GTIN

GTIN or Global Trade Item Number is used to uniquely identify trade items.

It is useful to have an unique number to identify any single product or service all over the world. This number can be seen encoded in barcode form in supermarkets and retail stores. When read by a scanner, this number can be used to access a database to retrieve the price and other information associated with the product or service.

In the USA, the Universal Product Code (UPC) is used for identifying and tracking items. This number is usually 12-digit in length, and is usually encoded with the UPCA barcode. In Europe and other countries , the EAN (European Article Number) is used instead. This number could be 8-digit or 13-digit in length, and is encoded with either the EAN8 or EAN 13 barcode.

GTIN can be considered as the collective name for all these numbers. It extends them to 14-digit and unifies these non-overlapping numbers into a well defined structure.

A full 14-digit GTIN may include the packaging indicator code to describe the packing level of the product - whether the product is a single item or a group of items, such as a carton , box, or pallet. (e.g. a does the number refer to a chocolate bar, or a carton of chocolate bars).

The various GTIN data structures are GTIN-8, GTIN-12, GTIN-13 and GTIN-14, corresponding to (the length of) the orginal identification values used in the different regions. Each of the structure has its own preferred data carrier.

Examples of the GTIN Barcode

GTIN-12 (Encoded with UPCA)

Original Value : 012345678905
GTIN Value : 00012345678905

GTIN-8 (Encoded with EAN8)

Original Value : 12345670
GTIN Value : 00000012345670

GTIN-13 (Encoded with EAN13)

Original Value : 0123456789012
GTIN Value : 00123456789012

GTIN-14 (Encoded with GS1-128)

GTIN Value : 12345678901231

GTIN-14 (Encoded with ITF14)

GTIN Value : 12345678901234

GTIN-14 (Encoded with GS1 Databar)

GTIN Value : 20012345678909

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