What is a GTIN?
GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is a globally unique identifier for products, managed by GS1. Every barcode on a product encodes a GTIN. There are several formats: GTIN-13 (EAN-13, used in Europe), GTIN-12 (UPC-A, used in North America), GTIN-8 (EAN-8, for small items), and GTIN-14 (for logistics/cases). The last digit is always a check digit.
Why it matters for product data
GTINs are the universal key for identifying products across systems. Every marketplace, every retailer, every procurement system uses them. Invalid or duplicate GTINs cause listing rejections, order errors, and supply chain problems. A surprisingly common issue: suppliers entering GTINs with wrong check digits, transposed numbers, or using the same GTIN for multiple variants.
Common GTIN problems in catalogs
Missing GTINs (especially for industrial products that were never retail), wrong check digits (manual entry errors), non-numeric characters, wrong length (mixing up EAN-13 with internal article numbers), and duplicate GTINs across different products. All of these cause downstream failures when the data reaches a buyer's system.
How FacetFlux helps
FacetFlux validates every GTIN on import — check digit verification, format detection, and duplicate flagging. Invalid barcodes are caught before they reach your customers. Try our free GTIN validator to check individual codes.
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