The primary barcode format for retail products in India is EAN-13, a 13-digit barcode widely used across all retail sectors except in specific cases:

1. Books and Magazines require ISBN or ISSN codes.
2. Pharmaceuticals (prescription medicines) use Pharmacodes. This does not apply to health supplements.

The EAN-13 format, or “International Article Number,” is compatible with scanners worldwide and can also be read in its 12-digit version, UPC-A (commonly used in the United States). Most barcode scanners globally can interpret both formats.

India also uses EAN-8 and UPC-E barcodes, which are compact 8-digit versions of EAN-13 and UPC-A, intended for smaller product packaging.

A GTIN, or Global Trade Item Number, is a globally unique identifier assigned to retail products or logistics units, which allows for tracking and management across the supply chain. Common GTINs include EAN-13, UPC-A, EAN-8, and ITF-14 barcodes.

GTINs enable products to be tracked from the warehouse, through wholesalers, and eventually scanned at retail points of sale. This system helps companies monitor stock as it moves through each stage of the supply chain.

GTINs like EAN-13 and UPC-A are essential for product stocking with nearly all physical and online retailers worldwide. These two formats—EAN-13 (International Article Number) and UPC-A (Universal Product Code)—are the most widely accepted retail barcodes globally.

Barcodes are essential for businesses that plan to stock their products in physical stores or on online platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. Retailers use barcodes to manage pricing, track sales, monitor inventory levels, and streamline stock movement from warehouses to the point of sale (POS). Having a globally unique barcode on your product ensures it is ready for distribution and meets the requirements of the marketplace.

The number of barcodes you need depends on the variety and quantity of unique products in your inventory. Each distinct product and variation requires a unique barcode. For example, if you have a clothing line, you’ll need separate barcodes for each style, size, and color. So, if a shirt is available in three sizes and three colors, it would require 9 unique EAN-13 barcodes—one for each size-color combination.

We recommend purchasing extra barcodes to cover your current and future product range. This approach is more cost-effective per code and allows you to maintain consistent opening numbers across your products. Any unused barcodes can be assigned later, even years down the line.

When using a barcode in India, simply place the provided digital barcode image on your product’s packaging or label. This unique barcode number is then recorded by each retailer in their database, along with your product’s pricing and details during the on-boarding process. When scanned at checkout, it retrieves the relevant product information instantly.

It’s important to know that we supply you with a globally unique barcode number and image; there’s no need to provide us with any product information. Additionally, there is no centralised database for barcode registration—each retailer maintains an independent database. This means that barcodes obtained from us, GS1, or any other provider work in the same way. While barcodes act as unique identifiers, they must be registered with each retailer individually. There is no single system that shares product details across all stores; for example, your barcode will be the same in a convenience store and a Hypermarket, but each retailer uses its own database.

India Barcodes offers a straightforward and affordable alternative to GS1 for obtaining retail barcodes, with no annual fees or membership requirements. By paying a one-time fee, you gain immediate ownership of your barcodes, making it the perfect solution for businesses looking for a hassle-free approach. Unlike GS1’s membership-based model, which involves recurring fees and extensive company information, India Barcodes provides UCC-origin barcodes directly, enabling businesses to access barcodes without the long-term commitment or costs associated with GS1 membership.

The barcodes provided by India Barcodes are originally issued by the Uniform Code Council (now known as GS1), ensuring that they are genuine and unique. Our customers have successfully stocked their products in various retail outlets across India and globally, as well as on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, with few exceptions.
However, we strongly recommend contacting the retailers you plan to supply to verify their specific barcode guidelines before purchasing barcodes.

See Also: Global Barcode Acceptance & Supplier Guidelines

Many sellers on Amazon continue to use our barcodes to sucessfully list their products on Amazon.in, Amazon.com, and other TLDs. However, we cannot guarantee that our barcodes will always be accepted by Amazon. This is because Amazon may use GS1’s GEPIR website as one method to verify brand ownership.

For further information and known limitations using GTINs on Amazon see our Using Barcodes on Amazon page.  

When it comes to purchasing barcodes, you have a few options. You can go directly to GS1, which charges upfront membership fees and annual subscription costs starting at around 40,000 INR per year (their lowest rate). After this initial fee, GS1 provides only a prefix, leaving you to hire a third-party service to generate your product codes and barcode images. This process can be costly for many small businesses. If you’ve purchased barcodes from GS1 and need image generation, India Barcodes can create the corresponding images in any required format, complete with the OCRB human-readable font.

All the stock we provide was originally issued by the UCC (now known as GS1-US). We guarantee that our codes are globally unique and are yours for life, with no annual renewal fees. While you may find other competing businesses online, the level of service, customer support, image quality, and pricing can vary significantly among them.

Yes, this is the core guarantee that drives our business. All of our barcodes were originally issued by the UCC (now known as GS1-US). The codes we supply have never been assigned to any product. We conduct thorough checks on our entire stock before selling it to our customers, ensuring that the barcodes are both genuine and globally unique. Each package comes with a certificate that guarantees the authenticity of the barcodes and confirms you as their designated owner for life.

