How Many Barcodes Do I Need

This is something that we get asked quite often, so we thought that we would explain it here. So, How many barcodes do you need?

Let’s say that you only have 1 product. It’s a 500ml bottle of strawberry flavoured pop. You have 1000 units of this product. In this case, you would only need 1 barcode. You would use the same barcode on every single bottle. This would still be the case if you had 10,000 units or 10,000,000 units of the same product.

Now let’s say that you decide to offer the bottle of strawberry flavoured pop in 3 sizes, namely 250ml, 500ml and 750ml. As you now have 3 variations of the product, you would need 3 barcodes. 1 for the 250ml, 1 for the 500ml and 1 for the 750l. You would always use the same barcode for every 250ml bottle (e.g. barcode 1). The same barcode for every 500ml bottle (e.g. barcode 2). And the same barcode for every 750ml bottle (e.g. barcode 3).

So now you have 3 products and therefor need 3 barcodes. But let’s say sales of the strawberry pop have been going very well, so you decide to introduce two new flavours to your product range. Namely a raspberry flavoured pop and a blueberry flavoured pop. Again, you will be offering each of these new flavours in the same three sizes as the strawberry flavoured pop. This now means that you have 9 product lines i.e. 3 flavours each available in 3 sizes. This means that you would need a total of 9 barcodes. You of course do not need to change the barcode numbers on the 3 sizes of strawberry flavoured pop and would continue to use the existing barcode numbers.

Perhaps you decide to introduce a pack of 3 drinks. For example, one of each flavour of the 250ml bottles of pop. This is a new product so you would therefor need a new barcode for it. This would also be the case if you replicated this product with the other size bottle e.g. 500ml and 750ml bottles.

Finally, let’s just focus on the 250ml bottles of strawberry flavoured pop. You already have a barcode for this product; however you have decided to sell them in a pack of 4. This again is a new product so you would need a new barcode number. If you used the existing barcode number, the pack of 4 would simply scan as a single bottle.

So hopefully you can now work out how many barcodes you need – please click here to buy barcodes now. We also have other tutorials available, such as how to barcode a new product – these are linked at the bottom of this website.