UPCS FNSKUS These are both types of barcodes
that can be really confusing when you're
just getting started on Amazon. So I'm going to break down everything
you need to know about each of these. First up, you have UPC
bar codes or universal product codes. These are used worldwide
and are commonly used in retail stores. Pick up any item around your house and
it most likely has a UPC barcode on it. So do you need to put this on your Amazon
product? Well, there's two parts to that question. Firstly, Amazon requires you to have a UPC barcode in order to create your listing. So yes, you do need to get one. There are some exceptions
where you can create a listing without one,
but just to keep things really simple. Yes, you do need one
when you go in to create a listing. Here is where you're going to be asked
to enter in your UPC barcode and you need this in order to finish
creating the listing. Now, the second part of this question
is what happens once you've created your listing? At that stage,
Amazon doesn't actually require you to stick your UPC barcode
onto your actual product. Instead, Amazon assigns
you their own in-house barcode code eight fn SKU barcode, which is the second one that we're going
to talk about a little bit later. The FN SKU barcode is what you're required
to display on your actual product. That's what we've got right here. So to reiterate, you need the UPC barcode
to create your listing, and then you need Amazon's FN SKU barcode
to display on your actual product. You don't need to display
your UPC barcode on the product. But before we get into all of that,
let's first talk about where to buy it. UPC Barcodes,
because this is the first step. The best place to find and purchase
these barcodes is directly through one, which is the agency that manages this. They can also technically be purchased
from third party sellers at a cheaper right. However, this is against Amazon's terms
of service, so just forget about that and just buy them
only from one to purchase your barcodes. Go to one dot org. On the right hand side here, click on
Get your barcodes, select your country, then click. Get a barcode. Next, scroll down
and consider your two options. The first option is if you're starting
small and you only need a few barcodes, each one is going to cost you $30
and you can buy as many as you like. Now, the second option here is going to be better
if you need more than just a few barcodes. As a general rule of thumb, if you need less than eight, stick
with the first option. But if you needing eight barcodes or anticipate needing
more than eight in the future, then you're better off going with the second option
for the best overall savings. So how do you know how many UPC barcodes
you need to purchase? I'm going to break this down because I know
there's always a lot of confusion here. So if you're just selling
a single product, then you only need one UPC barcode. So let's say
I'm just selling these jungle snags. These are baby quitted towels. This is the only product I'm selling. I need one UPC barcode. I might be intending to send in 500 units. A thousand units? 2000 units,
but I still only need the one UPC barcode, and that's just attached
to this one product for life. So I purchased one UPC barcode
for the product, and then I just need that
to create the listing. And then again, once
I've created the listing, I don't necessarily
need any more UPC barcode. If I was intending
to bring in another product. So let's say I'm selling
two completely different products, then I'm going to need one
UPC barcode for each. Again, even if I'm planning to send in
a thousand units of this product. When it comes to four SKU barcodes, it's
very similar in that once you've created your listing, it's
going to generate a fan SKU that's going to be attached
to this product for life. As I mentioned, that first SKU
does need to be displayed on the product, but it's going to be the exact same FN SKU
that's on all of your products. So you just print
or stick on the same food SKU onto all units that you're sending into Amazon,
whether there's 500,000, etc.. So I think it makes sense
if you're creating separate products that you would need separate UPC barcodes
in order to create those listings. But what about if you're selling
multiple variations of the same product? So it might be hard to tell here. But on the left we've got great elephant, and on the right here we've got Blue Bear,
which is a really nice color. These are two variations
of the same product. So as far as UPC barcodes
go, these would need separate UPC barcodes because they're essentially classed
as different products, even though they're going to be sold
on the same listing, they are different. So they need different UPC barcodes
to tell them apart. Then if you have lots
and lots of different variations, let's say you've got different colors
and you've got different sizes, then you just have to multiply or figure out
what's the total number of variations. Let's say
that you've got a red and a blue T-shirt and then you've got three sizes of each. Then that means you're going to need six
total pieces because there's six different variations
that you have there. So hopefully that clears up any questions
that you might have about how many barcodes
you need to purchase on one. So now that you know how many UPC barcodes to purchase,
let's go through the rest of the process. So let's just say that you only need
the one barcode. Go ahead and click this button to begin
adding it to your cart from here into your brand name,
which is the name that you want to share with your customers. And usually this is different
than your registered business name. So for example, let's say that
my business name is Glenys Products LLC and my brand name is Lenny's Pet Supplies, because the letter is the name
that I want my customers to see. That's the brand name that I'm going
to enter here for the product description. This is the description
that you share with retailers, not the marketing description
that you share with shoppers. So you want to include these four pieces
of information, your brand name type of product,
product variation and net contents. For example, Lenny's Pet supplies
dog pad large three pack, then click add to Cart
and continue as new. This will bring you
to a general checkout page and once you fill out
all the information, click confirm order. Next, you'll receive an email
to create a password and sign in. After signing in. Click Access one Data Hub Click product
and then open it up at the bottom. You're going to see your PIN 12,
also known as your UPC barcode. This is the one that you're going to paste
directly into sell essential
