GS1 India: A Standards Organisation

With newer products being launched every year, consumers have a wider range of products to choose from. This wide accessibility is also attributed to various new players in e-tailing offering services in remotest corners of the country. But despite all this, the retail scene looks grim. Consumer confidence in products is diminishing than ever before and with more awareness, consumers have started asking for product authentication as proof to rely on product claims. Barcodes play an integral role in establishing product identity and verifying product claims. These black and white bars on the product label, which up till now considered just a convenience at the point of sale counters, have started gaining more and more importance to get product details from consumers’ perspective. Besides being used in several B2B operations, today barcodes are being considered by consumers as a gateway to truth. This is possible with the advent of various mobile scanning applications, wh...

Every time we buy something from a market, we come across a barcode label but rarely do we give any attention to it. Yet this Barcode plays a crucial role in the effective and efficient working of the retail supply chain from small businesses to large multinational organisations. Before the emergence of barcodes, overseeing retail shops was a test. This difficult and error-prone way of stock control has paved the way for present-day barcodes and supply chain management. Barcodes make doing business and billing products a lot more efficient and error-prone for companies. They provide a unique identification for linking information on goods, from individual items to substantial stocks of thousands or even millions of items. They play an important role and offer advantages when compared to manually putting information into the system. Let’s understand the importance of barcode scanning and why manufacturers should have a barcode on the products but before that, we should understand wha...

With the rapid growth of e-commerce over the last couple of years, detailed & accurate product information becomes more crucial since consumers are solely dependent on what they see online, to make purchase decisions. Additional product information in terms of what is mentioned on the product label, such as food ingredients, consistency, life, calories, recipes and much more, becomes inaccessible, if not provided in the product description of e-commerce websites. This is why a national repository of product information plays a critical role in storing and sharing trusted product information consistently, completely and accurately. India’s national repository of product information is DataKart, which feeds into Smart Consumer mobile app that empowers billions of consumers with digital access to trusted product data and enable them to check the accuracy of product information mentioned on the product label. The Smart Consumer mobile app is developed by GS1 India , a global sup...

The Smart Consumer mobile app introduced by GS1 India enables consumers to digitally access product information on their smartphones and allow consumers to directly connect with brand owners. The app receives its feed of product data from DataKart. A product’s information is displayed every time its barcode is scanned using the app to authenticate label information on consumer products . In case the barcode fails to scan, users can enter the GTIN number of the product written near the barcode to easily access the information. Reports of the Smart Consumer mobile app show over 12,000 products have been scanned by consumers across India to view or get product details . While consumers successfully viewed product details of brands that have uploaded their product information to DataKart, those that have not, are missing out on the opportunity to directly promote their products to consumers. Through this app, consumers can also share product feedback directly to the manufact...

With technological advancement and cut-throat competition in the market, gaining consumer confidence and maintaining real-time product visibility in the supply chain is difficult. Product traceability becomes an important business requirement in today’s context, primarily, because the consumers are increasingly getting conscious of what products they are buying and consuming, and hence would like to validate products through traceability. Besides, there were various trade and consumer safety related reasons that have led to the realization of critical need of a strong and effective traceability solution in supply chain management. For instance, back in early 2006-07, there was a large-scale concern about Samsung mobile phones getting blasted due to battery issues. This caused the manufacturer to identify the problem, stop production and recall all mobile sets already in the market. Traceability in such situations provides an effective system to easily recall products . ...

In today’s consumerist economy, the sale of a good or service is not merely a transaction – it is a brand promise that what is being sold to a consumer is genuine. The idea that a product isn’t what it's seller claims it to be is highly detrimental to consumer perception. The trust that is built gradually over time depletes instantly and damages the brand, delivering a possibly fatal blow to future sales. Long term sales, an important parameter of overall business success, is compromised when a consumer is given a product that is inauthentic, inferior, or unsafe. A brand’s social dimension, defined by the information shared by consumers online and through word-of-mouth, also takes a hit. With their aggressive focus on product data quality , today’s consumers are also acting as activists, taking action against brands that do not deliver on what they promise. Counterfeit products like medicines, faulty medical devices, contaminated foods and unreliable sourcing practices threate...

To start with, let us simplify the jargon. End-to-end traceability is about tracking and tracing your products from the source of the raw materials to the finished product reaching the end consumer. It is also known as the farm to fork traceability model, where one can access the complete supply chain journey of the product and its transformation from raw material to finished goods. With consumers getting increasingly brand conscious and aware, it is very important for brand owners to track and trace their product movement to validate claims whenever required. The need for validation can come suddenly or could be built slowly along with consumer safety and awareness. One such recent example of this is a pandemic outbreak, in which consumers focused on buying locally manufactured goods have started asking for the source information. It is also because of increased consumer awareness as they know that industries are heavily dependent on low-cost manufacturing capabilities of China. ...