May 31, 2016 Industry news
Many online sellers find their products don’t have a GTIN assigned at source, by applying a brand to your products you can assign your own GTIN and help your business grow.
The new requirements for both Google Shopping and eBay have left numerous online sellers wondering if they should add a GTIN to their product.
With many sellers procuring unbranded products from the Far East or websites such as Alibaba, there are a lot of them that offer the same product.
In the first instance sellers should always find out if their product has been assigned a GTIN by the manufacturer or distributor that they get their products from.
We can see an example of this in practice with a search for an iPhone 6 case in eBay.
The two listings highlighted in the search results are both for the same product. We can see that from the listings page the products are sold by two different sellers, but use the same GTIN.
If you search for this GTIN on eBay, the results are far more accurate – returning only those listings selling this exact product.
By searching in GS1’s GEPIR service we can find out the owner of this GTIN.
A quick visit to the website of the owner of this GTIN tells us that this company is a manufacturer and supplier of accessories for portable digital devices that offers distribution services throughout the UK and Europe.
The benefits to these sellers of using this GTIN is that eBay knows exactly what their product is and can serve their listings with confidence for a particular range of searches. They also benefit from reviews of the product irrespective of which seller made the sale.
The example above is how the system has worked in traditional retail. But many online sellers, import generic products that have not been assigned a GTIN.
In this circumstance as the product being sold is unbranded there is no requirement to enter a GTIN for either eBay or Google Shopping. But if you can apply a product identifier to your listing there are benefits for its performance.
So when should you join GS1 UK and assign your products with your own GTIN?
You should become a GS1 UK member if you’re going to make your products unique to you. One of the most common ways of doing this is by creating your own brand. Adding your own brand to your products can help your business to really grow - helping you to increase your sales and creating a loyal customer base.
Often when we think of brands we think of a logo, a typeface or a choice of colours and imagery. While these elements are all important to create a recognisable visual identity, a brand stands for much more than this.
When you think of some of the world’s biggest brands, you associate with them a certain level of experience when you interact with them as a customer – whether this is buying electronics from Apple or flying no frills with Ryanair.
These brands have strong visual identities taking in the elements already mentioned, but they also extend into the packaging, how products are put together, the level of pre-sales service, delivery promise, post-sales service and how they engage with their customers generally. This all goes towards creating a perception in their customer’s mind of the type of company they are – differentiating them from their competition and adding value to their sales proposition.
By becoming a brand owner and differentiating your products from your competitor’s generic unbranded product you can then start to assign your own GTINs. In this circumstance, making sure you – as the brand owner – assigns your product’s unique identifier is best practice for product data management. This ensures you are in control of the accuracy and legitimacy of your product’s data, maintaining your brand integrity.