Barcodes and shelf labels: the part everyone leaves until last

Barcodes are boring right up until the moment your cashier is typing product names at the counter because half the catalogue does not scan. Here is how to get it right once.

Which products need your own barcode

Manufacturer barcodes (EAN-13 on most packaged goods) — use them as-is. Scan the product, the number goes in, done.

Your own barcode is needed for:

• Loose and weighed items — fruit, nuts, sweets, meat
• Anything you prepare or package yourself
• Anything imported without a readable barcode
• Bundles you create — a gift box of three items
• Services, if you want them scannable

Internal numbering: decide once

Use a scheme that will not collide with real manufacturer codes and that you can read.

A simple, robust approach: a fixed prefix you choose, plus a sequential number, encoded asCode 128. Code 128 handles variable-length numeric and alphanumeric data and is supported by every scanner you will buy.

Two rules:

1. Never reuse a number. When a product is discontinued, retire its code. Reusing it means historical sales reports attribute old sales to a new product.
2. Never encode the price in the barcode — except for weighed items, below. Prices change; barcodes on shelves do not, and you will end up with two prices for the same product.

Weighed items

These are the exception. A scale-printed label for 1.240kg of dates encodes the item and the weight or the price, in a format your POS understands.

Requirements:

• A legal-for-trade scale
• Integrated with the POS, not sitting beside it — an unintegrated scale means a cashier reads a number and types it, which is slower and is a shrinkage route
• Agreement between the scale's label format and what the POS expects. Test with a real product before you rely on it.

Label sizes

Standard thermal label sizes that cover most shops:

Buy the printer and the labels together and confirm compatibility. A label roll that does not fit the printer is a very annoying way to lose a morning.

The Arabic layout problem

Most label templates are designed left-to-right. An Arabic product name on such a template renders awkwardly — punctuation in the wrong place, truncation from the wrong end.

Requirements for an Arabic label:

• Right-to-left text direction for the name
• A font that renders Arabic properly at small sizes — thin fonts at 8pt on a thermal printer are unreadable
• The price in Western digits, which is what Saudi shoppers expect
• Truncation from the correct end when the name is too long

Print a test label for your longest Arabic product name before you print a thousand.

What goes on a shelf label

• Product name, in Arabic, readable from a metre away
• Price, VAT-inclusive, as the largest element
• Barcode
• Unit price where relevant — per kilo, per litre — for comparison
• Your internal code, small, for staff

When prices change

Every price change means reprinting labels. Systems differ enormously here: some let you select the affected products and print only those labels; others make you reprint a category.

Ask in the demo: "change the price of these ten products and print only their labels."

This matters more than it sounds. A shop that finds label reprinting painful ends up with shelf prices that disagree with till prices, and that is both a customer dispute and a compliance question.

A practical starter setup

1. Choose an internal prefix and a sequential numbering scheme
2. Buy a thermal label printer and matching 40×30mm labels
3. Build one Arabic label template and print your longest product name on it
4. Label every product that lacks a manufacturer barcode
5. Print shelf-edge strips for your top 100 products
6. Add labelling to the receiving process, so new stock is labelled before it reaches the shelf

Step 6 is the one that keeps it working. Labelling is not a project you finish; it is a step in receiving.

Wameed includes barcode and label printing with templates and Arabic layouts; see thefeatures page.