Product traceability is becoming an essential business prerequisite in today's world, largely because customers are becoming more mindful of the goods they purchase and use, and would want to verify items, besides tracing its origin. This information is critical for consumers to make informed purchase decisions and has helped them shift loyalties from one company to another that can build and maintain a sense of trust and transparency.
So let’s understand what exactly a traceability system for businesses is and how an effective traceability solution works. Traceability refers to the organization’s ability to identify, track and trace various elements of a product/consignment as it moves along the supply chain from raw goods to finished products. Effective traceability solution provides end-to-end visibility in the whole supply chain process. To fulfill the requirements of today’s business and ensure what is lying where at all times, GS1 India introduced a traceability solution that enables organisations accurately monitor and manage their products right along chain from production to the point of sale / consumption. Efficient traceability programs not only let businesses respond to product-related issues quickly but also anticipate and avoid them. GS1 India’s traceability solution provides manufacturers/brand owners with all the necessary structures required to ensure a smooth traceability mechanism for the supply chain of their products. The service can be adopted by businesses to ensure smooth functioning of their supply chain for effective and efficient operations. How GS1 India’s Traceability Solution work for businesses: Having a traceability system not only valuable for tracking and tracing back product information, but it also gives an added benefit to companies. These include:
Traceability is the system that increases the speed and efficiency of product recall and reduces the chances of business and consumer risks, and ultimately helps improve the quality of the whole supply chain process. Therefore, having a traceability solution in the business could be a good investment for you to boost your business in the long run. So, don’t just sit back, avail all the benefits of GS1 India’s Traceability Solution. To know more about the solution, visit: https://support.gs1india.org/traceability-service-consultation
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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, which enable consumers to get more information on products and sometimes, verify the claims made on the product label. The premise of most of these applications is to provide complete and accurate product information to enable shoppers to make the right purchase decisions since insufficient/illegible information on the product label, at times, causes hindrance. To address this issue, GS1 India has introduced one trusted mobile application Smart Consumer app, which was launched in December 2016, with an objective of empowering consumers with reliable product information. This is particularly important since most of the scanning applications bank on crowd-sourced product data, which, at times, is incorrect and misleads consumers. In sharp contrast, data populated on the Smart Consumer app is sourced directly from brand owners of products. A simple scan of the barcode, starting with ‘890’, using the Smart Consumer mobile app, enables consumers to find product information, such as brand name, ingredients, product image, MRP, net content, dimensions, Regulatory information like ISI/ BEE/ FSSAI license information and its validity, etc. Through Smart Consumer mobile app, consumers can also share product feedback directly with the manufacturers and also file complaints against manufacturers or brand owners. Consumers can also use this app to verify product barcodes given on the label and to connect with brands. So, what are you waiting for? Download the Smart Consumer app from your Google play store or Apple Store, and start scanning barcodes starting with ‘890’. 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 what exactly a barcode is. What is a barcode? Barcodes are an automotive identification technology structured to contain a specific kind of product data and information. It is represented in strings of characters, designating all types of information encrypted in barcode symbols in which each symbol follows an algorithm for balancing the encoding and storing of these characters. If you observe a barcode, you will notice that it is made up of black vertical lines of varying thickness, interspersed with white spaces used for 100% accurate and speedy data entry. The barcode number is interpreted by the scanner using a laser beam that gathers up the reflections of the bar, the scanner then translates the reflected light to details on the device or to be processed in the documents. Barcodes also enable devices to record the time of sale, precisely what is being sold in the shop, the price of the product, along with all the related details as required by the shop within a second or just a ‘beep’ of the scanner. Barcodes are used to encode information such as product numbers, serial numbers, and batch numbers. They play a very important role in supply chains, allowing parties such as distributors, suppliers, transport companies and hospitals to instantly recognize goods as they pass across the value chain. Types of Barcodes that exists in the market With diverse combinations possible, the types of barcodes in use today are vast. We have 1, 2 and 3D barcodes. Each one of these barcodes is designed with its different areas of application. The first-ever barcode to be developed was 1D (one-dimensional) or linear barcode is often seen on household products and credit/debit cards. These bars represent numbers or characters, and usually do not store much information, whereas with the advent of technology and innovation came 2D barcodes, which look like squares and rectangles with many individual dots acting as ‘optical markers’ instead of bars. These barcodes can hold more information than any 1D barcode. They remain readable even when they are printed at a small size or are stamped on a product. Owing to the huge amount of information they can hold, they are used by firms to provide information to its users, and are relevant in a wide range of industries like manufacturing and warehousing to logistics and healthcare. On the other hand, 3D barcodes are engraved on the package and the scanner identifies the new characters in the string in the lower regions of the code from which the data can be transferred. The most commonly used barcodes in modern times are the UPC (Universal Product Code) a 12-digit barcode number and EAN (European Article Number) 13-digit barcode numbers. Together, they are known as GTIN (Global Trade Item Numbers). These barcodes are instantly noticeable and have made their presence felt across all of the retail sector. These barcodes were created for grocery stores to provide quick receipt printing and inventory tracking. With all these different types, barcodes eliminate the chances of any manual human error and provide accurate product information into the database. Barcodes made doing business extremely efficient and seamless for manufacturers.The technology behind barcodes is constantly evolving and soon it will change the future of supply chain management across the globe. Get a barcode today from the only authorized barcode agency GS1 India and enhance your efficiency and profitability in supply chain management. To buy GS1 barcode online, click on this link below: (https://www.gs1india.org/content/get-a-barcode) 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 supply chain standards organization. It lets consumers scan product barcodes using their mobile phones, to access complete product information before making purchase decisions. Besides product information, the app also provides information about the consumer care details of the company, and an option to file complaints or share product feedback directly with brand owners. Smart Consumer app also enables consumers to validate product information on licenses, including FSSAI, AGMARK, BIS, etc. Additionally, regulatory compliance authority on food — FSSAI & AGMARK, recently directed food companies to upload their product information on the Smart Consumer mobile app, along with their license numbers and expiry dates. Please note that only product barcode numbers starting with 890 could be scanned using the app since these are unique product IDs, provided by global supply chain standards organization — GS1 India. To know about how this app works, click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE9w7VNne3o 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 manufacturer and get more product information. