Howdy varactor-ga,
A reminder of the "Important Disclaimer: Answers and comments provided on
Google Answers are general information, and are not intended to substitute
for informed professional medical, psychiatric, psychological, tax, legal,
investment, accounting, or other professional advice."
As long as the product you are selling is not of a pharmaceutical nature,
you do not have to be in a certain category to have a Uniform Product Code
or UPC (a "barcode"), which is no doubt what you are seeking, instead of
a SKU or "Stock Keeping Unit," which is usually used as an inventory number.
Every style, color or size of a product needs a unique UPC, so you will want
to get a unique UPC for your product. There is no "legal" requirement for a
product to have a UPC, but if you are going to sell your product through most
conventional retail outlets, you are going to want one.
There are two main ways to get a UPC for your product. One is through the
"GS1 US," which used to be named the Uniform Code Council or UCC.
http://www.gs1us.org/gs1us.html
"For more than three decades, the Uniform Code Council has championed business
standards, new technologies, and global cooperation in order to bring the
world's supply chains together."
The above route can be expensive, with a first year fee of $750 and an annual
membership fee of $150 after that, for what you are describing. What you get
is your company registered and the ability to assign UPCs to your products.
If you want to go the above route, you will want to start here.
http://www.uc-council.org/ean_ucc_system/membership/need_upc.htm
The second, and less expensive route, is to use a "reseller" of UPCs. More
on this can be found on the web page of George J. Laurer, the inventor of the
UPC.
http://bellsouthpwp.net/l/a/laurergj/UPC/Needcode.html
"In the past I have told everyone that the only place to obtain a legitimate
U.P.C. number is from the GS1 US (formerly UCC). Since then I learned that
there are several places where one can obtain a subset of a U.P.C. number
issued to another company."
More information on this, such as pricing ($89 or so), etc. can be found on
the web page above. Mr. Laurer has a page of warnings on the above process
as well.
http://bellsouthpwp.net/l/a/laurergj/UPC/beforeubuy.html
"Since I posted this section about buying subsets of the U.P.C. numbers, I
have been swamped with questions."
You should read the above page in detail before buying a UPC.
If you need any clarification, please feel free to ask.
Search strategy:
Google search on: buy "one bar code"
://www.google.com/search?q=buy+%22one+bar+code%22
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher |
