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The Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is an identifier for trade items, developed by the international organization GS1. [1] Such identifiers are used to look up product information in a database (often by entering the number through a barcode scanner pointed at an actual product) which may belong to a retailer, manufacturer, collector, researcher, or other entity. The uniqueness and universality of the identifier is useful in establishing which product in one database corresponds to which product in another database, especially across organizational boundaries.
The GTIN standard has incorporated the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), International Standard Music Number (ISMN), International Article Number (which includes the European Article Number and Japanese Article Number) and some Universal Product Codes (UPCs), into a universal number space.
GTINs may be eight, 12, 13, or 14 digits long, and each of these four numbering structures are constructed in a similar fashion, combining Company Prefix, Item Reference and a calculated Check Digit (GTIN-14 adds another component- the Indicator Digit, which can be 0–9). GTIN-8s will be encoded in an EAN-8 barcode. GTIN-12s may be shown in UPC-A, ITF-14, or GS1-128 barcodes. GTIN-13s may be encoded in EAN-13, ITF-14 or GS1-128 barcodes, and GTIN-14s may be encoded in ITF-14 or GS1-128 barcodes. The choice of barcode will depend on the application; for example, items to be sold at a retail establishment could be marked with EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A or UPC-E barcodes.
The EAN-8 code is an eight-digit barcode used usually for very small articles, such as chewing gum, where fitting a larger code onto the item would be difficult. Note: the equivalent UPC small format barcode, UPC-E, encodes a GTIN-12 with a special Company Prefix that allows for "zero suppression" of four zeros in the GTIN-12. The GS1 encoding and decoding rules state that the entire GTIN-12 is used for encoding and that the entire GTIN-12 is to be delivered when scanned.
Name [1] | Former names | Barcode symbologies [2] |
---|---|---|
GTIN-14 (used for wholesale shipments, not retail point of sale) | EAN/UCC-14, SCC-14, DUN-14, [3] UPC Case Code, UPC Shipping Container Code | GS1-128, GS1 Databar, ITF-14 |
GTIN-13 | EAN, EAN·UCC-13, JAN (subset) | EAN-13 |
GTIN-12 | EAN·UCC-12, UCC-12 | UPC-A, UPC-E (condensed to 6 digits) |
GTIN-8 | EAN/UCC-8 | EAN-8 |
Note that GTIN-12 and GTIN-13 numbers can be encoded as GTIN-13 or GTIN-14 by adding initial padding zeroes. For GTIN-14, this indicates a "packaging level" of a single item.
Number system | GTIN format | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Position of digits | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 | T7 | T8 | T9 | T10 | T11 | T12 | T13 | T14 |
GTIN-14 | N1 | N2 | N3 | N4 | N5 | N6 | N7 | N8 | N9 | N10 | N11 | N12 | N13 | N14 |
GTIN-13 | 0 | N1 | N2 | N3 | N4 | N5 | N6 | N7 | N8 | N9 | N10 | N11 | N12 | N13 |
GTIN-12 | 0 | 0 | N1 | N2 | N3 | N4 | N5 | N6 | N7 | N8 | N9 | N10 | N11 | N12 |
GTIN-8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N1 | N2 | N3 | N4 | N5 | N6 | N7 | N8 |
The numbering structure is as follows:
All books and serial publications sold internationally (including those in U.S. stores) have GTIN (GTIN-13) codes. The book codes are either constructed by prefixing the old 10-digit ISBN with 978, and recalculating the trailing check digit, or from 1 January 2007 issued as thirteen digits starting with 978 (eventually 979 as the 978 ranges are used up).
Each type of trade item is given its own GTIN, with the understanding that there is a potential need to retrieve predefined information from such items; this product or service may be priced, ordered, or invoiced at any point in the supply chain. This includes individual items as well as all of their different packaging configurations.
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology that is used worldwide for tracking trade items in stores.
A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D), can be scanned by special optical scanners, called barcode readers, of which there are several types.
There are many different numbering schemes for assigning nominal numbers to entities. These generally require an agreed set of rules, or a central coordinator. The schemes can be considered to be examples of a primary key of a database management system table, whose table definitions require a database design.
The national drug code (NDC) is a unique product identifier used in the United States for drugs intended for human use. The Drug Listing Act of 1972 requires registered drug establishments to provide the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with a current list of all drugs manufactured, prepared, propagated, compounded, or processed by it for commercial distribution. Drug products are identified and reported using the NDC.
A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity bit used to check for errors in computer-generated data. It consists of one or more digits computed by an algorithm from the other digits in the sequence input.
