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amazon....upc required
 

looking at starting to sell on amazon. i was always under the assumption you had to havd a products with UPC codes. looking through the info it apprears you only need a ASIN # which amazon assigns.

can someone confirm that is correct?

Re: amazon....upc required
 

You need a UPC to get an ASIN. These can be bought from many sellers.

Re: amazon....upc required
 

If the product already exists on Amazon, just use the same listing... Do not create a new listing... Most products are already on Amazon's catalogue.

If you do have to purchase UPCs for products that aren't on Amazon's catalogue, just google "purchase UPC codes". You can get 100 codes for as low as $10...

UPC codes are a requirement only when the product you're trying to add isn't on Amazon's catalogue yet.

All items in Amazon's catalogue have ASINs... So if you have the ASIN for the product, you can list it on your account quite easily with the "add new product". Best way to add new products - just search for them in the catalogue! No need to have prior knowledge of the ASIN either.

Re: amazon....upc required
 

Exactly always search by putting the UPC code already on your product in the search box on the sell an item page of Amazon first, as has been said, more often that not the item will already have been listed by other sellers previously so you can piggy back onto a mix up of their listing and your details.

Creating a new product can be bit time consuming, getting the right info from your product and elaborating on it where necessary to keep Amazon happy enough to not pester for more details, ridiculous details in some cases.

Re: amazon....upc required
 

I spoke with Amazon today in great detail about the UPC requirement.

At some point in the past, creating an ASIN didn't require a UPC. Most ASIN's created back then that haven't had a UPC added are now disabled, but there are a few that fell through the cracks and are still listed.

But, yes, making a new ASIN now requires a UPC.

Officially Amazon only supports UPC's registered with gs1.org, which is quite expensive. Using third party UPC's is working now.

Some of the third party UPC's are gs1 registered UPC's that went unused and are being resold (just like gift card resales). Amazon is working on cross-referencing with gs1, and disallowing UPC's that aren't registered there or don't match. Resold UPC's won't show you as the owner with gs1, and you can't update gs1 on the product description since you aren't the original buyer.

Other of the third party UPC's aren't even gs1 registered, and are just random numbers that fit the UPC algorithm (last digit is a checksum-type digit, i.e. not every number of the correct length you can type is a possible UPC) that haven't been gs1 registered yet. So some sites are giving you numbers you can come up with on your own, since they aren't really registered anywhere.

So be warned that you may have issues in the future. But with how expensive gs1 is, it's better at the moment to buy elsewhere for next to nothing.