Want to build global reach? Don’t take shortcuts with traceability.

You have the product. The market is ready. Selling in a global marketplace can be perilous if you fail to plan your product lifecycle.

To facilitate global trading, marketplace ecosystems rely on accurate and trusted product data to precisely identify individual products. Providing internationally recognised standard identifiers for products in both physical stores and e-commerce platforms helps businesses access unlimited marketplace consumers.

Enter Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), barcodes, and labelling.

GTINs provide unique and verifiable traceability for individual products, primary packaging barcodes, secondary cartons, and tertiary shipping labels.

Unique product identifiers (GTINs) distinguish individual items and allow marketplaces to verify the authenticity, validity, and currency of products.

Some manufacturers and sellers choose to save money in the product launch process by purchasing recycled GTINs from third party sellers – or even reuse outdated ones! Risky choice.

Without unique GTINs correctly applied to products critical supply chain issues will ensue.

Data rich, compliant barcoding and labelling is crucial to protect your business, brand and reputation against significant operational, financial and legal costs.

Key considerations to follow during the product planning lifecycle:

• Follow barcode basics for products and Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) labels;
• Ensure each product has a valid and unique GTIN;
• Integrate reliable cloud based software to produce GS1 compliant barcodes;
• Use exact product names and structured metadata to ensure SEO/SEM are optimised for search;
• Adhere to packaging, printing and labelling best-practices;
• Engage a trusted GS1 Alliance Partner to help secure global supply chain visibility.
• Do your product barcodes align with GS1 standards? Discover how our labelling, coding and data capture solutions can help you improve and compete at Insignia's website.