When you add or manage a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), maintaining high‑quality product data helps ensure your products are accurately identified and understood by your trading partners and downstream systems.
The questions and answers below address common member questions about improving and maintaining high‑quality product data.
The Brand Name is the name you want to share with your customers. This name can be different than your legal company name.
After you set the status to In Use, you can change the Brand Name. This is commonly done to correct a typographical error. Based on the impact of the Brand Name change on your trading partners, you may want to consider assigning a new GTIN, per the GTIN Management Standard: “A change to the primary brand that appears on the trade item, requires assignment of a new GTIN.” These are Brand Name changes that would not require a new GTIN:
- Applying Consistent Name Convention
- Spelling
- Capitalization
- Spacing
This is the functional description you share with retailers, not the marketing description you share with shoppers. Try to include four pieces of product information in your description: Brand Name, type of product, product variation, and net contents. Variations could include flavors, sizes, or scents, etc.
You can change the Product Description for an In Use product. This is commonly done to correct a typographical error - or to add clarity to what the item is. You cannot change this to reflect a new product, per the GTIN Management Standard: “Any new product requires the assignment of a GTIN.”
Net Content is made up of two fields:
Count: this is the amount of the consumable product of the trade item contained in a package, as claimed on the physical label. This number may be represented in whole numbers or up to four decimals.
Unit of Measure: this is the type of measure representing the Count, as claimed on the physical label, and may include net weight, volume, count, units, etc.
After you set the status to In Use, you cannot change the Net Content. GS1 Standards state that “any change (increase or decrease) to the legally-required declared net content that is printed on the pack, requires assignment of a new GTIN.” Learn more about the Net Content and Unit of Measure fields.
These are physical dimensions: height, width and depth, as well as Net Weight and Gross Weight.
After you set the status to In Use, you cannot change the Net Weight.
GS1 standards state that “a change to a physical dimension, on any axis, or gross weight over 20%, requires assignment of a new GTIN.” GS1 US Data Hub follows this standard, enabling you to make a change up to 20% of a product’s original height, weight, depth or gross weight. Learn more about Product Dimensions.
This is the country or region in which the product is intended to be sold. This is referred to as ‘Country of Sale’ within the Verified by GS1 Registry. You can provide up to 50 countries or regions.
View a list of valid Country Codes in the GS1 US Data Hub Help Center.
Insert a web address that represents a photo(s) of this product. A high-quality photo is recommended. The address must start with either http:// or https://. If the URL is a valid web address and contains a PNG, JPG, GIF or BMP file, “Validated” will display in green text after you save. If the validation fails, "Validation Failed" will display but the web address will still be saved in GS1 US Data Hub.
Example: https://www.tastyharvest.com/images/thstrawjam20onz.jpg
Review this GS1 US Product Image guide for more details.
The GS1 Global Product Classification (GPC) standard helps global trading partners to group products in the same way.
The GPC schema is made up of numerous components: Segment, Family, Brick and Attribute. Read the GPC Browser article for more details.
You can export all your product data in a spreadsheet. From the My Products screen, you can click Export all Data to export your product data in a spreadsheet. This enables you to review the data, or import this data into another application, if necessary. Learn more about exporting products.
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