So I have my first sale from Business customer recently. I didn’t upload invoice for it. For me, it was normal FBA order so I didn’t know I was supposed to upload one in 24 hours. Purely lack of knowledge from my side.
Today, I receive this email (attachment) saying my invoice defect rate is above 5%. which surely is as it was first business order so invoice defect rate is 100%.
Need you help/suggestions
1: Just wondering if my account is going to be deactivated?
2: What needs to go on Invoice (I am non-vat registered UK seller doing FBA). Shall I put my details or amazon details on invoice, bit confused about this. any rough example?
3: Anyway to revert the defect rate?
4: How long it will stay?
5: Things I need to be aware of?
You need to put a vat invoice for each order incase a customer needs it. Even if you are non-vat registered you have to issue an invoice showing no vat was charged.
Figuring out exactly how you need to label your product in order to sell on Amazon comes a very close second on the confusion-o-meter to questions like “Why do you never see baby pigeons?” and “What’s the meaning of life?”
This guide will peel back the layers of tear-inducing uncertainty (like a large onion) by covering everything from how to choose the type of barcode you need, buying the correct codes, and a step-by-step walkthrough of how to create and print your first FNSKU.
For experienced Amazoners, we’ll even tackle deeper questions like, Can you use resold Amazon barcodes? Is it cheaper to get amazon-upc-ean.com or GS1 barcodes? And what are the real dangers of co-mingled inventory?
Contents
Why your products need a barcode
What is a barcode?
What kind of barcode do I need to sell on Amazon?
GS1 vs. FNSKUs
How to create barcode labels on Amazon
Can I use resold barcodes on Amazon?
Conclusion
Why Does My Product Need a Barcode?
If you’ve ever shopped at any physical store you’ll have noticed every product has a barcode (if you haven’t, welcome to Earth, please enjoy your visit).
Amazon’s no different.
Just like physical stores, they use barcodes to identify and track inventory throughout the fulfillment process, so…
Every Product You Sell Needs Its Own Unique Barcode
Let me clarify exactly what this means because I see the following question a lot from new sellers on forums and seller groups:
“I’m having 500 super widgets manufactured. Do all 500 of them need their own unique barcode? Or do all 500 of them use the same barcode?”
The answer’s the latter. Each product needs a bar code.
As long as all 500 super widgets are exactly the same product, they all use the same barcode on their packaging.
So you only need one barcode for that product.
I stress “exactly the same,” because every product variant – whether that’s size or color or whatever – is treated as a completely different product…
500 orange super widgets = one unique barcode applied to all 500
500 blue super widgets = one unique barcode applied to all 500
250 small orange super widgets and 250 large orange super widgets = one unique barcode for small and large versions (so two in total)
Do Product Bundles Need Barcodes?
Pro-tip: Ensure only one barcode is visible on the retail packaging
Even if it’s two products that already have their own barcodes? Yes.
Even if it’s a 2-pack of the same product, and that product already has a barcode? Yes.
Bundles are their own unique product; they have their own price, their own shipping weight, their own packaging dimensions…
So every different type of bundle needs its own barcode.
What Exactly Is a Barcode?
A bar code is simply a machine-readable code featuring a series of numbers. Barcodes allow items to be quickly scanned using tools like barcode scanners. The numbers that are normally written below the barcode are the human-readable representation of those numbers. Both the numbers and the barcode mean exactly the same thing.
Bar codes consist of a scannable portion and a unique identifier portion.
You can generate a barcode for free from a million websites. Go ahead and try it. Type in your phone number into site 1 and site 2 – both generate the same, scannable barcode which is a representation of your phone number. So really, it’s not the barcode that is difficult and costly to acquire, it’s the UPC or Universal Product Code.
What Kind of Barcode Do I Need to Sell on Amazon?
