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Month: August 2020

Common Mistakes Made While Printing the Product Barcode

Posted on by Nitesh Agrawal

To be able to sell products in the retail market, manufacturers & brand owners need to affix barcode labels on their products or include barcodes into the product packaging. These 13-digit GTIN numbers printed on product labels/packaging help in uniquely identifying products, and thus, facilitate in its tracking and tracing, inventory management, and product recall if required.

Hence, it is essential for every brand owner to print barcodes accurately to enable efficient scanning with different barcode scanners and in different scanning environments.

In this blog, we are listing some common mistakes that companies make while printing barcodes on their products, which lead to compromised scanning efficiency

  • Light margins/white space is required around the barcode for scanners to read them efficiently. Most companies leave smaller white space than required around the barcode symbol.
  • Since product packaging is small and manufacturers need to convey too much information through it, generally this leads to shortening of barcodes. Check GS1 General Specification for prescribed barcode height on product packaging.
  • Use of incorrect colour combination also leads to poor scanning. Barcode bars should always be of dark colour on white or lighter background. Use of transparent or semitransparent substrates, such as glass or plastic will lead to poor scanning.
  • Printing of barcodes, which are either too large or too small, also adds to problems
  • Incorrect adjustment for ink spread
  • Stretching/compressing barcode symbol horizontally, leading to too wide/too narrow barcode bars
  • Placing labels too close to vertical corners or placing barcodes too close to the edge
  • Peeling and creased labels
  • Using uncovered metal surfaces as a background or for the bars of a symbol. The specular reflectance of the substrate can cause problems
  • Use of the same GTINs on different product lines / SKUs also adds to confusion for retailer/supply chain traders. This defeats the entire purpose of uniquely identifying objects and capturing this identity in the form of barcodes for efficient reading.

Hence, it is crucial for manufacturing companies to follow barcode printing requirements to ensure that the product barcodes can be scanned, wherever required.

Learn more about things to consider when printing and creating barcodes.

Get your barcodes tested

Before bulk printing of product packages, it makes sense for organisations to get their sample product packaging with barcode tested to ensure their scannability.

GS1, a global standards organization, helps businesses to barcode their products with unique identification keys. It also runs a service for brand owners that helps them test their barcodes before bulk printing of product labels.

At the completion of testing, a detailed barcode verification report is provided by GS1 India, which includes recommendations for changes, if necessary. GS1 verification reports are accepted by retailers globally and are a prerequisite for acceptance of products by many.

To know more about this service, visit: https://gs1india.org/content/barcode-verification

Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Products’ Sales Pages

Posted on by Nitesh Agrawal

With the world transforming digitally, a brand owner needs to build and maintain a strong & a powerful online presence for its products with accurate & up-to-date information. This would help them build up a success story which is directly proportional to consumer interaction & trust.

Brand owners need traffic on their product pages to enable sales and enhance their product’s visibility in search engines. The number of visitors on the product sales pages is equivalent to the number of potential consumer opportunities you may have. Better qualified leads turn into conversions which help sell your product or service, attract new customers, and continue to expand your business.

In today’s blog post, we’ve listed down ways to push or increase traffic towards your product page. So, you can build on your success today and start competing with market leaders in your product segment/category.

Let’s get started:

1. Advertise your product on various social media platforms

First and foremost, to increase traffic to your product page is to advertise. Advertise your product on various social media platforms. It is a great way to drive more traffic, attract customers and get your product’s content/promotions across the right target audience

2. Optimize your webpage with right keywords 

If you’re going to add great and relevant content on your product’s page, then it is essential for you to understand the role of SEO in driving more traffic to your page organically.

SEO is a marketing strategy that makes the e-Commerce site show up for different keywords/search terms, which are relevant to your product. Therefore, if anyone enters a search word in Google, the top result, your product page will appear in the search results. SEO and content work hand-in-hand. Great content with relevant keywords help boost traffic on the page organically and increase the rank of the page in search engines.

A good starting point here should be to think about which search terms your product’s page already ranks on.

3. Write attractive headlines to boost CTR (Click Through Rate)

CTR is a technical term to define the clickability of search results. For example, if after getting relevant google ranking for your page and you’re still not being able to drive more traffic to your page, it will be called that your headlines have low CTR.

CTR can be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads are performing. CTR displays a well-written ad – several people who saw it were persuaded that they should participate and react to the page by clicking the link.