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to maximise your product’s visibility and grow your business by using this app. Upload and publish your product information to DataKart and be visible on the Smart Consumer mobile app today. Don’t wait, download this app now! Smart Consumer app for Android and iOS both. To know more about Smart Consumer mobile app, click on https://www.gs1india.org/smart-consumer Or Resource Link :- https://gs1indiacontent.blogspot.com/2020/04/consumers-are-increasingly-using-smart.html 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. LET US UNDERSTAND WHAT TRACEABILITY IS: Traceability refers to the organisation’s ability to identify, track and trace elements of a product / consignment as it moves along the supply chain from raw goods to finished products. In today’s complex supply chains, end-to-end traceability is both critical and exceedingly difficult to accomplish. To ensure a smooth and error-free supply chain operation, GS1 India has come up with a seamless traceability service that enables manufacturers to easily track and trace their products right through the journey from origin to the point of its sale and consumption. Effective traceability system offers real-time information about the products’ journey in the supply chain. GS1 India’s Traceability standards provide manufacturers/brand owners with all the necessary framework to support a seamless traceability system for their products’ supply chain. For more than a decade, GS1 Global Traceability Standards (GTS) have assisted in defining the globally accepted method for sharing and identifying information about the products with trading partners on the trading location, trading items, trading units, etc. GTS has helped various industries to frame and conduct the direct implementation of traceability solutions and enable conformity with global regulations such as G.A.P (Good Agricultural Products), ISO standards on Traceability and recalls, EU Food laws, etc. To match the need of today’s business and ensure what is lying where at any given time in the supply chain, GS1 has developed GTS 2 as with newer technologies, complexities are emerging related to traceability solutions. This updated standard will include reference to new technical possibilities such as EPCIS, which provide new data and event sharing information to connect databases and to get the product information searching in the cloud portal. This new GTS solution by GS1 is global and cross-cutting multi-sectoral that will continue to meet the needs of the industries. WHY DO WE NEED IT? Implementation of the traceability solution enables manufacturers and brand owners to ensure real-time product visibility in the supply chain so that:
GS1 Traceability Service Enables Complete Track and trace of Their Products Across the Supply Chain4/15/2020 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 threaten the safety of the public and erode consumer confidence in the brand and destroy its reputation. Counterfeit medications, faulty medical devices, contaminated foods and unsustainable sourcing practices threaten public safety, waste precious natural resources, erode consumer confidence, and destroy brand reputation. If companies refuse to invest in due diligence, they will suffer the brunt of superfast exchange of information about their products on social/ media and its adverse effects on the brand image. Along with affecting those who sell through shopping websites, brick-and-mortar retail will also be affected. Consumers will instantly switch their loyalties to companies who can build and sustain a sense of trust and transparency among consumers. Traceability is the ability to verify the history, location or status of an item by means of documentation. In the process of traceability, serialization along with unique identifiers are assigned to consumer goods/complex medical devices as the first step towards complete, end-to-end visibility over supply chains. Disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain and collaborative platforms, can take traceability systems to another level by offering detailed reports on any product’s status and movements and creating direct links between the various stakeholders along the supply chain, from producers to end users to ensure transparency in supply chain. Traceability can be adapted to any industry. In fact, some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, are subject to legislation that requires it, such as the European Union’s Falsified Medicines Directive (EU FMD) and the United States Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA). GS1 Traceability Service: GS1 India, a supply chain standards organization, has launched its traceability service for businesses. The service seeks to provide brands with complete track and trace of their products across the supply chain. Created in response to growing demands of establishing end-to-end traceability of the products in the supply chain and the consumers’ questions on the product origin, the service enables brands to gain end-to-end supply chain visibility and an ability to give access to this information to consumers for product verification. Based on the principles of linking physical movement of goods with the information flow, it ensures product information transparency. Besides, traceability also helps in reducing counterfeits by enabling counterfeit detection right at its source. Resource Link :- https://gs1indiacontent.blogspot.com/2020/04/gs1-traceability-service-enables.html 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. Why is end-to-end traceability important? End-to-end traceability is important as it lends real-time product visibility in the supply chain. It is integral for business owners to know, at all times, where their products are lying in the supply chain. It gains further importance in the case of products with a short shelf life as it enables them to manage expiries better and ensure minimum product wastage. In the case of product defects, leading to health risks to consumers or legal risks to brand owners, implementation of the traceability solutions enable manufacturers/brand owners to withdraw the affected batches with speed and accuracy. This enables:
End-to-end traceability enables brand owners to locate the root cause of the problem and pinpoint the responsible party. Besides these, there are many other benefits of traceability such as automated data capture leading to freeing up of resource time, efficient product withdrawals, and complete visibility in the supply chain. Reference Link- https://gs1indiacontent.blogspot.com/2020/04/fill-gaps-with-traceability-all-about.html Trade, today, poses many challenges to retailers. Considering the large volumes of goods that they deal with, product authentication across the supply chain is a significant challenge for retailers and e-tailers. Supply chain efficiency is defined by real-time product visibility in the supply chain of product movements. Considering that trade today transcends national boundaries, they also need universally unique identification of products.
