If you're selling almost anywhere today, you're going to have to figure out the barcode equation. Virtually every major retailer, including many of today's biggest brands online, require barcodes, and you simply can't do business in South Africa or on a global level without one. As you do your research, you're certain to come across a few terms you don't know, and one of the biggest is the GS1. Take a closer look at this organization's mission.

What Is the GS1?
While many companies come to the GS1 initially to actually obtain the necessary barcodes for their products, what most don't realise is that the GS1 is far more than a simple barcode provider. Instead, they create standards that help to provide a framework for supply chain visibility across the grid. This non-profit's overall goal is to make certain that every business has a way to identify, capture, and share information, and they work with companies in almost every industry. The goal is to ensure that communication can happen across the supply chain. From ensuring a company can communicate with customers to making certain partners and suppliers have easier communications, the GS1 is working to create a common language in a number of sectors today. In the world of healthcare, they are working to create efficiency that helps to increase patient safety and improve medication related traceability. Within transportation and logistics, they help customers to get accurate information to help make better decisions. Retail, though, is the one place where GS1 standards really shine. In fact, that's where the non-profit actually originated.

A Quick Walk Through History
In 1974, barcodes became the most important aspect of the supply chain, helping retail establishments of all types get the products they needed most to stock their shelves. A single barcode started a revolution, and by 1977, the GS1 system was already in place. It was initially called the European Article Numbering Association, and the founding purpose was building out efficiency within supply chains. By 1983, barcodes weren't just appearing on individual products, but also on wholesale multi-packs. As the landscape of retail shifted and changed, though, it became clear that the GS1 focus couldn't stay just on barcodes. Instead, in 1989, they realized they needed to create international standards for electronic data interchange as well. In 1995, they created healthcare standards to add to their stable, and these days, they're celebrating nearly 42 years in the business. Today, things are still changing, but this spring, full support to Global Data Standards was received, so things might be changing quickly.

How the Barcodes Actually Work
If barcodes are so essential to the operations of the GS1, it might be useful to understand a bit more about how they work. When a barcode scanner reads your barcode, it turns those bars on it into a number based code, then searches for those items that are associated with that code. The information you've supplied to the retailer has already been entered into the POS system for the store, so once the items is scanned, the system tells the database the numbers required, then the customer pays for the item itself. It's really a fairly simple process, but one that has absolutely changed everything around the way people do business today.

Ready to Buy?
The GS1 is working to simplify logistics, but that still doesn't answer a question many businesses today have - why do I actually need a barcode. The simple truth is that most retailers won't accept your products without them. They do actually make life quite a bit easier, though. It allows companies to keep a better inventory of your product or products in stock. That alone can translate to time and money savings that you can't afford to miss out on.

Using Barcodes South Africa
wondering where come in? It's easy. We're South Africa's most trusted outlet for barcodes. Within just an hour of purchase, you'll get UPC and EAN barcodes in three different fomats, and that means you can go to market much faster than you thought possible. As the nation's top reseller of barcodes, we're proud of the services we can provide your company. Whether you market beauty products or gardening implements, we're here to provide you with support when you need it the most.

All of our barcodes are valid for use throughout South Africa, but their reach is much further than that. We have the barcodes you need to market your product line throughout the world.
​
Barcodes are nothing short of a must if you're going to create real business success today. Contact us to learn more about barcodes and how we can help now.

Looking for better product packaging? You're not alone. Whether you're adding a single product to your line or a number of them, one of the things that matters most is a product's packaging. More than anything else, you want it to serve as its own call to action because few things represent your brand more completely than the packaging itself. Searching for some inspiration? These tips can help.

Think About Function First
Before you ever begin to consider aesthetic design, the single most important thing you can do is think about the reason behind your packaging. You want to keep your products safe and intact until your customer can get them home safely. While you this certainly doesn't mean you're going to have to go with something like bubble wrap, it does potentially mean that you want a design that will truly protect more than anything else.

Start Immediately
Even if your product is still at the prototyping stage, you can't start soon enough in the world of package design. Draft some ideas to get a sense of what you want it to look like on retailer shelves. Closely examine what other products within the same vertical look like. You may even want to do some target marketing research to decide how to start building those mockups of the packaging design. Getting outside advice on those early designs is absolutely key.

Be Creative
While you should certainly look at what others in your market are doing right now, that closer look shouldn't limit your ability to create something amazing. When customers see unique, interesting package designs, it can serve as strong signal to buy, even if your product has a higher price tag.

Go Green Here Too
The pressure for many businesses today is to go as green as possible, and packaging can play  a huge role in your efforts to be eco-friendly. People who are recycling tend to me more conscious of environmental issues, so if that hits one of your target markets, you may want to go with recycled cardboard, eco-friendly printer inks, and more. Keep in mind, also, exactly where your products might be distributed, as there are legislative requirements to consider in many cases.

