Buying EAN numbers on eBay?

[delicious3141]

So I can't list new stuff on my amazon store without getting EAN numbers. To do it on the GS1 site I need to pay like £100+ joining fee and then more than £100 per year membership (crazy rates for a "non-profit"... seriously?!?!). I'm reluctant to do this unless I have to. I see on eBay this listing for 500 EAN numbers for £14!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/500-EAN-U...hoto_Printers_Printers_JN&hash=item3ccfcb44a5

What's the catch? Is this a bad idea? What are the downsides to buying these?

If it helps I don't plan on selling my items in bricks and mortar stores anytime in the foreseeable future.

Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can provide.

 

[Merchant UK]

heres the cheapest ones i could find with no annual fee's or membership http://www.barcode.co.uk/products/single-barcode-global-upc-ean-no-annual-fee.htm You need to be carefull of the cheap ones advertised on Ebay they are just randomly generated off someone PC with no way to verify them and could easily be rejected by amazon.

 

[Mister B]

Look at it as an investment...it maybe £100 a year but if it helps you generate sales of £100,000 a year, then it's not a bad return on your investment.

Mister B

 

[delicious3141]

Look at it as an investment...it maybe £100 a year but if it helps you generate sales of £100,000 a year, then it's not a bad return on your investment.

Mister B

Of course but I'm not so sure that is the case and if there's no problem with the eBay numbers then I can still list my stuff but for £14 instead of £200+ and another £100+ a year afterwards. Doubt I'll get through 500 numbers anytime soon.

heres the cheapest ones i could find with no annual fee's or membership http://www.barcode.co.uk/products/si...annual-fee.htm You need to be carefull of the cheap ones advertised on Ebay they are just randomly generated off someone PC with no way to verify them and could easily be rejected by amazon.

The listing states for use on Amazon and they have 99.9% feedback which I assume they couldn't maintain if they were handing out numbers that didn't work. How do you mean they are randomly generated off somebody's pc? What makes you think that? How would a seller not just get smacked with negatives constantly if he was selling duds?

 

[HFServices]

Why not buy just one code from an ebay seller (I have checked and lots of people sell individual codes for 99p) and see what happens.

Also check the feedback for the seller you linked to and just message the people who got codes from this seller asking them if the codes are legit and working.

These high priced sites with membership fees are for people who dont know any better.

 

[delicious3141]

I'm pretty confident they will work and even if they don't I'm not that worried about losing £14 with a huge upside of 500 codes (more than I'll need for at leat a year I'm thinking)... I'm just wondering if there are any other downsides I should know about. Like it feels like there must be some big problem with this or everybody would do it?!? Like can the codes stop working randomly in the future? Or could amazon GS1 punish people for using codes bought in this way?

 

[young0]

They are so cheap!

 

[Lentinus]

Numbers or barcodes? barcodes you can print them yourself, which is what I did... http://generator.eangenerator.com/online/

 

[ChalkyJim]

Numbers or barcodes? barcodes you can print them yourself, which is what I did... http://generator.eangenerator.com/online/

Nice one thats handy .

 

[kulture]

Why not buy just one code from an ebay seller (I have checked and lots of people sell individual codes for 99p) and see what happens.

Also check the feedback for the seller you linked to and just message the people who got codes from this seller asking them if the codes are legit and working.

These high priced sites with membership fees are for people who dont know any better.

You could not be more wrong.

Amazon requires that all items have an EAN number. This is a special number. It is a 12 digit code with a check digit. The first few digits are a manufacturer prefix.

The gs1 site is the official licensor of these numbers. Only numbers registered with a gs1 organisation are valid. Now in the early days when a manufacturer purchased a range the had them for life, and could re-sell. Now this is not permitted. There are some genuine re-sellers who are selling these old ranges. There are some fraudulent re-sellers who sell the newer ranges which should not be re-sold. There are some re-sellers who will sell the same number twice, or more.

Now you could buy a range of numbers off eBay, or a reseller. You might get genuine numbers. You might even get unique numbers. What you will not get is your own manufacturer prefix. These numbers might be valid and accepted by Amazon. Because they are not registered to you officially, Amazon may choose to tighten their validation and block/ban these numbers in future. Your call, but if you are serious about your business, and if you want to protect your brand, it would pay to do it properly and get registered with gs1 and have your own manufacturer prefix and genuinely unique numbers.