Goals:
Please click the [ Mark Complete ] button at the bottom of this page when you’ve achieved the following goals:
- Understand the circumstances in which you will need to have a unique barcode for variations of a single product.
A barcode for each unique product variant
You need a unique barcode number for each different retail product and product variant.
For example, each of these variants of Tim’s Craft Beer requires a barcode:
- Tim’s Craft Beer Rangi flavour, 1000 ml, glass bottle.
- Tim’s Craft Beer Toto flavour, 1000 ml, can, red.
- Tim’s Craft Beer Toto flavour 1000 ml, can, blue.
- Box, 6x Tim’s Craft Beer, Toto flavour, 750 ml, can, blue (packaging of bulk items itself needs a barcode)
It adds up
This can add up to many barcodes for a single product. For example.
- 2 products require 2 barcodes.
- 2 products with 3 colour variants requires 2 x 3 variants = 6 barcodes.
- 2 products with 3 colour variants and 4 size variants require 2 x 3 variants x 4 variants = 24 barcodes.
Product variants by price differentiation
It’s imperative to get a different barcode for each product when the price is different.
If the price is the same (across all the product variations), then you might get away with using the same barcode number on all the product variations. This depends on which retail stores you are selling your products in.
The larger retail stores might require a different barcode for each product variation (especially if they do stocktake automatically, instead of manually).