To UPC or not UPC?

[Molicious]

I am working on a product that I would like to sell at convenience stores, grocery stores, trucks stops, department stores etc. It is a small priced item that you would find on the shelves with all of the other novelty crap by the registers.

I am finalizing the packaging and need to know if retailers frown upon items without a UPC? Do many retailers use their own barcode systems which is not reliant on a UPC?

anybody out there in the retail biz who can shed some light?

I know it costs jing to buy a UPC number, just not sure how much.

[zom-zom]

I don't know but I'll buy whatever you got if it comes in Confederate Flag, Camo, or NASCAR designs.

[EmD, MD]

Is it an air freshener with that nudie silhouette on it?

Seriously, though...it seems like just about everything is scanned these days, and most of the time it's the UPC, especially at the kinds of places you mentioned. I know when I worked at Borders we had our own price stickers with our own barcodes, but that was six years ago and even then they were already planning to scrap the proprietary barcodes and change all the scanners to use UPCs.

[7734]

I guess it all depends on what it is, who you plan to sell it to and how many you think you might sell. If you're talking small numbers to start you might want to skip the barcode hassle. Here is the info if you think you're going to sell shitloads to chainstores.

http://www.uc-council.org/ean_ucc_system/membership/notmember.htm

CorelDraw comes with a nice UPC maker, it has several different types of UPC codes, you can export to a TIFF or EPS graphic format to be included in the packaging or sent out for stickers. (Stickers get removed or fall off. This can be a good or bad thing depending on how the retailer does biz.)

If you're planning on starting out small I would forget about the UPC. Most retail places have a MISC. or internal sticker and code to cover odd items or imports. Mom and pop stores are more organic than some places like BestBuy who will tell you they wont sell your CD without a barcode but they have no problem generating an internal number for some hot selling import, etc.

I know you're not doing a CD, but when we needed a UPC for a CD release in the past. We took un-used numbers from labels that we knew had gone out of biz. Could work for your product too Good luck.

[bo love]

You go to a organization who classifies what kind of product you'll market. They issue you a number and you utilize it. If you want to really have one, don't use an out of date one from another product or you'll regret it.

[7734]

"You go to a organization"

What org, Gotta link?

"don't use an out of date one from another product"

I'm not suggesting the use of an already issued UPC number from another existing product. We used higher numbers that the label never issued from thier series of numbers. This could cause vendor confusion problems, but it worked in national chainstores for us without a problem.
Take a look at the barcodes on Skene, Big Money, Audiocon, and Project A-Bomb releases

Who knows, maybe novelty product is completely different.

P.S. Felix probably has a better idea about how shit works now.

[bo love]

I'm pretty sure if you type in "upc code" it'll take you to several sources to find the "organization".
The fact is that all those little numbers catagorize your product.
Usually printing companies know where the bar code issuing organization is.
All I know is when Rocket Sound Record Company releases a new product, we have to get a unique bar code.
Either way, good lizzle.

[Molicious]

after some googling, I found a place that sells barcodes for $35 each....
he is mainly targeting bands with cd's that need barcodes

http://www.buyabarcode.com/

[7734]

Maybe shit has changed, but re-selling single barcodes from a series is a no-no. You can issue one for free as part of the CD manufacturing like noiseland does.

A CD barcode is just a unique number, it doesn't hold any info until somebody enters the numbers into thier system.

Example:

Label: WEA (usually a 3 digit alpha code)
Vendor: TCI (this is the distribution or direct label where the retailer got the item from.)
UPC: 7 89577 03772 4 (The first "7" and last "4" are checksum digits, the second to last "2" is the configuration ie; CD)
Cost: 6.99 (the price the retailer pays)
Retail: 12.99 (what the customer pays)
Qty: 30 (stock quantity)

Only when this information is entered into a system does it pop up at the register.

My first link is the place to get a series of UPC codes for music/video, I'm not sure about other products and or food.

.02

[Molicious]

I emailed the dude at buyabarcode.com

here's what he said....

You would be receiving a UCC registered bar code. The bar code would be registered through my company. However, this makes no difference in terms of the actual process of how a bar code is used. Any information associated with the bar code is ultimately up to you and is between you and the retailer selling your product. A bar code is simply a unique number that no one else has. When you sell your product at a store, that store will have you fill out a product information form. On that form you put all your product's details and also your bar code number. That info is then entered into the store's computer. Then, when your product is scanned, it calls up that form in the store's computer.
The UCC has a monopoly and obviously discourages the re-selling of bar codes. However, it is a quite common practice - especially in the music (CD replication) industry. It just so happens that all retail products use the exact same type of bar code and so I extended the service to include all entrepreneurs. All of the bar codes are absolutely legit and there is no reason why you would ever have a problem.
Please feel free to call me and I will be happy to explain further.
Eric

[Finn McCool]

Or you could just figure out buyabarcode's UCC prefix and, uh, borrow one of his million product numbers.