No ean numbers help

charlies_mum

When I discussed EAN numbers with an EBay rep, she implied that items with EANs woul be higher in the rankings.

soolin

I have actually got a few lines of items that have proper EANs- guess what though! All of them are refused by ebay as being incorrect, so I am back to listing everything as 'not required'

I've tried now for 4 days or so to use the EANs just in case there was a glitch, but nope, ebay don't like them.

Zero_Gravitas

I don't know if this will be of any help, but here's a bit of information about EAN numbers:

The number is technically the EAN-13 number, EAN standing for European Article Number - however, it now know as the International Article Number, although the EAN abbreviation has been retained. It is used as the barcode number on most products that carry a barcode.

The EAN number is 13 digits long and is of the format: 12 12345 67890 1 where:

The first two digits (12) give the code of the issuing authority of the EAN number (not necessarily the country where the item was manufactured). For the UK issuing authority, this is 50.

The next 5 digits (12345) are the company code of the company creating the EAN number for the item. The company buys these codes off the issuing authority and then pays an annual subscription for their use.

The next 5 digits (67890) are the item number of the item. having 5 digits gives 100,000 possible values (00000 to 99999 inclusive) so if a company sells more than 100,000 different items they will need more than one company number.

The last digit (1) is a check digit, which is derived from all the other digits by a mathematical algorithm and its purpose is to significantly reduce the possibility of entering an incorrect EAN number.

Quite how Ebay would use EANs to classify items is beyond me, as there is absolutely nothing within the EAN number to identify what an item actually is (as opposed to tariff/commodity codes - but it's best not to go there - honest!)

So unless you know what the EAN is from the packaging on the barcode, it is unlikely that you will be able to make up a valid EAN because of the check digit functionality; and so the best approach is probably to use "not required".


Hope that helps a bit. I do have experience in this area, so if there are any other questions, I will do my best to answer.

StumpyPumpy

Zero_Gravitas wrote: »

So unless you know what the EAN is from the packaging on the barcode, it is unlikely that you will be able to make up a valid EAN because of the check digit functionality; and so the best approach is probably to use "not required".

Actually, the check digit is relatively easy to calculate, but more difficult to explain.

What you do is add up all the odd positioned numbers then multiply all the even positioned numbers by 3 and add those to the total. Next subtract the total from the nearest, higher or equal multiple of 10 and that is your check digit.

Complex? Perhaps an example may help:
Take the Real EAN 00 37600 33658 1
Add the odd numbers up:
0+3+6+0+3+5=17 (ignore the 13th as that is the check digit!)
Multiply the even numbers by 3:
(0x3)+(7x3)+(0x3)+(3x3)+(6x3)+(8x3)=72
Add the two together:
17+72=89
The nearest higher multiple of 10 is 90 so subtract our total from it:
90-89=1 (or if you prefer it mathematically: 10-(89 Mod 10)=1)
And bingo, your check digit is 1.

Simple! :D:p

SP

Zero_Gravitas

StumpyPumpy wrote: »

Actually, the check digit is relatively easy to calculate, but more difficult to explain
SP

Agreed. Although I was working on the principles that (1) if you had a lot of items to do it would be time-consuming - unless you were prepared to set up a spreadsheet to make the calculations; and (2) why go to the trouble of you can just use "not required"...


I do like your explanation - it's a lot clearer than some versions I've seen!


ZG