Supermarket Perimeter - December 2020 - 62

TECHNOLOGY

PRODUCT
IDENTIFICATION
by Andy Nelson

EWING, NJ-BASED GS1 US
has expanded its product
identiﬁcation offering for
commissaries, central kitchens
and other food and non-food
industry companies.
Designed with smaller
companies in mind, the new
single GS1 US Global Trade
Item Number (GTIN) is ideal for
businesses that are launching a
new product, according to the
company. The single identiﬁer
provides a low-cost option to
uniquely identify products and
streamline the process for getting
items ready for sale across retail
and e-commerce channels.
" Since the onset of the COVID19 pandemic, we've seen an
uptick in the number of small
businesses needing to identify
their products to sell online, "
said Bob Carpenter, president
and CEO, GS1 US. " We want to
support these small brands on
their journey and provide them
with an authentic GTIN that
will not only be accepted by a
variety of retailers and online
marketplaces globally, but also

make it easier for consumers to
ﬁnd and buy their products. "
A GTIN is the unique product
identiﬁer encoded into a UPC
barcode that is widely accepted
by most retail systems. With a
one-time cost of $30, a business
can create a single GTIN, manage
related product data and share
the information with trading
partners using GS1 US Data Hub
Product. Additionally, a business
that licenses an individual GTIN
will automatically be included
in the GS1 Global Registry, a
database that many retailers
and online marketplaces use to
verify product identiﬁcation and
conﬁrm product authenticity.
The single GTIN offering
was created to support the
needs of US-based small
businesses that are increasingly
using e-commerce to sell
their products as consumer
purchasing activity rapidly shifts
online. According to a recent
Amazon study, American small
businesses sold more than 3.4
billion products through the
online marketplace in the past

year, up from 2.7 billion the
previous year. Additional research
underscores the importance of
having UPCs and GTINs in online
product listings. A GS1 US study
revealed in 2019 that the majority
of growing small businesses
(54%) said that using UPCs in their
product listings made it easier for
customers to ﬁnd and buy their
products.
Since requirements can vary
by retailer, small businesses
should consult seller guidelines
to understand which GS1 identiﬁcation standards are needed
to support electronic data
exchange, shipping and other
purposes. To help small businesses make informed product
identiﬁcation decisions, GS1 US
has created an estimator tool and
other resources to support their
growth. Visit www.gs1us.org/
upcs-barcodes-preﬁxes/get-abarcode for more information.
GS1 US, a member of GS1
global, is a not-for-proﬁt

information standards
organization that facilitates
industry collaboration to help
improve supply chain visibility
and efficiency through the use
of GS1 Standards, the most
widely used supply chain
standards system in the world.
Nearly 300,000 businesses in
25 industries rely on GS1 US for
trading partner collaboration
that optimizes their supply
chains, drives cost performance
and revenue growth, while also
enabling regulatory compliance.
They achieve these beneﬁts
through solutions based on
GS1 global unique numbering
and identiﬁcation systems,
barcodes, Electronic Product
Code (EPC®)-based RFID, data
synchronization and electronic
information exchange. GS1 US
also manages the United Nations
Standard Products and Services
Code® (UNSPSC®). For more
information, visit www.gs1us.
org.

Bob Carpenter, president and CEO, GS1 US
62 - DECEMBER 2020

supermarketperimeter.com

GS1 US

We want to support these small brands on their
journey and provide them with an authentic GTIN
that will not only be accepted by a variety of retailers
and online marketplaces globally, but also make it
easier for consumers to ﬁnd and buy their products. "
http://www.gs1us.org/ http://www.gs1us http://www.supermarketperimeter.com
Supermarket Perimeter - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Supermarket Perimeter - December 2020
