How can I get cheap barcodes?

The best way to get cheap barcodes is to purchase from a barcode reseller. That way you will own your barcodes for a one-off fee rather than paying membership fee and annual licence fees. Say you sell your products for 10 years and you pay every year, work out how much money that would be.

Our retail barcodes are sold for a one-off cost and you own the numbers.

History of our barcode numbers

In the 1990’s GS1 was established in most parts of the world. They licensed their 13 digit barcode numbers to their members (and as discussed previously charged both membership fees and joining fees). However, there was a separate organisation in the USA, the Uniform Code Council (UCC). The UCC sold 12 digit barcode numbers to their members for a one-off cost. There were no ongoing license fees. The UCC was effectively competing with GS1. Their 12 digits numbers were a subset of the 13 digit system.

In the late 1990s, the UCC merged with GS1, becoming GS1-US. As part of this change, they decided to start charging annual license fees for all of their members, including those who had paid a one-off fee for barcode numbers in the 1990s. Many of these members weren’t happy with the new annual license fees, and so a group of them ended up in class action law suit with GS1.

The members won in the courts in 2002, resulting in a multi-million dollar settlement by GS1. A further consequence of this court case is the proof that the original numbers issued by the UCC in the 1990s are outside of GS1’s control. Hence no license fees are required. These are the numbers are bought by resellers and onsold. They are new numbers, in that they they have never been used on a retail product, and are part of the GS1 system.

This Settlement provides that companies who became members of UCC before August 28, 2002, are not obligated to pay membership renewal fees to UCC to maintain membership as a condition for their use of Company Prefixes issued to them by UCC, or as a condition for Basic Membership Benefits as defined in the Class Settlement Agreement. Class members who have paid a renewal fee to UCC are entitled to compensation from a $3,895,000 settlement fund. The settlement also provides that the “licensing agreement,” which accompanied UCC renewal fee invoices, is null and void as to those who became members in UCC before August 28, 2002.

Very cheap barcodes

Sometimes we get asked about barcodes at very cheap prices and what we know about these companies. These companies are shortterm and can be difficult to contact or get any information about their barcodes. It is difficult to say whether their numbers are legitimate. In many cases the barcodes they sell are not legitimate. This can lead to legal problems later if you use a number that belongs to someone else. Buying barcodes at these prices is false economy, you may save a bit of cash upfront, however, that doesn’t even compare to the amount it will cost to reprint your product packaging and swap out the barcodes if the barcodes turn out to be illegitimate. It is best to check if they have any staff who know about barcodes.

Check barcodesellers.org website for more information on barcode suppliers.

Barcode Resellers

We can prove that our numbers are legitimate EAN-13 numbers that have never been used legally before (until you). Furthermore we check all our numbers for illegal use before sale.

There are many other advantages to our barcodes. Please see here for more information on our barcodes.

See some of the products using our barcodes.