FBA product barcode requirements

FBA uses barcodes to identify and track inventory throughout the fulfilment process. Each item that you send to an Amazon fulfilment centre requires a barcode.

There are three kinds of barcodes for identifying products:

• Manufacturer barcodes (eligible barcodes include GCID (Global Catalogue Identifier), UPC, EAN, JAN or ISBN)
• Amazon barcodes (such as FNSKU)
• (Brand owner only) Some products may require an additional Transparency authenticity code to help prevent counterfeit

Manufacturer barcodes

Amazon will always use the Manufacturer barcode to track inventory throughout the fulfilment process, unless you change your barcode setting. If more than one seller has inventory with the same Manufacturer barcode, then Amazon fulfils orders with inventory that is closest to the customer. We do this to facilitate faster delivery.

If you do not have an eligible barcode for your product, then an Amazon barcode can be used in place of the Manufacturer barcode.

For more information, please see Using the Manufacturer barcode to track inventory.

Amazon barcodes

Amazon barcodes must be applied to all products that are not tracked using Manufacturer barcodes. This category is comprised of:

• Products with an expiration date
• Consumable products
• Topical products. such as skin creams, shampoos and cosmetics
• Products that are prepped so that the barcode cannot be scanned

You can print Amazon barcodes and apply them to your products yourself, or Amazon can print and apply them for a per-item fee. For more information, please see Use an Amazon barcode to track inventory and FBA Label Service .

Transparency authenticity codes

Transparency codes are item-level authentication 2D Barcodes that help to protect brand owners and customers from counterfeit. Transparency codes are accompanied by a Transparency “T” logo and must not be covered by any other label. In case of products labelled with Label 4 (amazon barcode (FNSKU/ASIN code) + Transparency code) as illustrated below, the seller is required to cover only the amazon barcode (FNSKU) on the label with their own identifier (FNSKU) to ensure that there are no multiple scannable barcodes on the product. To learn more, please see the Transparency page.

In the below section, you will learn about the requirements for labelling your units for Labelled Inventory, as well as which products are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory and FBA Label Service.

Labelled Inventory	Learn about the requirements for printing Amazon product labels, labelling your products, ensuring accurate scanning of your labels, and common errors to avoid when labelling your products.
Stickerless, Commingled Inventory	Learn about the eligibility requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.

Labelled Inventory

Each unit that you send to Amazon fulfilment centre for fulfilment needs, should contain FNSKU label printed from your Seller Central account.

Please watch this brief video for examples of how to label your products to ensure appropriate receipt and storage in Amazon fulfilment centres.

How to Label Products for Fulfilment

Packaging and Shipping Inventory to Amazon fulfilment centre: Download and print this manual for Packaging and Shipping Inventory to Amazon fulfilment centre, or share with your distributor or supplier when they send directly to Amazon fulfilment centre. Check back periodically for updated versions.

Product Labels: Download and print this quick reference guide for FBA product label requirements. Check back periodically for updated versions. Click here to see the quick reference guide for FBA product label requirements.

Label Requirements

Each unit that you send to Amazon for fulfilment, needs a scannable barcode to enable storage at a fulfilment centre. Please follow these guidelines to ensure prompt and accurate labelling of your units.

Cover any original barcodes

• Cover the original manufacturer's barcode (UPC, EAN, ISBN).
• All barcodes, other than the FNSKU label barcode, should be covered.
• Failure to cover the other barcode(s) can cause errors and may result in lost inventory.

Label each unit before sending it to Amazon fulfilment centre

• Please make sure that the label title matches with the corresponding unit. This ensures that your merchandise can be received, stocked and sold.
• Use only white labels with a removable adhesive.

Please Do Not...

• Tape labels to your units.
• Place faded labels on your units.
• Wrap your label around corners or curves on the unit because this makes the label unreadable by the scanner.
• Leave other barcodes uncovered unless the unit is a Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.
• Use QR codes on your labels, since they cannot be read by all scanners.

Printer Requirements

Use a direct thermal or laser printer

• Each label must be readable and should be such which could be scanned for at least a period of 24 months. This means that the label must not smudge or fade for at least two years. To ensure that your labels last for a long time, please use the proper print media for your printer. For example, use laser paper and laser toner with a laser printer.
• Use a printer with a print resolution of 300 DPI or greater.
• Please do not use inkjet printers. Inkjet printers are more susceptible to smearing and blurry images making the labels difficult to read or scan.
• Amazon highly recommends using a high-speed model designed specifically to print large numbers of labels.
• Amazon fulfilment centres currently use Zebra GX430t model printers with a direct thermal setting.
• Amazon highly recommends periodically testing if the barcodes are scanning properly. Please use a tethered scanner to ensure that each barcode scans properly.

Clean your printer

• We recommend periodically testing, cleaning, or replacing your printer heads on a regular basis. This will extend the life of your printer as well as ensure that your labels are printed accurately.
• Print a test page to ensure that your printer head is aligned properly.
• Many labelling errors are caused by dirty printer heads - while a small piece of dust or grime may go unnoticed, this can affect the ability to scan your barcodes.

Printing PDF Labels

When shipping inventory that requires labelling, you can print labels within the shipping workflow. If you have already created your shipment, then you can access the shipping workflow from the Shipping Queue.

When you print your labels, please make sure that your print settings do not scale the image or make it smaller to fit within the printable area. By default, many printers will try to scale PDF files to fit within the printable margins. This will cause the labels to be misaligned when printed. Depending on your printer and the software that you are using, you should be able to set the scaling to "none" or 100%. Some printers might refer to this as "size to fit" or "print to fit". If you are unable to locate printer settings and the labels are misaligning, then we recommend contacting the printer manufacturer's technical support department or seeking support locally for additional assistance.

Scan & Ship - Spool Printing Options

To print your labels off from a spool, we encourage you to use our Scan & Ship program. Scan & Ship eliminates the task of searching through an entire sheet of labels for the correct one, or clicking through pages in your Seller Account to find the products that you want to ship.

Please visit the help page for Scan and Ship for more information.

Additional Information

Printing barcodes directly on the units: If you would like to print barcodes directly on the units, then please use the UCC128 barcode. The UCC128 barcode standards are available on the Internet. Amazon uses the UCC128 barcode (font) to encode the FNSKU or the Shipment ID in the barcode. We do not use any leading or trailing digits (application identifiers or checksum digits). The full specification is UCC128 code set A (this is the code set that supports alphanumeric data). If you are building the barcode from scratch, then you can review the standards or purchase software (there are many barcode applications available for free or at reasonable prices).

Receiving problems and other common errors

The following errors / receiving problems will slow down the process by which Amazon fulfilment centre can receive your inventory and make it available for sale. Amazon may temporarily suspend your shipment creation privileges if the following problems are found:

• Barcode label missing: If the barcode label is missing, then Fulfilment Centre will not be able to identify the units and the units will not be added to the inventory, and you will not be able to claim for these units.
• Unit mislabelled: Your unit's label did not match with the physical product. Please make sure that the label title matches with the corresponding unit.
• Barcode cannot be scanned: Your product's label could not be scanned for one or more of the following reasons:
  • The barcode was smudged, which could be caused by low ink/toner in your printer or dirty printer heads.
  • The label was placed around a corner or curve, for which the barcode could not be scanned.
• Unit/Shipment Preparation Errors: One or more of the units on your shipment incurred a problem with one or more of our Inbound Requirements. This could include problems with your labelling, packaging and prep, or shipping requirements.

Please see Inbound Performance Feedback for more information about receiving problems.

Below are other common errors that will delay the receipt of your shipment:

• Product not listed on your Shipment
• More Units shipped than expected
• Product substitutions (similar products shipped)
• Other original barcodes, which can be scanned, are not covered or removed from the exterior of case-packed item cartons
• Prep standards are not followed

Brand Registry

If the products that you sell are registered through Amazon Brand Registry, then labelling still has to be done for all the items.

Stickerless, Commingled Inventory (only Books)

On this page, you will learn about the eligibility requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.