Barcodes themselves do not hold information, they are simply a unique sequence of numbers encoded into an image represented by vertical black and white bars. The barcode number is simply used to quickly retrieve information stored a retailer’s database. This unique number is assigned to your product and recorded in a retailer’s sales/inventory system. Basically, the barcode is a unique number and has no informational value until the product is assigned manually via yourself or the retailer store. This is the same for barcodes purchased from any source (including GS1 India).

Never. When purchasing barcodes from India Barcodes, they are yours for life and will never expire. This is because the numbers we supply originate with the Uniform Code Council (now GS1) and pre-date the introduction of GS1’s subscription model. Once purchased you are the legal owner of the barcode for life.

India Barcodes have acquired large numbers of GTINs and only charge you a one off fee. You will always retain ownership of barcodes you have purchased and they never accrue annual charges or fees in any form.

If you purchase GTINs from the Indian branch of GS1 you’re agreeing to payment of annual subscription fees. So if you only intend to acquire codes for just a few products the associated expenses when registering barcodes with GS1 India will grow over time.

The only organisation that charges an annual fee for barcodes is GS1 India. We advise caution if you come across a barcode retailer other than GS1 that tries to charge a subscription fee.

The EAN-13 number range we supply is 060 – 089.  This prefix range indicates issuance by the Uniform Code Council (now GS1-US).  These numbers are from the same system as GS1 numbers but pre-date GS1’s subscription model.  They’re suitable for products in India and worldwide and do not require any annual fees.  This is a cost effective way to get authentic globally unique barcodes for your products without having to pay annual GS1 subscriber fees. We have thousands of Indian businesses who are using our barcode numbers since 2013 without any issues.

EAN-13 numbers starting with 890 are issued by the Indian branch of GS1 on a subscription basis (meaning the numbers are rented, not owned). Each GS1 global branch has a country code.  Essentially this is to avoid duplicate numbers between global member organizations and has nothing to do with a product or company’s place of origin.   The idea that a barcode’s country code shows where a product is made is false stated even in GS1’s own documentation.  It has been thoroughly debunked. See this Republic World article for clarification.

Fact Check: Does An 890 Prefix In A Bar Code Indicate That The Product Is Made In India?

The only way to obtain 890 numbers legally is though direct GS1 India membership.  While very large companies can afford it this can be costly for small businesses trying to enter the market.  We’re an alternative to GS1 membership offering barcodes for a low, once off cost with no annual fees.

Warning! – Any company or website other than GS1 India offering to sell you an 890 prefixed code does not have authorization from GS1 to do so. Most examples of this are usually using made up numbers that risk collision with GS1 issued numbers. Using unauthorized GS1 codes carries a high risk to any business who uses them.  Please see our support article for further reading on this subject.

Yes, our packages of 10, 100, and 1000 barcodes include a globally unique company prefix:

10 barcode package: Includes an 11-digit company prefix with a product allocation range of 0-9.
100 barcode package: Includes a 10-digit company prefix with a product allocation range of 00-99.
1000 barcode package: Includes a 9-digit company prefix with a product allocation range of 000-999.

Please note that other package quantities do not support this feature, but every barcode we supply is globally unique.

Due to the increasing use and popularity of online marketplaces, barcode reuse is becoming increasingly risky and, in many cases, impossible. We strongly advise against reusing a barcode, even if your product line has been discontinued and the product is no longer in circulation. GS1 has recently updated its barcode reuse policy to reflect these changes. For more information, please visit gs1us.org/what-we-do/standards/gtin-no-reuse.

Your barcode package is ready for immediate assignment to your products. Once your purchase is complete, you’ll receive a zip folder containing your barcode numbers and high-resolution barcode images. You can start incorporating these barcode images into your product packaging artwork or printing them onto labels right away.

If you need to resize the barcode image, the included EPS file is the best format for this purpose. However, it’s important to consider barcode size specifications when resizing to ensure that your barcode scans correctly.

No barcode reseller, including India Barcodes, can register data on GS1’s GEPIR or Verified by GS1. GS1 no longer manages pre-subscription model barcodes, which means they do not update their database to reflect the current legal owners of these codes. A common misconception is that the GEPIR database links barcode numbers to specific products; however, this is incorrect. The GEPIR database only provides information about companies and does not play a role in linking your product to your barcode in stores.

India Barcodes manages the distribution of our stock to ensure that codes are never issued in duplicate. We conduct thorough checks to confirm that our numbers have never been misused or assigned to any products previously. As the customer, it is also your responsibility to track your codes and ensure they are not assigned to multiple products.

To enhance your brand visibility online, we recommend listing your product details for free on some of the following online databases. Linking your product information to its corresponding codes in these databases can serve as a cost-free alternative to the GEPIR website while providing valuable product data:

https://gtinsearch.org/
https://gtinlookup.org/
https://upcdatabase.org/

No, the only way for your product data to appear on DataKart or the SMART Consumer App is by signing up directly with GS1 India and paying an annual subscription fee.

As of October 2021, GS1’s SMART Consumer App has over 100,000 installs. Instead, we recommend using the Barcode Scanner app by the ZXing Team, which boasts over 100 million installs, making it the most popular barcode scanning application for Android devices.

With India Barcodes, the process is easy and straightforward. To obtain genuine, unique GTINs for your products, simply visit our purchase barcodes page and select the quantity that suits your needs. If the number of codes you require isn’t listed, feel free to reach out to our friendly staff at contact@indiabarcodes.co.in to arrange a special order just for you.