The significance of using product identification codes is to facilitate management, storage and access, and improve efficiency. UPC code is one of the product identification codes. The UPC code system was established by the Uniform Code Council of the United States in 1973 and the code was fully standardized. It is a symbol of product information. The origin and other relevant information of the product can be read through electronic scanning. In addition to UPC code, there is also EAN code. China uses EAN code.
EAN code (European Article Number) is a commercial barcode developed by the International Article Numbering Association. It is universally used. The prefix range assigned to the China Article Coding Center is 690~699. The China Article Coding Center then uniformly assigns enterprise codes, and product codes are compiled by manufacturers according to regulations.
EAN code is a product identification symbol established on the basis of UPC code, and has been developed and innovated based on the relevant experience of UPC code. They are both recognized by GS1, but on the technical level, the photoelectric reader of EAN system can recognize UPC code, while the photoelectric reader of UPC system is relatively backward and cannot recognize EAN code. This is also the reason why UPC code can be replaced by EAN code on Amazon. EAN code can be used to upload products on North American site, while UPC code cannot be uploaded to European site.
Although international organizations hoped to uniformly adopt EAN/UCC-13 code identification system worldwide many years ago, since the data files used by many users in North America are still not compatible with it, it is still necessary to use UCC-12 coding structure represented by UPC-A or UPC-E.
Due to the existence of these two mainstream coding systems in the world, when Chinese products are exported, UPC code should be used for products sold to the United States and Canada, and EAN code should be used for products sold to other countries and regions.
The structure of the standard EAN code and standard UPC code is as follows.
Standard EAN code: country code (2 or 3 digits) + manufacturer code (5 or 4 digits) + product code (5 digits) + check code (1 digit).
Standard UPC code: system code (1 digit) + manufacturer code (5 digits) + product code (5 digits) + check code (1 digit). It should be noted that adding 0 in front of the UPC code will turn the UPC code into an EAN code.