• Why Choose to Enable Stickerless, Commingled Inventory
• How Amazon Tracks Stickerless, Commingled Inventory
• Enabling the Stickerless, Commingled Inventory Setting
• Requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory
• Brand Registry Exemption
• Receiving Problems and Other Common Errors
• How Removals Work for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory

All products that enter Amazon fulfilment centres require a means of identifying the product and its ownership. A product is identified with either a UPC or EAN barcode, or an FBA label that you print from your Seller Central Account. For some products sold by multiple sellers, you can select to "commingle" your inventory by enabling the Stickerless, Commingled Inventory setting. When you choose to commingle inventory, your products become interchangeable with the same products from other sellers for both order fulfilment and removals

To summarise the differences:

• Labelled Inventory (default setting): With this setting, an FBA label that you print from Seller Central must be applied to each unit that you ship to our fulfilment centres, which designates that the product belongs to you.
• Stickerless, Commingled Inventory: With this setting, your eligible units will not require FBA labels. For the purposes of order fulfilment and removals, eligible units are treated as identical to units of the same product from other sellers who have also enabled Stickerless, Commingled Inventory. When a customer orders one of these products from you, you are the seller of record, but the unit used to fulfil the order may have been originally sourced from another seller's inventory. When you choose Stickerless, Commingled Inventory, eligible units will be commingled but ineligible units will still require FBA labels.

Why Choose to Enable Stickerless, Commingled Inventory?

Stickerless, Commingled Inventory eliminates the need for you to label your eligible products with FBA labels.

How Amazon Tracks Stickerless, Commingled Inventory

Although products sent to Amazon fulfilment centre as Stickerless, Commingled Inventory may be virtually pooled with those of other sellers, we track which seller shipped the units to our fulfilment centres from the time it enters our Fulfilment Centre through shipment till the time it reaches the customer, which allows us to know which seller sourced the item received by the customer and helps us to minimise any disruption to customers and other sellers if there is an issue with the inventory sourced from a specific seller.

Enabling the Stickerless, Commingled Inventory Setting

In order to change your current setting from stickered to commingled or vice versa, please contact seller support team.

Requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory

Not all products are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory. Only books are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory, all other categories must be labelled with the FBA labels. Most notably in grocery, health and beauty, and media products must always be labelled with FBA Labels. Amazon is always evaluating categories and products, and may change the eligibility for products at any time.

Technical Requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory

• Only books.
• The condition of the product must be new.
• The item must have a UPC or EAN in a barcode form for our fulfilment centres to scan when they receive the product.
• The UPC or EAN must be for a single ASIN. If it applies to more than one ASIN, then you will need to label the product, even if it could be previously sent in as Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.
• Barcodes must be such which can be easily scanned.

Brand Registry

If the products that you sell are registered through the Amazon Brand Registry, then labelling still has to be done for all the items.

Receiving Problems and Other Common Errors

The following receiving problems will slow down the process by which Amazon can receive your inventory and make it available for sale. Amazon may temporarily suspend your shipment creation privileges if the following problems are found:

• Barcode label missing: Your product did not have a physical barcode for our associates to scan; they had to label it. If your product does not have a physical barcode, then you will need to label it with an FBA label, even if the Amazon ASIN qualifies for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.
• Unit mislabelled: Your product's physical barcode did not match with the ASIN listed on the Shipment. Please make sure that your product's UPC, EAN or JAN is linked to the ASIN that you are listing on your FBA Shipment.
• Barcode cannot be scanned: Your product's physical barcode could not be scanned for one or more of the following reasons:
  • The barcode was smudged, which could be caused by low ink/toner in your printer or dirty printer heads.
  • The barcode was around a corner or curve, which can make it unreadable for the scanner.
  • The barcode was not linked to the ASIN listed on your FBA Shipment.

Please see Inbound Performance Feedback for more information about receiving problems.

Below are other common errors that will delay the receipt of your shipment:

• Product not listed on your Shipment
• More Units shipped than expected
• Product substitutions (similar products shipped)
• Other original barcodes, which can be scanned, are not covered or removed from the exterior of case-packed item cartons
• Prep standards not followed

How Removals Work for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory

When you enable Stickerless, Commingled Inventory, your eligible units will be treated as Stickerless, Commingled Inventory for both customer order fulfilment and 'Pick up removals'. If you choose to remove a Stickerless, Commingled Inventory unit, by placing a 'Pick up removals' request, then the unit that you receive may be sourced from another seller's inventory.