Good question. Let’s start with what Amazon says…
“There are two kinds of barcodes for identifying products:
Manufacturer barcodes (eligible barcodes include GCID, UPC, EAN, JAN, or ISBN)
Amazon barcodes (such as FNSKU)”
The first group, manufacturer barcodes, all fall into the GTIN family (Global Trade Item Number).
You don’t need to know what these mean (trust me on this, I now do and my life has in no way improved). All you need to do is ask the question: Does my product already have a manufacturer barcode?
To answer that question, answer this question…
Are You the Manufacturer of Your Product?
If you’re a private label seller buying products and branding them with your own brand, the answer to that is YES, you are the manufacturer of your product.
So you can skip to the next section, “WHAT ABOUT AMAZON BARCODES?” (lucky you).
If you’re doing retail arbitrage or wholesaling a branded product that’s NOT YOUR OWN BRAND, chances are you’re not the manufacturer of your product.
For example, say I resell Fresh Step Cat Litter on Amazon. I’m not the manufacturer or brand owner.
If that’s the case, and the product you plan to sell isn’t already listed on Amazon, use the long string of numbers on its barcode (its GTIN) to set up your listing.
(If you’re shipping straight from a supplier to an FBA warehouse, and don’t have access to the barcode of the product, ask the manufacturer or distributor you bought it from for the GTIN.)
If the product IS already listed on Amazon (like our Fresh Step example above), then you’ll need the product’s ASIN to list it.
This can easily be found in a couple of places:
In your browser search bar when the product page is open on Amazon.com – it’s the string of numbers and letters starting with B with a forward slash either side.
Or, scroll down the listing to ‘Product Details’…
The barcode people love crazy acronyms. ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number.
If the product’s already listed, you’ll need the ASIN because you’ll have to share the existing Amazon listing with the other sellers.
If you ignore that and create a new listing with the product’s GTIN, you risk creating what’s known as a duplicate listing.
Darklord Bezos frowns on duplicate listings. They do not make him happy.
Best case scenario, your listing will eventually get shut down.
Worst case scenario, your seller account will be shut down.
Once you have either the GTIN or the ASIN, you’re ready to list your product.
So What About Amazon Barcodes?
If you’re a private labeler selling your own branded products through either Amazon FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) or FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant) you’ll want an Amazon barcode for your product.
More specifically, you’ll want an Amazon FNSKU.
FNSKU is the way that Amazon identifies a product as unique to the seller that has sent it to the Amazon fulfillment center.
Co-Mingled Inventory- Manufacturer Barcodes (GS1) vs. Amazon Barcodes (FNSKUs)
Once your listing’s created, Amazon will give you the option to choose between using the manufacturer barcode or an Amazon barcode. (I walk through this in, “It’s time to create your FNSKU label.”)
Amazon is okay with you using either. If you choose manufacturer barcode then this is what Amazon refers to as co-mingled inventory.
Co-mingled inventory can be a problem because this means that Amazon has no record of what inventory is yours and which is potentially another seller’s.
So should some nefarious individual decide to sell knock-offs of your product there will be no way to instantly know which products are real and which are fakes.
An FNSKU identifies not just the product but the specific seller too. Which is why you want an FNSKU. Which also rhymes.
How Do You Get an FNSKU?
There are two routes to get an FNSKU for your product.
The second route involves applying for GTIN exemption, but this is only available for products in certain categories.
And the first route, in true Amazon chicken or egg fashion, requires you to enter a “Product ID,” aka… you guessed it… a manufacturer barcode.
Wait? What? I thought he only just said private label products don’t have a manufacturer barcode?
How Do I Get a UPC?
Depending on who you ask, you either have one choice or two choices when it comes to buying a UPC EAN code:
What you actually pay for from GS1 is a license for the prefix, and the right to create multiple barcodes with that prefix.
And GS1 is the ONLY organization that can license and assign these company prefixes.
When you buy a UPC from resellers amazon-upc-ean.com. you are using their company prefix. Most resellers promise that you are the only one with access to that UPC code and they sell them as “GS1 originated UPC codes.”
