UPC Barcodes
Why they're useful and how to get them
If you're a local manufacturer, inventor of a new product, or a creative designer, you want to sell your products to stores, wholesalers, distributors, grocery store chains, etc. After all, isn’t that the goal? If so, then you'll want to have a UPC barcode on your label or hang tag, so that the product is scannable. Many larger stores that are automated will not accept a product unless is meets their requirements, and usually the biggest requirement is a UPC barcode. We can help you purchase UPC barcodes to add to the product labels or hang tags that we are printing for you!
Universal Product Codes, or UPCs for short, are serial numbers that represent unique codes for most products sold in North America. The barcode is broken into two sets of numbers, one for the unique business ID, and the other for the specific product's assigned ID number.
There are several ways you can purchase these series of codes that are assigned to your business. For larger quantities, purchasing a UPC code series can be accomplished through a non-profit organization that administers the UPC code database, GS1 US. For the initial unique business ID, the cost can be as high as $750 a year, of course this varies based on your business' annual sales revenue, and the number of barcodes you'll require. As well, annual renewal fees are required to continue using your business ID (also called company prefix).
The second route, is that you would purchase the codes through a reseller, for smaller quantities and for a much lower price. What happens here is you are purchasing a code or set of codes with that reseller's business ID and they are merely selling you their available product ID numbers (the second set of numbers in the code). We can't recommend enough that you research a reseller before purchasing codes through them.
Below we've provided links to the official UPC organization, as well as some resellers that we found to have solid reputations in our research:
