We supply both EAN-13 (International Article Number) and UPC-A (Universal Product Code) formats of our GTINs in every one of our packages. EAN-13 & UPC-A are merely two formats of barcodes, the EAN-13 being a superset of UPC-A, meaning the vertical lines/symbology are the same. Both formats are visually and numerically identical and recognised worldwide by scanning software.
What is the difference between EAN-13 and UPC-A?
The main point of difference is that habitually the USA and Canada use the UPC-A format and the rest of the world including India, Europe and the UK use the EAN-13 format. When choosing your image we suggest that you consider your target region and select the most widely used format for that region however both are recognised globally.
NOTE: We have had some rare cases of mis-scanning due to scanning software used by one of our customer’s retailers dropping the leading zero of the code. If your retailer is having problems scanning the EAN-13 format code then please tell them to update their system to use the 12 digit UPC-A format instead – this should solve the scanning issue. Similarly, if the scanner is not scanning the UPC-A format, advise your retailer to update the information to use the 13 digit EAN-13 format.