To trigger people to visit your page, you have to use power words for psychological and emotional response

4. Invest in GoogleAdwords

Don’t underestimate what online advertising can do to help your business increase your page traffic. One of the best and fastest ways to increase traffic to your product’s page is advertising through Google Adwords. Google AdWords is a form of pay-per-click ads, designed to draw more users to your page.

5. Label your products with barcodes

Did you know that barcode numbers of your products can also help you get better Google ranking?

Yes, you read it right. You can boost your products’ page ranking by using the unique GS1 barcode number of your products in web pages. GS1 barcodes help in the enhancement of products online results, as Google has shown the 40% improvement in the product’s search results when a barcode number is used on the product’s website or webpage, resulting in higher visibility in the marketplace which attracts more business.

Other than this, barcode numbers, subscribers through GS1 India, help in unambiguous and universal identification of products, free barcode management from DataKart service, and compliance with product data requirements of FSSAI, AGMARK, etc.

Bring more traffic to your product’s page using these tips which will support your business and help increase product sales.

Are you a Brand Owner Struggling to Save Your Brand’s Image From Counterfeit Products?

Posted on by Nitesh Agrawal

Counterfeiting threats are real. Brands in all industry sectors, from apparel to health, beauty and electronics, are grappling with questions on how to ensure that their brand value is not undermined by scammers selling fake copies of their goods in the real market-space.

As per a recent report by Authentication Solution Provider’s Association (ASPA), counterfeiting incidents have risen steadily in the last few years and in 2019, these have increased by 24% as compared to 2018. Highest number of cases have been reported in currency, FMCG, alcohol, pharma, documents, agriculture, infrastructure, automotive, tobacco, lifestyle and apparel sectors. Among these, the FMCG sector is most vulnerable as counterfeit incidents in the sector increased by 63%.

Today counterfeiting has become a global industry, threatening the safety of the public and eroding consumer confidence in brands and destroying their reputation.

Problems associated with counterfeiting

Falsified products, especially belonging to healthcare, can have serious adverse effects on the wellbeing of a person. For example, if a person purchases a fake skincare product though the packaging and substance may look similar to the authentic brand but can cause skin infections and rashes when applied.

These consequences, when blown out of proportion using the power of instant communication through social media channels, is likely to damage the brand’s reputation and in turn affect consumer trust and hence sales. Customers are generally unaware that the product they bought is falsified, adds to it.

Secondly, there is also a business hazard of counterfeit goods, as this contributes to a loss of revenue for manufacturers. With the advent of technology and emergence of e-commerce portals, exact product packaging can be duplicated, making it even more difficult to catch counterfeit with the bare eye or on online portals. What’s real and what is fake has become very difficult and the lines become very blurred.

Need for an effective product traceability to stop counterfeiting

This is more critical than ever for brands to protect themselves and ensure that their brand values are not compromised by counterfeit products and gain consumers’ trust.

Traceability technology provides a tool to brands owners to keep themselves one step ahead in combating counterfeiting of products. Brand owners can easily locate the entire batch of their products or any single product from the batch in the supply chain, with an effective traceability system and can take corrective action whenever needed or required which helps in detecting counterfeiting at any level of the supply chain process.

Traceability refers to the organization’s ability to identify, track n trace elements of a product/consignment as it moves along the supply chain from raw goods to finished products.

To prevent counterfeiting of products, GS1 India offers a global standards based traceability service that enables brand owners to easily track and trace their products right through the journey from origin to the point of its sale and consumption. Effective end-to-end traceability service not only helps them to respond to the problems immediately but also anticipate and prevent problems effectively. It helps them to secure data in real-time which further helps to reduce the risk of counterfeiting when products are still in transit.

Learn more about GS1 Traceability Service.

A core component for this is product identification. This can be done by using barcodes/ serialised barcodes on product labels. To know more and register for unique product identification numbers, visit: https://support.gs1india.org/barcode_registration_1

Realising the magnitude of damage caused by counterfeiting to the Indian economy, brands and consumers, Authentication Solutions Providers’ Association (ASPA) and GS1 India have joined hands and signed MOU to take the fight against counterfeiting to the next level in India, using global standards.

To avail the benefits of GS1 India’s Traceability service for a transparent supply chain process, visit us at: https://support.gs1india.org/traceability-service-consultation

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