Amazon barcodes

theonlywayisup

Spam off sally!

meanbean

I bought about 30 via Ebay for about £5 and successfully used them on Amazon. The rates go down the more you buy.

albertramsbottom

Just buy them from ebay

:beer:

ballisticbrian

I bought about 30 via Ebay for about £5 and successfully used them on Amazon. The rates go down the more you buy.

When you buy real bar codes, I forget now, I think it costs a membership of 120 pound a year, they all begin with the same number, your company's prefix that you are given.


So when you buy dodgey ones like that, you will always be using someone elses bar codes.


Therefore, I don't think it's great value for money to say you are "buying barcodes" like that. You have achieved no more than the other suggestion to take them off bean cans, except you had to part with money for the privilege.

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

When you buy real bar codes, I forget now, I think it costs a membership of 120 pound a year, they all begin with the same number, your company's prefix that you are given.


So when you buy dodgey ones like that, you will always be using someone elses bar codes.


Therefore, I don't think it's great value for money to say you are "buying barcodes" like that. You have achieved no more than the other suggestion to take them off bean cans, except you had to part with money for the privilege.

Totally agree with that. I'm a bit further down the line than when I initially asked the question. Also Amazon's system has changed a little, so if you do need them and are serious about products and having them listed then buying your own is the way forward.

Also using other barcodes can end up with your items being in the wrong category on Amazon, affecting search and fees.

I also wonder why they are allowed to be sold on Ebay. I could go in Morrison's and pick a dozen barcodes that wouldn't be a product on Amazon but they aren't mine to sell. Not sure how there can be any veracity to any bought on Ebay if someone else claims ownership.

usefulmale

http://www.nationwidebarcode.com/

500 barcodes for $125 (about £75 or 15p each). I bought 5000 of them for my migration to Amazon. No issues so far.

You can't just 'make up' barcodes and if you just use a barcode from another product, you are just storing up trouble for the future, especially if your product takes off.

sgh1976

I would warn against buying barcodes from ebay

They are just selling barcodes they have got from GS1 and you are not allowed to sell on the codes you are allocated. GS1 do constant checks and will remove barcodes from their database that have been sold in that way. Eventually they will reallocate them and then problems will start. Someone else will get them, try to list on Amazon and they won't work. So they will contact Amazon, show proof of ownership and the listings set against them will vanish.

We had a member of staff "steal" barcodes from us and sold them on ebay. 2 months later, GS1 suspended our account due to selling them on.

GS1 costs around £220 to set up and you get 100,000 barcodes and then £117 per year to keep them active.

lovinituk

usefulmale wrote: »

http://www.nationwidebarcode.com/

500 barcodes for $125 (about £75 or 15p each). I bought 5000 of them for my migration to Amazon. No issues so far.

That's fine if they obtained their barcodes prior to a certain date. After that date you were no longer allowed to resell your barcodes. A legal ruling meant that codes obtained before the date were still allowed to be resold. Of course not many sellers are going to be honest about which type of codes they have!

usefulmale

lovinituk wrote: »

That's fine if they obtained their barcodes prior to a certain date. After that date you were no longer allowed to resell your barcodes. A legal ruling meant that codes obtained before the date were still allowed to be resold. Of course not many sellers are going to be honest about which type of codes they have!

Do you have any link to that? The only case I can see was in 2002 and that case did not forbid reselling of barcodes.

http://www.barcodeinfo.org/do-i-have-to-join-gs1-to-get-barcodes

A list of registered barcode resellers can be found at http://www.laurerupc.com/

Nationwide Barcodes ARE on the list

lovinituk

I think thats the one I was referring to. No case forbade the reselling of codes, thats not what I was implying. GS1 changed the T&Cs at some point saying that codes were no longer allowed to be resold. They then tried to retrospectively apply that to people who already owned codes prior to the change in T&Cs. Of course those people that already owned the codes were not going to accept that which is where the legal case came about. The ruling meant those people still owned their codes for life and could do what they wanted with them.

The difference now is that you effectively rent your codes from GS1 and you are not supposed to resell although many do. Once you stop paying GS1 your annual fee you no longer have any rights over those codes and GS1 could reassign to a new customer.