Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 12/11/2005, 5:34 PM
Virtually no distributor will take on your product without a UPC code if the product is heading to retail. (ISBN's are for books) They require these codes for inventory control. Amazon won't take your product without one, either.
You can generate your own, but it has to be registered.
For more info, visit the USS/GS1 website

There are LOTS of jobbers out there that provide this service for one-offs and small companies so it's much less expensive. The jobbers save you the UCC membership of 750.00 that includes a block of codes, but you likely don't need that. You'll have a 35.00 fee for the UPC code and copy of it. Some replicators will give you a code for free, such as Evatone and DiscMakers.
So, you need a UPC code, and a bar code that matches/represents the UPC code. Bar Code Graphics does a good job of making the code for only 10.00, they mail you an EPS of the barcode, making it very easy to work with.

HTH
Chienworks wrote on 12/11/2005, 6:04 PM
Hmmm. Now there's an interesting thought. My employers own a block of 10,000 UPC codes because that was the smallest number we could register for. Over the next hundred years or so we forsee using maybe 20 of them. I wonder if we could offer the others individually. We could supply artwork for the barcode or even rolls of sticky labels preprinted. Hmmmm. Definately an idea to look into. We could make back some of our membership fee and help out smaller producers in the process.

The only hitch i could think of is that some blocks are designated industry specific. If our block is and you used one of our codes then your DVD would be classified as "Electronic Telephone Equipment / Parts and Supplies". I can't see how that would matter to the distributors or customers though. It would probably only be seen by the warehouses, and most of them carrying your DVDs wouldn't be carrying telephone parts, so confusion should be avoidable.

Time to go call the USS/GS1 folks, i suppose.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/11/2005, 6:08 PM
stores may not like that. I'd imagine WallyWorld would have a fit if a DVD kept ringing up as an HDTV. :D
Chienworks wrote on 12/11/2005, 6:23 PM
Oh, that wouldn't happen. It would ring up correctly as the DVD. It's just that if a warehouse printed out a category list of what they had on the dock, it may appear on the wrong list.
Coursedesign wrote on 12/11/2005, 8:29 PM
I wonder if we could offer the others individually.

The UPC Council would be quite pissed off. They explicitly forbid it, perhaps to make it easier for retailers to handle their reorders, as their supplier could be deduced immediately from the UPC code. If the code isn't shared...

I became a UPC member many years ago when it was quite a bit cheaper, but I remember getting an earful about this.

Note that since the beginning of this year, U.S. and Canadian retailers have to be able to scan the EAN-8 and EAN-13 bar codes used in the rest of the world also.
This means that non-US/Canadian vendors no longer need to cover their EAN barcodes with UPC labels.

NickHope wrote on 12/11/2005, 11:37 PM
I am at this stage too as I wish to sell my DVD on Amazon and they require a UPC, but $750 is really expensive for me as I only have one title so far.

If anyone has good experience of using one of these "jobbers" that Spot refers to I would love to get some specific details as I expect it's a bit of a minefield.

Nick
farss wrote on 12/11/2005, 11:46 PM
Just one oddball thing about ISBNs, our 'talking books' get an ISBN, not a ISRC, as well as a UPC.
Bob.
ScottW wrote on 12/12/2005, 4:43 AM
Nick, google upc code - you'll find 3 or 4 vendors that come up on the list. I've used upccode.net and they seem to deliver what they promise, though it's $89, not $35 like Spot was finding.

--Scott
filmy wrote on 12/12/2005, 8:50 AM
>>>My employers own a block of 10,000 UPC codes because that was the smallest number we could register for<<<

For what? For Videos/DVD we just had to get the main code - the identifier. The actual UPC codes we do ourselves for each release using our stock/unit/release numbers. We own the identifier, the first 5 (or 6) numbers, but I mean we didn't have to "buy" any sort of amount of barcodes as you say your employer did.

And in answer to tygrus2000, and to echo what others have said, yes you do need the UPC or else you are going to be left out of many (most) main stream places. Keep in mind if need be you can add them on later via stickers, losts of indys end up doing this becase they go the DIY route and then get picked up by a main distributor but have to get the UPC to go with it.

EDIT - I am now thinking Kelly's employer had a 3rd party print them up and they had requirements. The UCC does not print up barcodes/

Does the UCC provide me with bar codes?
Chienworks wrote on 12/12/2005, 9:32 AM
Filmy, we do all our own barcode printing. When we registered for an identifier we had hoped to get sub-classed into a smaller block instead of a unique identifier, which was apparently something they had allowed once upon a time, for a reduced fee. But at the time we registered they weren't offering that. The only choice was to get our own unique identifier which could represent upto 10,000 different products. Seems a little ridiculous since in the past 10 years or so we've only had 3 different products so far that require UPC.

That was why i was hoping we could issue or share from our identifier since most of our potential codes will go to waste. UPC codes are a limited commodity, like IP addresses, and there isn't an infinite supply of them. I was feeling a little guilty for having so many assigned to us that we're not using. But, Bjorn is correct ... we're not allowed to reassign them.

Hmmm. Anyone want to market their DVDs under the Audiosears label? ;)
filmy wrote on 12/12/2005, 10:04 AM
I know things are changing a bit but I did not know about the 10,000 minimum - and I am still not sure that is 100% right. I tried to do a search for it all and I can't find any limits mentioned. Closest is the The fee is determined by the number of unique products you need to identify and your company's gross sales revenue. line.

For those who care to know - When we applied we did so as a manufacturer of products, in this case video. At the time DVD was off in the future somewhere but now that has a code as well. For VHS it was a "3" , now for DVD is it supposedly "9" but I see DVD's using "2" which covers CD-Rom and VCD's. Disney seems to use "5" and "8" a lot - "5" used to be for beta and "8" used to be for 8mm video. I am not sure DVD has any standard number at the second.

So on most video/music UPC's the first ID number would be a "0", "6" or a "7" followed by the manufacturers code. The next 4 are the product code. Last is the product "type" code. The very last is a checksum number.

As for reassigning - no, that is a no-no. But if you were to act as a sub distributor it would be fine. in other words someone could come to us and we could assign them a number, but we would also than be acting as the manufacturer of that product and, as such, when a store wanted to re-order it would come down the pipeline to us to supply new product.

EDIT -

PS - Ok, I get why the DVD issue is now somewhat of a free for all. I have been trying to follow a "standard" that was droppped. Learn something new every day.

In 2002, the UCC requested that the recording industry and retail merchants begin phasing out their use of music product configuration codes within the UPC. These single-digit codes were used in the past to distinguish between CDs, cassettes, vinyl and other configurations. Because of this request from the UCC, the use of UPC configuration codes is no longer recommended by the RIAA.