GS1 UK estimates poor barcodes cost UK businesses between £500m and £1bn annually. Discover what barcode verification is, why it matters, and what good practice looks like. 

Over five million barcodes are scanned worldwide every day. In a warehouse or retail supply chain, a barcode that fails to scan is not a minor inconvenience. It is a process breakdown. The system stops, manual intervention is required, the risk of inaccuracy increases, and somewhere downstream, time and money are spent correcting a problem that could have been prevented at source. 

According to GS1 UK, the cost of poor barcodes to UK businesses is estimated at between £500 million and £1 billion annually. That figure encompasses the labour cost of manual data entry when barcodes fail, the fines levied by major retailers on suppliers whose barcodes do not meet their scanning standards, the cost of reprinting and relabelling stock, and the transport cost of returned shipments. 

Barcode verification is the practical, relatively straightforward process that prevents all of this. For any business managing product labelling in-house, working with a contract packing partner, or supplying goods through a 3PL fulfilment operation, understanding what barcode verification is and why it matters is not a technical nicety. It is a supply chain essential. 

Key Takeaways 

• According to GS1 UK, poor barcodes cost UK businesses between £500 million and £1 billion per year, encompassing labour costs, retailer fines, reprinting costs, returned shipments, and relationship damage 

• Over five million barcodes are scanned worldwide every day, and a barcode that fails to scan in a retail supply chain triggers manual intervention, process delays, and potential financial penalties from retailers 

• Barcode verification is the process of checking the readability and quality of barcodes across your product range on a regular basis, typically by sampling a number of products each week or month 

• A barcode that fails to scan at a major retailer’s distribution centre can result in the entire shipment being returned to the supplier, with all associated transport and restocking costs, plus potential fines 

• It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. The long-term commercial cost of poor barcodes extends far beyond individual failures into damaged trading relationships 

• At Bray Solutions, dual barcode scanning at both the storage location and the product level confirms both the correct location and the correct product for every single pick, driving our 99.98% accuracy rate 

What Barcode Verification Actually Is and Why Scanning Once Is Not Enough 

Barcode verification is the process of checking barcodes not just for whether they scan, but for the quality of the scan across the range of conditions a barcode will encounter in real supply chain use: different scanner types, different lighting conditions, different distances, and different angles. A barcode that scans perfectly under controlled conditions may fail in a busy distribution centre with variable lighting and fast-moving conveyor scanning systems. 

GS1 UK’s standard for barcode quality assessment checks readability across these conditions, and checking a sample of products each week or month against this standard is what barcode verification means in practice. 

The Supply Chain Consequences of a Barcode That Does Not Perform 

At the most basic level, a barcode that fails to scan requires manual data entry to progress. In a large distribution centre processing thousands of items per hour, the throughput impact is not trivial. 

At the next level, a barcode that consistently fails to scan in a retailer’s distribution centre will result in the supplier’s shipment being returned. Large retailers operate highly automated receiving systems in which barcodes must scan first time, every time. Products that fail are returned to the supplier, along with the full cost of return transport, and the supplier bears the cost of reprinting, relabelling, and redelivering. Some retailers impose financial penalties on top of the return. 

Why Damaged Trading Relationships Are the Largest Long-Term Cost of Poor Barcodes 

A retailer or distribution partner that repeatedly receives stock with barcode issues will either impose increasingly stringent compliance requirements on that supplier, at greater cost to the supplier, or gradually reduce their reliance on that supplier and source from more reliable alternatives. 

It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. The commercial cost of being known, within a trading network, as the supplier whose barcodes are unreliable is the compounding cost of weakened relationships across the network over time. 

How Bray Solutions Uses Barcode Scanning to Drive Pick Accuracy 

At Bray Solutions, barcode scanning is the primary accuracy control mechanism in our ecommerce fulfilment pick and pack process, operating at two points in every single pick. First, the picker must scan the barcode on the storage location before the system allows them to proceed. Second, they scan the barcode on the product itself. Only when both barcodes match the order data does the system permit the pick to continue. This dual-scan approach drives our 99.98% pick accuracy rate. 

What Good Barcode Practice Looks Like in a Supply Chain Context 

Barcode verification does not need to be complex to be effective. Checking a representative sample of products each week or month, assessing their readability under a range of conditions, and investigating any that fail at source is the core practice. 

For businesses that use contract packing or relabelling services, building barcode quality checks into the verification process at the point of label application means that only labels that meet the quality standard are applied. 

The £500 million to £1 billion annual cost of poor barcodes to UK businesses is not distributed across a small number of catastrophic failures. It accumulates from thousands of individually manageable problems that were not identified early enough. Barcode verification is the control that stops that accumulation. At Bray Solutions, it is built into both our fulfilment processes and our contract packing operations, ensuring that the products we handle for clients meet the standards that their trading partners require. 

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Frequently Asked Questions 

Q: What is barcode verification and how is it different from simply scanning a barcode? 

A: Barcode verification checks the readability and quality of a barcode across the range of conditions it will encounter in real supply chain use: different scanner types, lighting conditions, distances, and angles. Simply scanning a barcode confirms it can be read by one scanner under controlled conditions. Verification confirms it will perform reliably in distribution centres and retailer receiving systems. 

Q: How often should barcode verification be carried out? 

A: GS1 UK recommends checking a sample of products each week or month. The goal is to identify quality issues before they affect products already in the supply chain, rather than discovering them when a retailer rejects a shipment. 

Q: What happens to a shipment when a retailer’s distribution centre cannot scan the barcodes? 

A: Major retailers operating automated receiving systems will typically return the entire shipment to the supplier. The supplier bears the full cost of return transport, reprinting, relabelling, and redelivery. Some retailers also impose financial penalties for non-compliant barcodes. 

Q: How does Bray Solutions use barcode scanning to protect pick accuracy? 

A: Every pick in Bray Solutions’ fulfilment operation requires dual barcode scanning: the storage location barcode and the product barcode must both match the order data in the WMS before the system allows the process to continue. This eliminates the most common picking error category and is one of the primary controls behind our 99.98% pick accuracy rate. 

Q: What is the relationship between barcode quality and trading partner relationships? 

A: Persistent barcode quality problems damage trading relationships. Retailers either impose increasingly stringent compliance requirements at greater cost to the supplier, or reduce their reliance on them and source from more reliable alternatives. Since it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, the long-term commercial cost of poor barcodes extends far beyond individual failures.