Build an Attention Getter
What grabs a customer's attention within your market? For some sectors, it could be color. For others, it could be print. No matter what it is, though, you have to remember that customers tend to have very short attention spans, and you may need plenty of packaging help to get customers to pick your item over the others available. As important as it is to keep this tactic in mind, though, remember that you don't want to scare customers away from your product. It is possible to incorporate so many trends and colours that your product becomes completely irrelevant to your market. You may need a bit of trial and error to discover that perfect balance. If you're adjusting an older product design, wait at least two years to do so.

Think Requirements
Almost all packaging is required to fulfill several different requirements, and that has to be at the forefront of your mind when you make that decision. The package design phase is certainly the place to think about how you're going to incorporate your barcode. The last thing you want is to get too creative in this area. The GS1 has several standards that you need to follow, including where to place barcodes and how to orient them on the packaging. Do your homework before you finalize your package design so that once the product is in your hands, you can add our barcodes and make it to store shelves faster.
​
Make Sure You've Clearly Labeled Your Product
As tempting as it can be to be so creative, customers don't know how to classify you, it's equally important to temper that with some clear labeling about the exact nature of your product. You don't want to disguise what you have to offer, and you want your brand name to be presented as clearly as possible. Don't take this as a licence to get too simple, though. Only be most recognisable brands can do that at this stage of the game.

You likely already know that if you're going to market your product line in any serious fashion, buying barcodes for every single one of your products is nothing short of an absolute must. Ever wonder, though, exactly why we use barcodes on products today? Take a look.

Barcodes were actually invented to help supermarkets in the United States. As these businesses outgrew their former tiny "general store" type environment and worked their way into large retail outlets, maintaining an inventory of the right size was quite difficult. The larger they became, the harder it was to count every can and bag in the place, and that made it tough to decide how much to order and when to do so.

The very first barcodes and scanning equipment came in the form of punch cards, which were developed for the 1890 U.S. Census. It would take several decades, but the technology was eventually adapted for use in supermarkets. In 1932, Wallace Flint, a professor at the Harvard School of Business Administration, led a small group of students to design a system by which customers would complete their list of proposed merchandise to purchase using one of those punch cards. The checker then rang up the entire order thanks to the punch card. It helped to update the inventory records. Unfortunately, the system was far from practical. The equipment was bulky and expensive, and given that the United States was at the very height of the Great Depression, it simply wasn't a realistic option. More than anything else, though, it served as a hint of the potential that remained untapped.

Modern barcodes remained elusive until 1948. Bernard Silver was a graduate student in Philadelphia at the Drexel Institute of Technology. One day, he overheard the president of a local supermarket chain asking one of the deans to develop a system that would read product information while customers were checking out in his stores. It spurred a flurry of research from Silver, who began working with a friend, Norman Joseph Woodland, to solve the problem. Their initial idea used patterns of ink that glowed only under ultraviolet light. Unfortunately, the solution had a few problems of its own. It was quite expensive to print the patterns. There was also a matter of ink instability that led to numerous issues with the system. A year later, however, the two managed to file a patent for their barcode symbol. It looked a bit like today's 1D barcodes. Made up of four white lines on a dark background, seven different classifications were possible, but even in the early days, the inventors made it clear that with more lines, more classifications would be possible.
Despite those advancements in the technology, barcodes wouldn't go into use heavily for nearly two decades. In 1966, the National Association of Food Chains began looking for equipment that would help speed up the checkout process. A year later, one of the very first scanning systems was installed in Ohio, a state in the middle of the United States. The store in which it was installed had employees sticker each item with one of the Woodland and Silver barcodes, then checkers could scan it as customers brought it to checkout. The advances here were clear, but so were the problems involved. After all, virtually everyone realized that a standard coding scheme would have to be in place for this to become truly useful technology. In the summer of 1970, the University Grocery Products Identification Code was developed and released. Just three years later, the adoption of the modern UPC symbol set still used throughout the U.S. went into effect. By 1974, UPC scanners were being used across the country, and in the late 70s, nearly 85% of all products had a UPC symbol on them.

Today, barcodes are far from restricted to retail applications. Instead, they're utilized across industry lines to help companies track various thinks. Militaries across the world use them to track equipment. Hospitals use them to keep track of patients, medications, and more. Even Federal Express, a global shipping giant, uses it to track packages and reroute logistics where necessary.
​
Barcodes brought a brand new way of doing business to the world, and if you're part of that landscape, your business will need to consider purchasing the right barcodes to help you move forward. We're here for you. With high quality options to make certain you can market your products throughout South Africa and beyond, we offer more to your business for less, and there's never a renewal fee when you work with us. Contact us today to learn more about what our barcodes can do for your business. The technology has come a long way since punch cards, and so has your business. Take it one step further with our barcodes.