A GS1 company prefix is a number that uniquely identifies your company. A prefix is a first step to identify your products. Your company prefix is always used when creating a unique product code, such as a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). This product code is crucial for many physical stores to get your product on the shelves. A GTIN or EAN code is also often requested for online sales.
But with your unique GS1 company prefix, you can uniquely identify many other things besides products, such as outer packaging, locations, coupons and logistics units.
You can then convert all these identification numbers into a unique barcode that can be scanned easily and quickly.
An identification key always starts with a company prefix. There are company prefixes of different lengths: from 7 digits to 11 digits long. The prefix is supplemented with an x number of digits to arrive at a complete identification key (for example, GTIN). The shorter the company prefix, the more free positions to identify products with. In other words, the shorter the company prefix, the more identification numbers you can create. We call this the 'numbering capacity'. The last digit is a check digit to verify that the code is correct.
