels with the FNSKU. This makes it a major pain to have to relabel products for other marketplaces (except Canada, which fortunately uses the same FNSKUs as USA). I now wish I would have started with UPC codes for everything, as I despise having to relabel products to send inventory to Europe. Still, my understanding was that it was hundreds of dollars for each barcode through GS1, which would have been prohibitively expensive. However, if you have few product variations, using UPC codes from the get go will save yourself many hours of laborious relabeling. Last note, whichever you pick, UPC or not (defaulting to FNSKU) you CANNOT change it later without deleting the listing. Really a pain. Same thing with merchant SKUs, which seems pointless as I don’t think Amazon uses them for anything on their marketplaces. SKUs are important, however, if you want Amazon to fulfill orders from your own website, since they use the SKUs to match the items sold to the items in their inventory.
Good point on the UPCs. If you buy 100 or 1000 UPCs at once from GS1 it’s about $10 or less per UPC. It’s possible to change a merchant SKU through a merge I believe but it’s still a major PITA