Successful online retailing is founded on quality data and one key area of importance is correct use of GTINs.
Having a unique code for each item you stock has been a game changer in retail. It enables easy, accurate management and tracking of pricing, stock volumes, product data, photography, and of course makes sure the right items get sent to each customer.
Within a business that is all usually achieved with SKU codes. Whether you call them “S-K-U’s”, “Item codes”, “skews” or something else, the job they do is the same. They exist to make it easy for you to keep track of your stock and how it’s performing so you can manage its location and selling price to achieve the highest possible margin.
There are no rules for how to structure a SKU code, usually they are constructed in a way that makes it easier to manage the products, for example:
· 1234SS19, 1234AW20 — the last 4 digits refer to the season when each product was first introduced. A great way to quickly manage product life cycles.
· 1234BLU10, 1234BLU12 — the 3 letters relate to the colour of the garment, the numbers after the colour are the size, the first 4 digits are the ‘product’. Makes double checking each item is in the right place in the warehouse nice and quick.
Everything about SKU codes is designed to be useful within a business, they aren’t designed to be shared between businesses. They tend to be unique to each retailer, in one retailer 123S might be a ladies baseball hat in salmon, in another retailer it could be a vase from the summer collection.
That means when lots of retailers try to sell products in the same place (on a marketplace) chaos can ensue because there is no easy way for the marketplace to understand what products they have and how best to market them. Especially when it comes to advertising on the search engines.
To resolve this chaos requires a form of ‘global SKU code’, a product code system that all retailers use and which can bring all the benefits SKU codes give the individual retailer to marketplace selling.
Over the years there have been several different ‘global SKU code’ formats (UPC, ISBN, ISSN etc) these are now consolidating under the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) standard developed by GS1.
The GTINs can be 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits long and have different formats for different uses — from wholesale shipment tracking, to in-store barcode scanning.
The most important thing about them is that GTINs are unique to each product and the same code should be used by everyone and anyone selling that product.
GTINs are usually easy to get hold of and make marketplace selling considerably easier for both the merchant and the marketplace.
There are also plans to start centrally tying product information to GTINs so that product content (images, specifications, copy) can quickly be updated wherever it is online.
At Fruugo it’s all about the GTIN
To sell on Fruugo your products HAVE to have a GTIN. GTINs are how Fruugo keep track of all the different merchant’s products and are an essential part of how they market your products for you in each region you chose to sell into.
The GTINs are applied at variant level — so there should be a GTIN for every single SKU you want to sell via Fruugo, or to put it another way for every single line on the spreadsheet/feed you supply.
There are a handful of product types where Fruugo doesn’t require a GTIN, like personalised products and own brand goods — find out more here or contact us to find out if some of your products are exempt from requiring a GTIN.
Google Shopping (which Fruugo and other marketplaces use), does require you to submit brand and ideally mpn attributes for products without a GTIN. The provide more information on this here.
Who Provides GTIN Numbers?
If you are responsible for the creation of your own products then you are responsible for getting the GTINs created for your products. To do that you need to go direct to GS1.
GS1 are the global body who administer the GTIN codes, they are only official provider of GTINs and EAN/UPC barcodes globally and have offices in most countries who can help you purchase and use your codes correctly.
The process is very simple, and starts from as little as a few hundred pounds which includes your first 1,000 codes.
Click here to get started.
How to get GTINs for your products if your products are not unique to you
If you buy your products from other designers/retailers/manufacturers then you need to ask them to give you the relevant GTINs.
Ask each company you’ve sourced products from for the GTINs you need.
For many of your suppliers providing GTIN lists is part of their day to day, so you may have already been given them, or a quick email to your contact will get you the right spreadsheet.
For some though it might be the first time they’ve been asked, in which case go to GS1!
If you know the GTINs exist for the products, but can’t get them from your supplier you could always resort to copying the numbers from the barcodes on the products themselves.
If you can only get GTINs for some of your products — then don’t let that stop you, you can still start selling the products you do have GTINs for on Fruugo whilst you wait for the others to come in.
GTINs aren’t just about Fruugo
Once you’ve got your GTINs into your product feed to help Fruugo market your products both at home and overseas you should also use them to improve how your products are represented on other platforms too.
Whilst not essential in every product category on Amazon and eBay they are highly recommended for all listings.
With product feeds for Google Shopping Ads and Bing Product Ads GTINs are required for all new products where a GTIN has been assigned by the manufacturer (so if there is one, and you don’t have it in your feed your product may be disapproved).
Common Reasons GTINs are Disapproved
Within Fruugo we often see retailers getting disapprovals in Google Shopping for GTIN related issues. The following are some of the most common disapproval reasons we see:
· Unsupported value (reserved) [gtin] — these GTINs fall within restricted ranges that are saved for use in the future
· Unsupported coupon value [gtin] — the submitted GTIN is used for coupons only. These generally start with 981, 982, 983, 984, 99, or 05.
· Incorrect product identifier [gtin] — Incorrect GTIN has been used
· Incorrect identifier [gtin] — — Incorrect GTIN has been used — usually a GTIN from another product has been used in error
· Invalid value [gtin] — Google state this error occurs if ‘the value contains characters that aren’t numerals, has an invalid checksum, or uses formatting that doesn’t match one of the standard GTIN types’.
Useful links
· Google Shopping GTIN Requirements
· Get your GTINs from GS1
Thanks to
Pradip Khagram, from GS1 UK for his help in researching this article
Ready to get your GTINs organised so you can get selling cross-border? Speak to the Fruugo Sales Team today.
