In the competitive landscape and cut-throat business we all face in today’s world, it is wise to be careful what we invest in. At the same time, compromising quality just to save a few bucks could hurt us in the long run. The sweet spot is finding quality products and services but at appropriate prices.
So what about barcodes or barcode vendors that are advertised as being cheap or most cost-effective?
In many cases, the barcodes they sell are not legitimate retail barcodes. The downside is
- You may save some money on barcodes, but it will not be worth the time, effort and cost to reprint your product packaging with new, legitimate barcodes later
- Usually, these companies aren’t around for long or are very difficult to contact.
These barcodes are okay to use if you have your own store or warehouse and need to identify or inventory all your products. However, if you are looking to distribute your products in the retail market, you will need legitimate EAN/UPC codes.
What about the barcodes from India Barcodes?
We can prove that our numbers are legitimate EAN-13 numbers that have never been used legally before (until you). We also check all our numbers for illegal use before sale so that at the time of sale, you can be sure no one is illegally using them. So our barcodes are not ‘cheap’, but they are legal.
If your barcodes are from GS1, why don’t you charge annual license fees?
The barcodes we sell come from the same original system as GS1 barcode numbers and are still part of their system, however, GS1 has lost control of these numbers entirely, and hence they can be sold without any of the fees GS1 charge.
This is possible because, in the 1990s, GS1 licensed their 13-digit barcode numbers to their members (and, as discussed previously, charged both membership fees and joining fees). However, there was a another organisation in the USA – the Uniform Code Council (UCC) – which sold 12-digit barcode numbers for a one-off cost (there were no renewal fees). Thus, the UCC was effectively a competitor of GS1.
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-time fee for barcode numbers. Of course, many of these members weren’t happy, 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 multimillion-dollar settlement by GS1. A further consequence of this court case is that the original numbers issued by the UCC in the 1990s are outside of GS1’s control now, and hence no license fees are required. These are the numbers we on-sell. They are ‘new’ numbers in that they have never been used on a retail product and are part of the GS1 system.
You can buy our barcodes here.