All the benefits of having ITF-14 barcodes for your business

The In’s and outs of ITF-14 barcodes

So, what is the story with ITF-14 barcodes? What are they used for? Why would I need them for my business? Why don’t you sit back, relax and we, at www.barcodesolutions.co.za. will tell you all about them?

Firstly, ITF-14 barcodes are also called Case or Box barcodes for the obvious reason that they are used on boxes or cases. When these 14 digit barcodes are scanned, it will bring up the total number of items in a box and what items the box should be carrying. For example, a 6 pack of beer. Each individual bottle of beer will have the same EAN placed on it. However, on the case, there will be a completely separate code called case barcodes that indicate that there are 6 bottles of beer inside the case. This helps retailers to load your products onto their inventory quickly and effectively in the receiving area without having to manually open each and every box delivered to the store and check the contents to ensure it matches the delivery note.

The way we create the ITF-14 barcodes is simply by extending the normal 13 digit EAN in order to produce the longer number. Therefore, if you are providing your products in bulk to retailers, it may be necessary to buy both the individual product barcodes (EAN) as well as the corresponding ITF-14 barcodes for boxes. We can provide both of these formats for you. The process is very simple and quick. Firstly, we will create and register the EAN for your product. After this, we will create the ITF-14 barcodes by extending this EAN to form the new ITF-14 barcodes. These will be yours for life and you will not need to pay any renewal fees. That is one of the main benefits of purchasing from companies like us as we cater for small and start-up businesses that do not want to spend a huge amount of their budget on barcoding. We always keep our clients in mind when it comes to our pricing structure.

Next Question to ask is how to apply these to your product. You have two options. Firstly, you can incorporate them into the package design of your box. Your other option is to print them onto stickers which you can then attach to each case or your product. This can go for both formats, EAN and ITF-14label roll

What size should the ITF-14 barcodes be? It is very important that it be large enough to be able to be scanned. The minimum height should be 13mm high. However, the larger they are, the better. 32 mm is the recommended height to make sure that the barcodes can be scanned accurately. We highly recommend doing a test scan before doing your full print run. Remember these formats of code need to be scanned easily and quickly, as you can imagine a receiving area of a Massmart or distributor can get extremely busy at times and receiving in stock needs to be a streamlined process, therefore having nice big and clear codes printed on your box or on stickers placed on your box makes everything easy and smooth. No errors and siles all around.

Are they really necessary? This will all depend on the retailers that you intend to supply with your product. Some retailers in South Africa will not require these and others will, that is why we always advise our clients not to buy them unless instructed to do so by your chosen retailer. They will more than likely provide you with documentation on what is required form their side in order to stock on your product and there will be a section stating what formats you would need to acquire. Generally, only the very large retailers will request that you purchase these. We are here to help you in any way we can. Our service is quick, efficient, and affordable.

The downside of this format is that the scanner needs to be very close in order to scan it accurately, that is why the bigger size is also a plus. In addition, they are not able to store any information, such as a product description or an expiry date but this is not needed for the purpose that they serve. Despite this, they are still very worthwhile to have and make the retail process a lot smoother and more efficient. And make your company look 100 times more professional, which is one of the great goals for all of us business owners. So we understand where the need is for our customers and we provide it to you in a stress free friendly manner.

In conclusion, whatever barcodes you are looking for, we should be the first people you call. We provide the full range of barcodes including EAN & UPC , ISSN & ISBN, QR codes and ITF-14. You can be 100 % confident that your assigned barcodes are unique and have not been used before. We follow vigorous procedures to ensure this. When buying from us we also include a certificate for you which shows that you are the legal owner of the barcodes that we have provided you with, this certificate can be presented to your retailers as well. If you perhaps feel unsure about any of the information provided in this article, please feel free to contact us during office hours via phone or email and we can answer any questions you have.