GTIN One such solution is the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), the most commonly used GS1 identification key. Used to uniquely identify products, the GTIN has relevance at all stages of the supply chain, including primary packaging (consumer unit), secondary (inner packing), and tertiary (carton/pallet), and more. Once a GTIN number has been delegated to a trade item by a business, it is permanently affixed to it across the globe, for all the business entities and trading partners, globally. This enables them to have a consistent identity in communicating information about the product worldwide. GTIN is encoded in a barcode or an EPC/RFID tag; upon scanning it, professionals in the supply chain can efficiently and accurately process products and related information. It could be a sales employee at a billing counter in a store, a warehouse worker, or even someone administering the product in a hospital. GTIN: An effective solution for your business woes GTINs are foundational to achieve greater visibility of products, product traceability and transparency across the supply chain. By embedding traceability across the supply chain, businesses can instantly know where their products are (in which stage of production as well as their geographical location). They can also effectively issue product recalls of harmful products and to communicate salient features (e.g. allergens, production methodology, etc.). For supply chain managers, traceability enables improvement in stock management and return flows, better expiry date and waste management, and better Product Life Cycle management. GS1 GTIN also enables faster product listing on e-tailing platforms, i.e., easy selling through retailers. By using GS1’s GTINs, brand owners also get free access to GS1’s DataKart service, which helps them in sharing product information and product changes with retailers and e-tailers in real time . DataKart also populates product information in the Smart Consumer App to make it accessible to consumers. Further, Google studies have shown that compliance with GTINs enhances online search results for a product by 40%. The purchase journeys of today’s consumers vary radically from their predecessor for a simple reason: contemporary buyers tend to devote a considerable amount of time in product research, and also expect a seamless product purchase experience across any platform, whether shopping online, in-store, or via a mobile app. Hyperconnectivity and consumerism are today fuelling the retail industry like never before, but with this plethora of buying options also comes a higher risk of being exposed to fake goods. In the last 2-3 years, ecommerce majors operating in India have been pulled up, time and again, for unknowingly harbouring unauthorized sellers in their marketplaces.
The online marketplace model - a risk factor for fake product listing This is exacerbated by the widespread use of the online marketplace model, rather than the e-commerce company owning and managing inventories. While these companies are focussed primarily on facilitating the transaction, they are still exposed to the risk of their marketplaces being contaminated with unauthorised sellers listing unauthenticated goods. These sellers are able to thrive off the marketplace model by offering buyers legitimate pictures and low prices, while remaining anonymous. This is a formidable challenge for online marketplaces, brand owners, and regulators. The adverse impact of e-retail fake listing Imitation merchandise is a major issue that the ecommerce sector faces today. On the consumer side, the loss can be minor, in the case of categories like apparel and accessories. Or, it can cause long-term health conditions or injuries, in the case of fake cosmetics that use toxic chemicals and harmful substances, or a lookalike consumer electronic product which uses inferior parts. Such consumer scenarios are what has led the e commerce majors to proactively address the fake listings of goods head-on. GS1 standards are tackling fake listings Global standards organisation -- GS1 -- has addressed the problem of fake product listings. The company’s GTIN Validation service allows retailers and e-tailers to authenticate products on a global registry of product information populated by brand owners & manufacturers from across the globe. The service enables retailers to validate the product data through the 13-digit GTIN number allotted by GS1 organisations across the globe. It will provide authenticated information on products and allow retailers to cross-verify information in their databases. At the moment, the GS1 Global Registry has 35 million Global Trade Identification Number (GTINs) across the globe with 10 million GTINs from India. As a result, it can ensure transparency of information on CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods). How GTIN Validation by GS1 works The product information will be populated by brand owners so that retailers will be able to unauthorised/ fake product listings, authenticate the products and also product classification for efficient listing on the platforms. Brand owners provide seven attributes to uniquely identify products: Global Trade Item Number or GTIN); Brand name; Product Description; Product Image URL; Global Product Category (or GPC); Net Content & Unit of Measure; and Country of Sale. |