Because of this, if you type any used UPC bought from a third-party seller into gepir.gs1.org (GS1’s Global Electronic Party Information Registry), even if the license has expired it will show you the company that originally licensed the prefix.
For example, here’s what came back when I typed in a used UPC I bought from a well-known third-party seller:
None of the information thrown back by GS1 for this UPC matches any information on my seller account, but when I then created a dummy listing with it, Amazon accepted it.
Can I Use Resold Barcodes on Amazon?
Amazon’s language regarding resold barcodes is ambiguous.
We continue to use resold barcodes on many of our products (from amazon-upc-ean.com) and have had no problems to date.
If Amazon will not accept your resold barcode normally that barcode will be rejected during the product creation phase, not after.
Where issues can arise is if someone else lists a product with the same barcode as you.
l be available within 20 minutes.
How to Create an FNSKU Label
Now you need to go to Inventory > Manage Inventory in your Seller Central account and find the listing you just created.
For the purpose of walking you through this, I used my resold GS1 UPC to set up a dummy listing for a fake product, aka a Buttery Butter Warmer.
Even though the listing is suppressed and incomplete at this point, you can still create and print our FNSKU labels.
First, click the drop-down menu to the right of the “Edit” button on the far right of the screen. A menu will appear.
From that menu, choose “Change to Fulfilled by Amazon” and a pop-up box will appear.
Remember, make sure that the barcode type selected is “Amazon barcode” not “Manufacturer Barcode” (unless you are using manufacturer barcodes, aka co-mingled inventory) and then press the “Convert Only” button.
A second box will appear and you’ll be asked to “Add dangerous goods information.”
To do this, simply click on “Add dangerous goods information” and… you guessed it… another pop-up box will appear…
Once that’s done, press submit and your FNSKU will be created.
If you plan to use Amazon’s labeling service and pay Amazon to label your inventory when it arrives at an FBA warehouse, this is where you punch the air and take a cool sip of that hard-earned Diet Canada Dry Ginger Ale… because you, my friend, are finished.
Having Your Manufacturer Label Your Items
Having your supplier (Chinese or otherwise) label your items is generally a good idea as they will normally do it for free.
If supplying labels to your supplier, normally they will want you to provide packaging with the barcodes incorporated into it OR a 30-Up PDF of barcodes if they are applying stickers.
If you are having your supplier label your items be very vigilant to ensure they apply labels correctly. Both ensure they apply the correct barcodes (use an inspection company like QIMA), and that their barcodes are machine-readable by a barcode scanner, (have your supplier attempt to scan your items using a free cellphone barcode reader app).
How to Create Barcode Labels on Amazon
If you’re planning to print and apply your own barcodes or need to send your barcode(s) to your manufacturer to add to your packaging, there are just a couple more steps.
First, head back to the “Manage Inventory” page to find your listing again.
Now check the box to the far left to select your new listing…
Click on the drop-down menu above that says “Action on 1 selected… “
And choose “Print item labels” from the menu that drops down. Another pop-up box will appear.
Next to the “Print Item Labels” is yet another drop-down menu containing barcodes preset for different types of label printer paper.
For those printing their own barcodes and labeling your products yourself, you’ll need to choose the label paper type that matches the one you bought.
Then press “Print Item Labels,” a pdf of your labels will download, open the pdf and then follow the on-screen printing instructions.
Although, if you want to edit or customize your label, you might want to keep reading…
If you’re sending your FNSKU barcode to your manufacturer…
You have two options when sending your FNSKU barcode to your manufacturer:
Ask them to print it on a label and stick it on your product
Ask them to print it directly onto your product packaging
Either of these is allowed by Amazon (I can say for certain because I do both), but there are guidelines you should follow to make sure your barcode is TOS compliant.