when creating your listing. Now a quick note here. If you purchased your barcodes in bulk, then you need to click product
and then create. Enter a description and brand name like
we mentioned earlier and then click Save. Once the GTM button is activated,
click Auto Assign, and then at the bottom
you'll see your GTM 12 or UPC barcode. After you've purchased your UPC barcode,
you'll be able to create your listing. Like I mentioned earlier, you will need to have created your listing
in order to create the second type of barcode
that we're now going to talk about. You'll find SKU barcode. As I mentioned before,
this is a barcode that Amazon assigns to each of your products
selling on their website. It's not used off of Amazon. It is a requirement of Amazon's to have your fancy barcode
displayed on your packaging. This could either be a sticker
that stuck on like we have on this particular product,
or it can be printed directly onto your packaging,
which we have an example of right here. As long as Amazon can scan this, this basically tells them
whose inventory this belongs to. So you do want to make sure that Amazon
knows when you send them your inventory. So how do you get an FN SKU? Well, once you've created your listing,
it's actually pretty easy to find. So go to manage all inventory. Then to the right of your listing,
click print item labels. You can choose the number of labels
that you want on the PDF. So if I was sending in a thousand units,
then I might put a thousand here. But I've also had situations where my supplier has said that they prefer
just one barcode on the sheet and then they're going to print out that
sheet a thousand times onto a sticker. So it doesn't really matter. And keep in mind, you can always come back
in here and generate more if you need. It's not something that you only do
once you have paper size choices here,
but I always leave it at the default. This now gives you your PDF
which you would then pass on to your supplier to either
print out on the stickers or to attach to your product, or
you might even give this to your designer. If you're getting custom packaging made
for your product in the long term, I'd recommend just getting it designed
onto your custom packaging. That way,
no one ever has to deal with stickers and you've got peace of mind knowing that
it's always going to be on your product. So now let's talk about the packaging
as there are two main requirements. The first one is to display your Evan
SKU barcode, which we've just covered. The second one is to display
your country of origin. This is the country
that your product was manufactured in and it must be displayed on the product
itself and in the product packaging. Examples of this could be printed
labels, engraving or even tags, which is what
you'd commonly see on clothing. Another option is to say
assembled in or designed in. If you want to list your own country
or wherever you designed or assembled it, however you do still need to specify
where the components came from. So for example, if you have any Apple
products, then take a look at them. You'll see that they always say
designed in California, but made in China. The only exception to displaying this
on the product itself is when the product is really small or, you know,
it would get damaged or something. When you try to put that label on it,
in those instances, you would need to put this information
on the packaging, but by default you need to put it on the product as well. So that's a second requirement
for your product and packaging. I hope by now the difference
between a UPC barcode and an FN SKU barcode makes sense,
But I'm going to recap real quick just to make sure you only need the UPC
barcode in order to create your listing. You only need one UPC barcode per product
and it doesn't matter how many you intend to sell of that product. Once you've created your listing,
you can honestly just forget about your UPC barcode
if you're only selling on Amazon. Instead, all you care about now
is your first SKU barcode and making sure that it's displayed on the product
packaging itself. You get one for SKU barcode
per product or product variation and you take that one SKU barcode
and print it onto all of the units that you're sending into Amazon. Okay. Let's move on to designing
and determining your packaging style. A good place to start here
is just by asking your manufacturer what they typically do
for your type of product. Then from here you can decide
if this is what you want to do or if you want to improve upon that basic
packaging style. So for example, with our washable pads
here, I just reached out and asked,
What's the typical packaging you do? And this was it. They just have this plastic sheet
and then they have this simple piece of cardboard on the inside. And we were able just to supply a design
for this piece of cardboard, and then they would manufacture it. So this is actually an example
of the basic packaging style. This decision is going to be based on
what you think your customer expects for your type of product. So, for instance, if it's a gift item,
you might want to offer fancier packaging. And then on the flip side, if it's just a disposable item,
customers may not care how it's packaged. That's why I felt like the basic packaging
for these washable pads was going to be fine without, you know, customizing it
and spending more money on the packaging. So you're packaging could be anything from just a fancy bag
to a plain cardboard box. You may also decide
if you want your packaging to include a few extra things that are nice to have
but are not mandatory. Perhaps you want to include something
visually appealing such as a business card or a product insert
that includes your contact information. You can use these to ask customers
for their email addresses or to leave a review, cross-sell
other products in your catalog, and so on. If you do decide to include these though,
remember you're not allowed to ask
for only happy customers to write reviews. Now, if you're wanting to design
and create your own packaging, some good options here include using a
tool like Canva to sketch up design ideas. Or you can even hire someone
for cheap on sites like five or Upwork to design it for you. You then need to send the designs to your supplier
in what's known as a vector format. Once you've done that, the next step you need to take is to place your first official order
with your supplier. That's what this next video
is going to show you how to do. So make sure to check it out. You're going to learn
how to create a purchase order, some price negotiation tips
and how to get your product inspected before
it gets shipped out of the warehouse. So hopefully that clears
up. You know what? I don't know.
