5 Reasons Why You Can’t Make Up Your Own Barcode Numbers

05/13/2021 12:00 PM by Jake WengroffAs businesses try to manage every expense, they might try to cut corners when it comes to packaging or labeling. Included in the cost of labeling are barcodes, which serve as the unique identifiers for products.In addition to the cost of printing and affixing labels to a product’s packaging, the barcode serves as yet another expense. In order to obtain a barcode, a business is required to register with the global organization that maintains the global barcode database, or pay a service provider to do this on their behalf.However, cutting corners will most certainly backfire. We’ve assembled five reasons why you can’t simply make up your own barcodes, print them from your office printer, and affix them to your products.1. It’s illegalMany people mistakenly think that barcodes are just random numbers generated by a computer. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Barcodes are unique, and their integrity is maintained by GS1 US, the not-for-profit org...