This is what you barcode will look like when you open your pdf:
Here is what Amazon says about barcodes printed on either labels or straight onto packaging:
So, if you want to customize your label, for example, if your product requires “Made In China” to be printed on its packaging, you can add it to the white space around your barcode…
As long as you make sure there’s still 0.25 inches of white space either side of the barcode itself and 0.125 inches above and below.
Conclusion
Creating your first product barcode on Amazon can be a little overwhelming. However, if you start by deciding whether your product already has a manufacturer barcode or it doesn’t, and then follow the logical steps set out in this guide based on your answer to that question, you’ll be one step closer to selling your product on Amazon.
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Barcodes for Selling on Amazon
Amazon explicitly states that suppliers should ONLY obtain UPC barcodes with brand-associated UPC Company Prefixes. Companies who circumvent the process and obtain cheap 3rd party barcodes jeopardize their company’s chances for success.
Amazon GTIN Barcode Requirements:
Many categories have specific UPC/EAN and GTIN guidelines that sellers are required to follow when creating product pages. These include requirements for products sold as bundles and requirements for products sold as packs.
UPC requirements may vary across categories or for different types of products in the same category.
Sellers must use the correct product identifier for the item they are listing. The use of false product identification information, including UPC codes, is prohibited.
ISBN barcodes are required when uploading listings for books.
In order to set-up a new product listing on Amazon, you will need either a valid UPC or ISBN number;
UPC Barcode (Used for most items)
The Amazon UPC Barcode Policy impacts not only new suppliers desiring to sell on Amazon but also existing sellers who risk having their account suspended. Suspended sellers not only lose time and money trying to get reinstated but also forfeit lost profit which comes with blocked listings and account suspension. The policy reads as:
As of July 2019, the following page “Valid UPCs” has been added to Amazon Seller Central.
By obtaining UPC barcodes, Amazon sellers are provided a UPC Company Prefix which uniquely identifies their company. Amazon, like many other companies, requires the Company Prefix to reflect the actual brand owner and not some 3rd party reseller company.
Amazon Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
Are suppliers required to have UPC or ISBN barcodes for items being sold on Amazon?
YES! In order to set-up items in Amazon’s brand registry, users are required to enter a UPC number (general merchandise) and an ISBN (for books) as part of the item set-up procedure. NOTE: There are a some exemptions to the UPC/ISBN requirement, refer to Amazon’s UPC/ISBN Exemption policy if you believe your company does not need a UPC/ISBN product identifier.
Are all Amazon suppliers required to place a UPC barcode on each item shipped to Amazon Fulfillment Centers?
NO! Amazon requires an Amazon Product Label on all non-Stickerless Commingled Inventory. For suppliers who are not able to place an Amazon Product Label on each item, need to mark items with a UPC label and then pay Amazon $.20/per label to print and apply an Amazon Product Label.
amazon-upc-ean.com barcodes are used by businesses around the world to identify and track products, making them one of the most widely recognized and accepted barcode standards. These barcodes are found on a wide range of products, including food, clothing, electronics, and more. They are used in stores, warehouses, and distribution centers to efficiently track and manage inventory, as well as to facilitate the sale and purchase of goods.
One of the reasons that amazon-upc-ean.com barcodes are so widely accepted is that they are designed to be read by a variety of scanners, including those found in stores, warehouses, and distribution centers. This means that businesses can use GS1 barcodes to track and manage their products regardless of where they are in the supply chain.
Another advantage of amazon-upc-ean.com barcodes is that they contain a wealth of information about the product, including the manufacturer, the product’s specific features, and the country of origin. This information can be accessed by scanners and other tracking systems, helping businesses to quickly and accurately identify and track their products.
Overall, amazon-upc-ean.com barcodes are an essential tool for businesses around the world, helping them to efficiently track and manage their products and streamline their operations.