The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is designed as a universal identifier that provides a unique identity for every physical object anywhere in the world, for all time. The EPC structure is defined in the EPCglobal Tag Data Standard, which is a freely available standard. The canonical representation of an EPC is a URI, namely the 'pure-identity URI' representation that is intended for use when referring to a specific physical object in communications about EPCs among information systems and business application software.
Code 128 is a high-density linear barcode symbology defined in ISO/IEC 15417:2007. It is used for alphanumeric or numeric-only barcodes. It can encode all 128 characters of ASCII and, by use of an extension symbol (FNC4), the Latin-1 characters defined in ISO/IEC 8859-1. It generally results in more compact barcodes compared to other methods like Code 39, especially when the texts contain mostly digits. Code 128 was developed by the Computer Identics Corporation in 1981.
Interleaved 2 of 5 (ITF) is a continuous two-width barcode symbology encoding digits. It is used commercially on 135 film, for ITF-14 barcodes, and on cartons of some products, while the products inside are labeled with UPC or EAN.
The International Standard Music Number or ISMN is a thirteen-character alphanumeric identifier for printed music developed by ISO.
GS1 is a not-for-profit, international organization developing and maintaining its own standards for barcodes and the corresponding issue company prefixes. The best known of these standards is the barcode, a symbol printed on products that can be scanned electronically.
The International Article Number is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type, in a specific packaging configuration, from a specific manufacturer. The standard has been subsumed in the Global Trade Item Number standard from the GS1 organization; the same numbers can be referred to as GTINs and can be encoded in other barcode symbologies, defined by GS1. EAN barcodes are used worldwide for lookup at retail point of sale, but can also be used as numbers for other purposes such as wholesale ordering or accounting. These barcodes only represent the digits 0–9, unlike some other barcode symbologies which can represent additional characters.
"Bookland" is the informal name for the Unique Country Code (UCC) prefix allocated in the 1980s for European Article Number (EAN) identifiers of published books, regardless of country of origin, so that the EAN namespace can catalogue books by ISBN rather than maintaining a redundant parallel numbering system. In other words, Bookland is a fictitious country that exists solely in EAN for the purposes of non-geographically cataloguing books in the otherwise geographically keyed EAN coding system.
Codabar is a linear barcode symbology developed in 1972 by Pitney Bowes Corp. It and its variants are also known as Codeabar, Ames Code, NW-7, Monarch, Code 2 of 7, Rationalized Codabar, ANSI/AIM BC3-1995 or USD-4. Although Codabar has not been registered for United States federal trademark status, its hyphenated variant, Code-a-bar, is a registered trademark.
An EAN-8 is an EAN/UPC symbology barcode and is derived from the longer International Article Number (EAN-13) code. It was introduced for use on small packages where an EAN-13 barcode would be too large; for example on cigarettes, pencils, and chewing gum packets. It is encoded identically to the 12 digits of the UPC-A barcode, except that it has 4 digits in each of the left and right halves.
The Global Location Number (GLN) is part of the GS1 systems of standards. It is a simple tool used to identify a location and can identify locations uniquely where required. This identifier is compliant with norm ISO/IEC 6523.
The GS1 Databar Coupon code has been in use in retail industry since the mid-1980s. At first, it was a UPC with system ID 5. Since UPCs cannot hold more than 12 digits, it required another barcode to hold additional information like offer code, expiration date and household ID numbers. Therefore, the code was often extended with an additional UCC/EAN 128 barcode. EAN 13 was sometimes used instead of UPC, and because it starts with 99, it was called the EAN 99 coupon barcode, and subsequently GS1 DataBar. After more than 20 years in use, there is now a need to encode more data for complex coupons, and to accommodate longer company IDs, so the traditional coupon code has become less efficient and sometimes not usable at all.
The GS1 GEPIR was a distributed database that contains basic information on over 1,000,000 companies in over 100 countries. The database could be searched by GTIN code, container Code (SSCC), location number (GLN), and the company name. A SOAP webservice exists.
ITF-6 is the implementation of an Interleaved 2 of 5 (ITF) barcode to encode a addon to ITF-14 and ITF-16 barcodes. Originally was developed as a part of JIS specification for Physical Distribution Center. Instead of ITF-14, it wasn’t standardized by ISO Committee but it is widely used to encode additional data to Global Trade Item Number such as items quantity or container weight.
Han Xin code is two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcode symbology invented in 2007 by Chinese company The Article Numbering Center of China to break monopoly of QR code. As QR code, Han Xin code consists of black squares and white square spaces arranged in a square grid on a white background. It has four finder patterns and other markers which allow to recognize it with camera-based readers. Han Xin code contains Reed–Solomon error correction with ability to read corrupted images. At this time, it is issued as ISO/IEC 20830:2021.