Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is an identifier for trade items developed by GS1 (comprising among others of the former EAN International and Uniform Code Council). Such identifiers are used to look up product information in a database (often by inputting the number through a bar code scanner pointed at an actual product) which may belong to a retailer, manufacturer, collector, researcher, or other entity. The uniqueness and universality of the identifier is useful in establishing which product in one database corresponds to which product in another database, especially across organizational boundaries.
GTINs may be 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits long, and each of these 4 numbering structures are constructed in a similar fashion, combining Company Prefix, Item Reference and a calculated Check Digit (GTIN-14 adds another component- the Indicator Digit, which can be 1-8). GTIN-8s will be encoded in an EAN-8 bar code. GTIN-12s may be shown in UPC-A, ITF-14, or GS1-128 bar codes. GTIN-13s may be encoded in EAN-13, ITF-14 or GS1-128 bar codes, and GTIN-14s may be encoded in ITF-14 or GS1-128 bar codes. The choice of bar code will depend on the application; for example, items to be sold at a retail establishment should be marked with EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A or UPC-E bar codes.
The EAN-8 code is an eight-digit bar code used usually for very small articles, such as chewing gum, where fitting a larger code onto the item would be difficult. Note: the equivalent UPC small format barcode, UPC-E,encodes a GTIN-12 with a special Company Prefix that allows for "zero suppression" of 4 zeros in the GTIN-12. The GS1 encoding/decoding rules state that the entire GTIN-12 is used for encoding and that the entire GTIN-12 is to be delivered when scanned.
Read more about Global Trade Item Number: Format, Prefixes, Comparison of UPC, EAN and GTIN
Famous quotes containing the words global, trade, item and/or number:
“Much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still “globaloney.” Mr. Wallace’s warp of sense and his woof of nonsense is very tricky cloth out of which to cut the pattern of a post-war world.”
—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987)
“Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscience
To do no contrived murder. I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But however the forms of family life have changed and the number expanded, the role of the family has remained constant and it continues to be the major institution through which children pass en route to adulthood.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)