Trade channels are increasingly overlapping every year. Research shows that over 80% of consumers start their shopping in… Google or price comparison engines. At the same time, we are increasingly seeing brick-and-mortar store customers scanning barcodes to look for product information online. Traditional retailers are opening online stores, and stores that are icons of online sales are starting to open their physical locations. Everyone is creating applications or mobile sites to reach the consumer as quickly and accurately as possible. We are dealing with a consumer market. It is the consumer who decides where and how they look for goods and where and how they buy them.
This situation means that the barcode, which for many years functioned only in traditional trade, is gaining new meaning and new functionality. It is starting to play an important role in online and omnichannel sales. Here, fast and correct product identification becomes crucial, regardless of which communication channel the consumer is in or how they are searching for the product. Online sellers describe products in a way that influences page ranking and helps them stand out. However, before a consumer reads the description, they must find the product, even if they type its name incorrectly, for example. The world’s largest search engine, Google, is well aware of this. In the product description template offered for sale on Google Shopping, one of the required attributes is the GTIN (EAN) identifier or ISBN for books. For the same reasons, every e-store should use the EAN number as a product identifier, at least in the page description.
For what other reasons should an online store be interested in barcodes, how to implement them, and where to use them, you can find out by reading the “Barcodes in eCommerce” guide, prepared by GS1 Poland specifically for Polish online stores.