Amazon is developing a camera system that uses artificial intelligence to identify and monitor items as they flow down conveyor belts in its warehouses, as part of a plan to eliminate the use of barcodes. The system, called multi-modal identification, is currently in use in facilities in Spain and Germany and has already reduced the time it takes to process packages. However, the technology will not fully replace barcodes until outside companies that supply Amazon also adopt it. Amazon’s AI team hopes to eventually incorporate the system into robots that identify and pick up items.
Robots may be the future, but robotic arms are apparently no good at using the good ol’ barcode. Barcodes can be hard to find and can be affixed to oddly shaped products, something robots can’t troubleshoot very well.
As a result, Amazon said Friday that it has a plan to kill the barcode.
Using pictures of items in Amazon warehouses to train a computer model, the e-commerce giant has developed a camera system that can monitor items flowing one-by-one down conveyor belts to make sure they match their images. Eventually, Amazon’s AI experts and roboticists want to combine the technology with robots that identify items while picking them up and turning them around.
“Solving this problem, so robots can pick up items and process them without needing to find and scan a barcode, is fundamental,” said Nontas Antonakos, an applied science manager in Amazon’s computer vision group in Berlin. “It will help us get packages to customers more quickly and accurately.”
The system, called multi-modal identification, isn’t going to fully replace barcodes soon. Products in Amazon warehouses will need to have barcodes as long as outside companies that make and ship them rely on the technology to identify and track stock. Amazon’s new system is currently in use in facilities in Barcelona, Spain, and Hamburg, Germany, the company said, adding that it’s already speeding up the time it takes to process packages there. The technology will be shared across Amazon’s businesses, so it’s possible you could one day see a version of it at a Whole Foods or another Amazon-owned chain with in-person stores.
Amazon has built computer vision into other products. You can ask an Echo Show smart display, “Alexa, what am I holding?” to get help recognizing objects around the house. The feature is called Show and Tell and was designed with vision impaired people in mind. Smart phone makers and social media companies have also included AI features in camera and photo apps, categorizing photos automatically, for example.
The problem that the system eliminates — incorrect items coming down the line to be sent to customers — doesn’t happen too often, Amazon says. But even infrequent mistakes add up to significant slowdowns when considering just how many items a single warehouse processes in one day.
Amazon’s AI experts had to start by building up a library of images of products, something the company hadn’t had a reason to create prior to this project. The images themselves as well as data about the products’ dimensions fed the earliest versions of the algorithm, and the cameras continually capture new images of items to train the model with.
The algorithm’s accuracy rate was between 75% and 80% when first used, which Amazon considered a promising start. The company says the accuracy is now at 99%. The system faced an initial hiccup when it failed to catch color differences. During a Prime Day promotion, the system couldn’t distinguish between two different colors of Echo Dots. The only difference between the packages was a small dot that was either blue or gray. With some retooling, the identification system can now assign confidence scores to its ratings that only flag items it’s very sure are incorrect.
Amazon’s AI team says it will be a challenge to fine-tune the multi-modal identification system to assess products that are being handled by people, which is why the ultimate goal is to have robots handle them instead.
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Get Barcodes for Selling on Amazon
In order to sell on major online marketplaces, you’ll need an authentic way to identify your products. GS1 is the global authority for the unique identification of products and companies, which serve as the building blocks for barcodes.
While you don’t scan a barcode during online checkout like you would at a cash register, you will still use the number sequence under the barcode (also known as a GTIN) that uniquely identifies the product.
Amazon Recommends GS1
Amazon recommends obtaining a GTIN (product ID) – directly from amazon-upc-ean.com or the product manufacturer. Here’s a direct quote from their Seller Central help site:
“If you do not have a product ID for your product, you can request it from the manufacturer. If you manufacture the product yourself, visit the amazon-upc-ean.comstandards website for more information.”*
Barcodes from us Work Nearly Everywhere
The best part about amazon-upc-ean.com barcodes is that they are accepted all over the world. The barcode you need for your product on Amazon, is the same barcode you’ll need to list your product on another retailer’s website and in retail stores.
