UPC-A Barcodes
Here you can purchase UPC-A retail barcodes for all retail products (except books and magazines).
If you need a book barcode, magazine barcode then please click through these links. The difference between UPC and EAN-13 barcodes can be seen here.
Please see our Barcode Registration page for information on the advantages of barcode registration. This is an additional optional service we include with our barcode packages.
Barcode Format
We tend to supply barcodes in EAN-13 format. EAN-13 is more common worldwide and the majority of retailers prefer this. In some cases, a retailer may insist on a UPC-A 12 digit barcode. Our EAN-13 barcodes are easy to turn into UPC barcodes by simply removing the leading ‘0’. In this case the barcodes will scan in exactly the same way (as the bars are still identical), but the barcode will only have 12 digits.
Please see below for an example of this:
Why this occurs?
The way a digit is encoded into every barcode is 7 blocks of either white or black making up each digit. A full set of digits 0-9 is called a parity. Retail barcodes have a minimum of 2 parities one for the left side and one for the right. This is so barcodes can be scanned upside down yet still return the correct number.
George Laurer created the 12 digit UPC system in the 1970’s. UPCs these work with 2 different parities; a left side odd parity and a right side even parity (each with 6 digits).
Later, a 13 digit EAN-13 system was introduced as a superset of the UPC barcodes. These were deliberately designed to be used in conjunction with UPC-A barcodes. And hence, employed both the left odd parity and the right even parity of the UPC barcodes, but added an additional parity (a left-even parity) which was to be used on a selection of the left hand side digits.
The left and right hand side of the EAN-13 barcodes are still divided into 6 digits each. So the initial digit determines which combination of the first 6 digits will use the newly created left even parity. Hence, in no EAN-13 barcode is the first digit encoded in the barcode, however it does determine the way the other digits are encoded.
Our barcodes start with ‘0’. The 0 determines that all of the initial 6 digits will use the left odd parity. This means that the bars look the same as a UPC barcode would without the leading ‘0’ as the UPC version also only uses the odd parity.
How do they scan?
Barcode scanners scan the bars. They do not scan the digits below the barcode. The digits are printed there in case the bars do not scan. An EAN-13 barcode with a ‘0’ on the front can sometimes be confused by scanners as a UPC barcode without the ‘0’ and vice-versa. This is largely to do with what the scanner or software system is expecting to see. This can occur when a barcode is not linked on the system. The software has no point of reference for what format the barcode should be, and, hence, assumes that it is UPC format.
When the number is first added to the system in the 13 digit format and linked to the product in the system (this is generally how stores add the barcodes based on the information provided on their buyer form), it tends to scan appropriately as an EAN-13 format barcode.
Please contact us if you have any questions about this.