GS1 barcodes, how do they work and how many do I need?
I’ve been selling on amazon for years now and I always used to buy my barcode EAN’s on ebay for about £7-£8 per 1000. I’ve just now been told by amazon that my barcodes are no longer viable becuase they are not GS1 barcodes. I now have to buy GS1 barcodes from the only place I can find in the world that supplys them for a minimum of £50 for 10 every year.
How does this work? Anyone else had the sme issue or using GS1 barcodes.
I list thousands of EAN’s so how many GS1 barcodes do I need?
Any help greatly appreciated.
9 replies
Seller_tRuvBEHDedp4q
The ONLY place you can get valid EAN’s is from gs1uk.org.
Any bought off ebay or from wherever are not valid.
You will need to register with them and subscribe to get allocated a set number. How many you need will purely depend on the number of products you sell. You will need one per product and all its variations. So if you sell a T-Shirt that is available in 4 colours and 3 sizes you will need 12. You will have to work out how much this is going to cost by looking on that website.
Once you allocate a EAN you should not re-use it on a different item.
Seller_DROodOAYHftnc
In the past other sources of barcodes were accepted on Amazon, but not anymore, and I believe they are now weeding out ones that are no longer valid.
There have been a few threads about on the forum.
Seller_LdbpJ6pxzzvXO
Once you open an account with GS1 they give you a company prefix with your barcodes and this is unique to you, barcodes from any other source you are using someone’s else’s company prefix. The prefix is the first few numbers of the barcode.
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
I am a little confused with the EAN number. I have placed lots of orders online and many of the products I have purchased do not have any EAN numbers.
