Buyabarcode.com is proud to celebrate 25 exciting years of leading the change of a customer-centric barcode industry. As one of only two reliable suppliers for North America's largest retail companies, Buyabarcode.com enables businesses to buy and immediately register their barcodes so they can efficiently bring their products to market. Through one instant purchase of any quantity of barcodes, businesses can be sure that their value is platformed to the widest bases possible. Now, as retailers issue tightened regulations in the face of new fraudulent barcode suppliers, industry expert and Buyabarcode.com’s founder Erik Quisling informs his customers on the industry's best practices.
Every product – except for books and magazines – that aspires to get onto store shelves requires one crucial element: a standard Universal Product Code (UPC), a.k.a. a barcode. Each UPC is a unique 12-digit number that no other product in the world can be attributed to. This is because retail stores need to meticulously track their inventories to stay in business, and the best way to do that is for every unique product to be easily identifiable through one mass database. This database is stored and maintained by the international industry regulator, GS1.
However, especially in the case of small businesses, the process to procure and implement UPCs is opaque and tedious. That’s what Erik Quisling realized in 1999 when he founded Buyabarcode.com. In his former career as owner of a CD replication company, musicians would often ask him how to get barcodes in order to sell their CDs. Erik had to guide them through a difficult process that only allowed customers to buy a 6-digit barcode prefix. They were then left alone to figure out how to install software to create their 12 digit UPCs. Additionally, every 6-digit prefix had to be purchased with an expensive annual subscription that was inaccessible to many smaller businesses.
So, Erik went through all the regulations and created a simple solution for artists seeking his help. He noticed that for every 6-digit prefix, he could generate 100,000 unique 12-digit UPCs and resell those unique barcodes to his customers for effortless implementation. As the Internet took its first steps, Erik bought Adspace to platform his ingenious solution as the first alternative to his international competitor. Soon, he was featured in The Wall Street Journal, and Buyabarcode.com was off to the races.
Twenty-five years later, Erik and his company enjoy their success as a barcode industry giant, having supplied barcodes to over 100,000 satisfied businesses. Now, regulating organizations no longer only provide barcodes in multiples of 100,000; they also supply them in other fixed quantities. “The industry has changed its system in response to us,” Erik states.
As the pioneering alternative, Buyabarcode.com came face to face with a new cottage industry of competitor barcode suppliers. In fact, unbeknownst to Erik, his first-ever competitor was one of his previous customers. However, these new companies did not arrive without causing trouble.
“Every barcode originates from GS1 for good reason. Barcodes exist to bring order to a chaotic inventory tracking system, so they all need to be collected into one database for the system to work. What some companies did instead of directly purchasing barcodes was to sniff out dormant GS1 prefixes and resell them. They did not have access to the original GS1 account, nor access to the necessary certificates proving they were permitted to use the prefixes they sold from,” explains Erik. “Basically, they are pirating numbers and hoping for the best. This has created a lot of problems. Even worse, some of these suppliers simply make up barcode numbers out of thin air.”
As a result of other barcode suppliers’ practices, Amazon has now changed its regulation for approving barcodes. The retailer now requires official chain of custody documentation to prove that the owner of a barcode is connected to the original GS1 prefix purchaser. Since most barcode resellers, other than Buyabarcode.com, cannot provide this necessary documentation, many of their customers’ businesses have been unfairly damaged.
“The reality is that you can get barcodes from a third party as long as they provide the documentation that Amazon now requires,” Erik states. “And, other retailers will likely institute similar requirements as well.”
Buyabarcode.com automatically provides customers with the required verification documents that Amazon requests during the listing process. Buyabarcode.com made its name in 1999 by enabling businesses to legitimately bypass the usual bureaucracy, demystifying the barcode process. Today, they stick to this commitment to continue supplying barcodes faster, cheaper, and easier.
“We supply customers with the exact amount of barcodes they require, automatically add them to the GS1 US Data Hub, provide them the necessary documentation, and give them answers to any additional query they have,” Erik says. Buyabarcode.com’s comprehensive knowledge of the UPC system and excellent customer service have kept them miles ahead of their competitors. As Erik reaffirms, “There are, once again, only two real choices to procure legitimate UPC barcodes: us, and GS1.”
As the man who wrote the literal book on the matter, The Best Little Book on Barcodes (available on their website for download), Erik Quisling is confident in their mission to be the gateway small businesses need to enter the world of retail and e-commerce. “Twenty-five years and we are nowhere near done,” Erik reflects, “Buyabarcode.com is also proud to be on the cutting edge of a new barcode technology revolution that is certain to transform the industry soon.”
Media contact:
Name: Adriana Bonagrazia
Email: [email protected]
