What is an Electronic Product Catalog and Bar Coding?
Electronic Product Catalogs
Electronic Product Catalogs are very similar to paper catalogs; however, they do not have to go through a slow, expensive printing process, which allows them to be updated frequently. These catalogs are used by buying organizations and are sometimes mandated for suppliers.
Catalog service providers act as a central repository for multiple vendors’ catalogs. These repositories support customer-specific pricing and a broad range of product information. This enables buyers to access the catalog to request information from specific suppliers or search for specific product information.
Usually, Electronic Product Catalogs can be populated several different ways including:
- EDI Transaction Set- 832
- Spreadsheet
- Proprietary web-based applications for direct entry and updating
Bar Coding
Many types of barcodes exist to identify products; however the following are the most commonly used:
- GTIN- A Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is a 14-digit number that identifies your merchandise. The GTIN is quickly replacing the UPC. This number is an umbrella UCC identification number for other UCC numbers (UPC, EAN-13, and EAN-8) and can be achieved by padding the number with left justified zeros until reaching 14 total digits. In other words, if you have UPC numbers and need GTINs, add 2 zeros to the front of the UPC number.
- UPC- The Universal Product Code (UPC) is a standardized way for your Trading Partner to identify your products. The majority of Trading Partners require you, their suppliers, to have UPCs. The UPC is a 12 digit number, which is usually made up of a 6 digit block ID (UCC Manufacturer’s ID), 5-digits that identifies your product, and the last digit is a check digit. The check digit is a calculation based on the previous 11 digits.
- EAN- The European Article Number (EAN) is the European version of the consumer bar code.
- EPC- The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is the electronic bar code embedded into RFID chips.
