Things you may not know about barcodes

Things you may not know about barcodes

1- On prices of products sold in supermarkets, prices are often not recorded but there are different and small lines. Why does the cashier receive the price and product name on the computer when shown on these lines?

Barcode is a solution to facilitate and improve productivity, efficiency in sales and management of goods with a special code.

The code of the goods is a series of numbers used to identify goods, applied in the process of transferring goods from producers, through wholesale, storage, distribution and retail to consumers. If the identification card helps us distinguish one person from another, the goods code is the "identity card" of the goods, helping us to distinguish quickly and accurately different types of goods. The code of the goods has the following properties: - It is the only number that characterizes the goods.

Each type of goods is identified by a series of numbers and each sequence of numbers corresponds only to one type of goods. - The code itself is just a series of numbers representing goods, not related to the characteristics of the goods. In the system of EAN codes for retail products, there are two types, one uses 13 numbers (EAN-13) and the other uses 8 numbers (EAN-8). EAN-13 code consists of 13 numbers that are structured as follows: from left to right: Country code: two or three first numbers; Company code: can consist of four, five or six numbers; Item code: can be five, four, or three numbers depending on the company code; The last number is the check number. In order to ensure the consistency and uniqueness of the code, the country code must be issued by an international item number organization to countries that are members of this organization. Vietnam's national code is 893.

Barcodes are a group of parallel bars and spaces that are alternately used to represent codes in a readable scanner format. The bar code represents the EAN number called the EAN barcode. In EAN symbols, each number is represented by two lines and two spaces in three different embodiments (Set A, B, C). Each barcode or space is 1 to 4 widths wide. Thus EAN barcodes are of multi-width code type, each module has a standard width of 0.33 mm. In order to have bar code codes on goods for export or sold at supermarkets, enterprises must first join EAN Vietnam. EAN Vietnam will issue an M code to the business and instruct the enterprise to set up the item code (code I) for each product. The reader will turn the size into indicators of goods including the price.

2. Where do the numbers on the barcode come from? What do the numbers mean?

- The barcode number is produced by the company itself, where it is necessary to apply the barcode to your product using software connected to the barcode printer to create.

- Code of goods is a series of numbers used to identify goods, applied in the process of shipping goods from producers, through wholesale, storage, distribution and retail to consumers. ID cards help us distinguish one person from another, the product code is an identity card of the goods, which helps us quickly and accurately distinguish different types of goods.

Commodity code is the only number that characterizes the goods. Each type of goods is identified by a sequence of numbers and each sequence of numbers corresponds to one type of goods. Just like the phone number: there are no two phones with the same number all over the world, there are no two types of goods worldwide with the same code. The code itself is just a series of numbers representing goods, not related to the characteristics of the goods. It is not a classification number or quality of the goods, nor is the price of the goods on the code.

3. At present, which commodity code system is commonly used in worldwide trade?

Currently, in the world-wide trade, the following two systems of commodity codes are mainly applied:

+ The UPC (Universal Product Code) system is a system under the management of the UCC (Uniform Code Council, Inc.), which has been in use since 1970 and is still in use in the US and Canada. .

+ The EAN System (European Article number) was established by the founders of 12 European countries, originally called the EAN (European Article numbering Association), which has been used since 1974 in Europe and then distributed Rapid growth, applied in most countries around the world. For this reason, since 1977, EAN has become an international organization called EAN International (EAN International).