Most stock errors are typing errors. A code read from a box and typed into a form gets a digit wrong once in a few hundred times, and once is enough to put 50 units on the wrong product.
A barcode moves the reading from a person to a camera. It does not make the stock more accurate; it makes the recording of it more accurate, which is where the errors are. And it no longer needs a scanner: the camera on the phone in your pocket reads a barcode in well under a second.
Three kinds of code
EAN-13. The 13-digit code on nearly every retail product in Europe. The first digits identify the company that registered it, through GS1, the next identify the product, and the last is a check digit calculated from the others, so a misread almost always fails the check instead of matching the wrong product. UPC-A is the 12-digit North American version of the same system.
Your own codes. Any text, usually your product code, printed as a barcode in a format such as Code 128. It means nothing outside your business and needs no registration. It identifies the product to your system, which is all a warehouse needs.
QR codes hold more data and read from any angle, but for identifying a product on a shelf they add nothing over a linear barcode, and most label printers and scanners handle both.
Which to use
Use the manufacturer’s EAN or UPC when the product arrives with one. It is already printed, it is unique, and it works on every scanner in the world.
Print your own when the product has no barcode: raw materials, parts bought in bulk, items you repackage, products you make. Encode your product code and nothing else. Do not encode the quantity, the shelf or the supplier, because those change and the label does not.
You need GS1 numbers only if you sell through retailers or marketplaces that require them. For your own warehouse, your own codes are enough, and they cost nothing.
One product can carry several: the manufacturer’s EAN on the box and your own code on the shelf edge. Both should resolve to the same product record.
Printing labels
A label printer is a modest purchase, and a sheet of labels through an office printer works for small volumes. What matters is the content:
- The barcode and the human-readable code under it, so a person can check what the camera read.
- The product name, short, so a label on the wrong shelf is noticed.
- Nothing that changes. No price, no quantity, no location.
Label the shelf edge rather than the product when the product’s own packaging will do, and label the product when it moves between shelves.
Print the shelf codes too. Scanning the product and then the shelf, instead of typing either, is how shelf positions stay true.
Scanning with a phone
A phone camera reads EAN, UPC, Code 128 and QR codes through the browser, with no app to install. It is slower than a dedicated scanner by a fraction of a second, and it is always with the person who needs it. For a few hundred scans a day it is the right tool.
Three habits make phone scanning reliable:
- Good light and a flat label. Curved bottles and shadowed shelves are where scans fail.
- Scan, then read the name on screen. The scan found a product; the name confirms it is the one in your hand.
- A code that fails to scan is a label to replace, not a code to type. Typed codes are the error you were removing.
Barcodes in StockBold
In StockBold a product can carry an EAN, a UPC, a barcode of your own and a product code, and a scan matches any of them. On a phone, a Scan button beside the product field finds the product when you record a stock-out or a transfer, Scan & Move asks for the shelf as you go, and during a stock count a scan jumps to the product’s row ready for the counted quantity.
On import, EAN-13 and UPC-A codes with a wrong check digit are flagged before anything is saved, so a mistyped barcode never reaches the catalogue. StockBold runs in the browser, so the phone needs nothing installed.
Read more about inventory management in StockBold, or the help guide on running a stock count.