Jessica,
Thanks for your inquiry. OnlineLabels.com doesn't officially partner or endorse any bar code re-sellers. There is a lot of information out there on the internet on this topic. I don't have any direct experience with the purchase of bar codes, but we do have many customers who have purchased bar codes from both GS1 and bar code re-sellers such as BarcodesTalk.com.
Based on my research, it is always best to purchase from GS1 directly if you think you have a long term need for bar codes for your company. When you purchase through a re-seller, you will not have your own unique ID number and the prefix they give you could potentially be sold to or used by another company. I'm not saying this is likely to happen, but it is a possibility. Buying from GS1 avoids this risk.
The reason this is a big problem is that if you don't control your your own unique ID number this could result in the the same bar code identifying different products or different companies. This is potentially a big issue for retailers who depend on the bar codes accurately tying to your product. Due to this issue some of the larger retailers are requiring their suppliers to provide a copy of the GS1-US certificate and also asking their small and medium suppliers to support data synchronization to ensure all of their bar codes are up to date. In order to do be involved in data synchronization, you need to have a global location number, which is part of the benefits you receive when you become part of the GS1-US.
There are definitely risks to buying from a re-seller so you will need to weigh those risks versus the cost savings. Obviously, every situation is unique. Personally, if I knew I had a business that I intended to run for a long time and I planned to offer a lot of products that could potentially make their way into large retailers, I would probably spend the extra money and use GS1. I am sure you have spent some time on GS1's website, but I wanted to include a link for anybody else reading this post who may be interested in purchasing bar codes directly from GS1.
http://www.gs1us.org/get-startedIn regards to bar code re-sellers, I haven't had any customers that I have directly spoken to that have run into issues when buying bar codes from a re-seller and I have had quite a few customers who acquired their bar codes that way. I did some quick research on the topic and came across the site at the link below. This site appears to have done some research on some of the different re-sellers. They list quite a few companies that they know to have major and minor issues. I am not sure who is funding the site below (which makes me skeptical), but I thought the information was interesting nevertheless.
http://barcodesellers.orgI hope this information is helpful and I would be happy to try to answer any additional questions you have on the topic.
Dave C.
OnlineLabels.com
Edited by user Saturday, September 24, 2016 11:53:30 AM(EST)
| Reason: edited typo
