Goals:
Please click the [ Mark Complete ] button at the bottom of this page when you’ve completed these goals:
- State our (IBN) recommended way for manufacturers to obtain a unique company prefix for their barcodes, and how this varies by bulk purchase.
Why do we consider this question?
Some manufacturers wish to have a unique company prefix for their barcodes.
Two ways to a company prefix:
There are only two sure ways to get a company prefix like this:
- You can join GS1 (and pay their expensive joining fee and annual fees for the rest of your product life), or
- You can purchase barcodes from us in blocks of 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000, and they come with a unique company prefix.
We are the ONLY barcode seller that we know of that provides unique company prefixes like this.
If you purchase 1 barcode number, then you will not be supplied with a company prefix (no barcode company supplies this).
However, if you purchase barcodes in lots of 10, 100, 1000 etc from us, then they will have a unique company prefix.
Length of the company prefix:
The length of the company prefix will depend on how many variations are required to make a total of 13 digits.
If you purchase 10 barcode numbers, then of the 13 digits:
- the first 11 will be your company prefix,
- the 12th digit will vary from 0-9 (giving you 10 different barcode numbers), and
- the last digit is a calculated checksum.
If you purchase 20 barcode numbers:
- you will get 2 company prefixes (giving 10 barcodes for each).
If you purchase 100 barcode numbers, then of the 13 digits,
- the first 10 will be your company prefix,
- the 11th and 12th digits will vary from 00-99 (giving you 100 different barcode numbers), and
- the last digit is a calculated checksum.
Barcodes can be purchased here: https://internationalbarcodes.com/retail-barcodes/