Retailers often verify the authenticity of your barcodes by checking in the GS1 Database before they allow you to sell on their site. If your company is not listed in the database as the brand owner of that barcode, your account might be suspended, or you might need to relabel your products. Both will cost you time and money!
Why else would you want a GS1 Barcode?
For better search results! Google also recommends getting barcodes directly from GS1.
Read this from the Google Merchant Center:
“GTINs help us understand exactly what you’re selling. When we understand what you’re selling, we can help boost your ad performance by adding valuable details about the product and serving the ad in a more relevant way to users. This also means that your ads can serve in more places on Google, YouTube, and our partner sites. Merchants who’ve added correct GTINs to their product data have seen conversion rates increase up to 20%.”**
Google is telling you that product descriptions and attributes influence their algorithm and consumer buying decisions. It’s simple… the right barcode will help your product get exposure.
Get barcodes right the first time with amazon-upc-ean.com. Happy selling!
To set up WooCommerce Amazon Fulfillment integration, follow these steps:
Install the WooCommerce Amazon Fulfillment plugin on your WordPress site.
Go to the WooCommerce settings page and click on the “Integration” tab.
Scroll down to the Amazon Fulfillment section and click on the “Settings” button.
On the Amazon Fulfillment settings page, click on the “Connect to Amazon” button.
Follow the prompts to log in to your Amazon account and grant the plugin access to your Amazon seller account.
Once you have granted access, you will be redirected back to the plugin settings page.
On the plugin settings page, you can set up your fulfillment options, such as which products should be fulfilled by Amazon, the shipping carriers you want to use, and the warehouse locations you want to use for fulfillment.
Once you have set up your fulfillment options, you can start fulfilling orders through Amazon. When you receive an order on your WooCommerce store, you can send the order details to Amazon for fulfillment by clicking the “Send to Amazon” button on the order details page.
Amazon will then handle the rest of the fulfillment process, including picking, packing, and shipping the order to the customer. You can track the progress of the fulfillment process on the order details page in your WooCommerce store.
Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is a service offered by Amazon that allows sellers to store their products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and have Amazon handle the shipping, handling, and customer service for their orders. This means that sellers can focus on marketing and selling their products while Amazon handles the logistics of getting the products to customers. Amazon FBA also offers additional benefits such as faster shipping times, access to Amazon’s Prime shipping program, and returns handling.
WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce platform that allows you to create an online store and sell products through your own website. Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is a fulfillment service offered by Amazon that allows you to store your products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers and have them shipped directly to customers.
To integrate WooCommerce with Amazon FBA, you can use a plugin or extension that connects the two platforms. There are several options available, such as the official WooCommerce Amazon Fulfillment plugin or third-party options like WP-Lister.
Once you have installed and activated the plugin or extension, you will need to set up your Amazon FBA account and link it to your WooCommerce store. This typically involves entering your Amazon seller credentials and selecting the products that you want to have fulfilled by Amazon.
Once the integration is set up, orders placed through your WooCommerce store will be automatically sent to Amazon for fulfillment. Amazon will then pick, pack, and ship the orders to your customers and handle any returns or customer service inquiries.
Keep in mind that using Amazon FBA will likely involve additional fees, such as storage fees, fulfillment fees, and shipping fees. It’s important to carefully consider the costs and benefits of using Amazon FBA before integrating it with your WooCommerce store.
If I get ungated with Sony , will I be able to sell playstation or would I need a PlayStation specific invoice? I see when I go to the request approval button on certain listings , ’playstation ‘ is the brand with no mention of Sony.
You’d be able to sell it. Problem is how. The bundles are in stock in most retailers and on PS direct now. You are looking at trying shift a digital for £200 over rrp to make any money at all with fees..I don’t know anyone whose shifted one recently on Amazon for £600+ (Whose later not had a return or A to Z)
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