How do I create my own barcoded SKU labels?

Creating barcode SKU labels

Since our announcement went out with the new Receiving Guide, requiring a SKU barcode on every product, there have been a lot of questions from our clients on how to barcode their SKUs themselves. For a lot of our clients that don't use a commercial manufacturer, this requirement could be concerning. This guide is meant to help the DIYer to print SKU label right at home and apply them to the product before sending it to us. Depending on your volume and comfort level there are 2 easy ways to generate these labels. Option 1 involves using Avery's online tool and Option 2 involves downloading a 'barcode font' on your computer and generating the labels with Microsoft Word. As a third option, Avery does offer a software package to download to your computer to design and print the labels. This option is real similar in function to Option 1 so I will not go into detail on this option.

NOTE: Please see the "Verification of Labels" section at the end of this document before placing the printed labels on your product and sending them to us.

Option 1: Printing using Avery's Designing & Print Online

Step 1: Pick your label

These are available at almost every office supply store and a lot of other stores that carry office supplies and they come in a vast assortment of size / shape that you can pick the right one for your product. They even have an option where you design the label on their website and they will print and mail the labels to you. It's a great option if you don't have a printer or don't want to deal with ink and label stock for the printer.

For the purpose of this guide though the steps are the same whether you are having Avery print the labels and mail them to you or if you are printing them yourself. So, either visit a local store or browse around online and determine the Avery label that you want to use on your products and purchase those labels.

Step 2: Enter SKU data into label template

Now that you have a label format picked out it is time to enter the SKU data into the label and print out your labels!

For this example, I am going to use the common Avery label #5160 and use Avery's Design & Print Online option that is available on their template site. I entered my label number into the tool and you should see something similar to the following:

As you can see (in the top right corner) I am using the #5160 label and I am just going to use the default blank design. Click the Next button and you will be presented with the Customize screen:

Avery has done a good job of making this tool pretty easy to use and they have plenty of help options so I am not going to go into too much detail here but the short and sweet of it is you will use the Add Text Box feature as well as the QR and Barcodes feature to design your label.  Here is my completed label:

As you can see it is a pretty simple design a text box to type in the description (optional) and then I used the Barcode feature to type in and create the barcode.

Note: For advanced users you can use Avery's 'Mail Merge' feature to pull in large amounts of different SKUs to auto generate the barcodes.

Once you have a design you like click 'Preview & Print' and then make sure everything looks correct. Load your labels into your printer and print them or choose to let Avery print them and mail them to you.

Option 2: Print using a Barcode Font

Step 1: Download the free Code 39 Barcode Font

 If you visit this link you will see the following screen:

Click the "Download the Code 39 truetype barcode font" button. This will download a font file directly to your computer. Once it is downloaded the process can differ slightly depending on what version of Operating System you are using on your PC or Mac. However, in most cases you should just be able to Double Left Click on the fre3of9x.ttf file and your computer should install it without an issue.

Step 2: Pick your label

Now that you have the Code 39 Barcode Font on your PC or Mac the next step is to decide on a physical label and create a template for the printing of your SKU labels. I typically recommend labels from Avery. These are available at almost every office supply store and a lot of other stores that carry office supplies and they come in a vast assortment of size / shape that you can pick the right one for your product. The reason I recommend Avery is because if you visit their website they have ready to go templates for almost every one of their labels which will make the next steps easier. 

Step 3: Enter SKU data into label template

Now that you have a label format picked out it is time to enter the SKU data into the label and print out your labels!

Follow the instructions on Avery's site to download and install the template into Microsoft Word. Once you have the template open in word type in the SKU data into the template.

See below:

Note: Any text that you want to become a barcode must be begin AND end with an asterisk or it will not be able to be read by a scanner. 

Now that you have the text entered into the template you just highlight the text that you want to become the barcode and then change the font to the Code 39 font.

Note: For advanced users you can use Word's 'Mail Merge' feature to pull in large amounts of different SKUs to auto generate the barcodes.

Once completed you should have a barcode similar to this:

 Now just print the labels on the label stock.

Verification of Labels

Now that you have your SKU labels printed we need to verify that the barcodes can be read by our scanners. Many things can affect the readability of barcodes including the size of the Font used and the quality of the printer. Our scanners here use 2D technology to decode both the 1D & 2D barcodes similar to many smartphone apps. So that is the quickest and easiest way to verify that your barcodes are readable. Many people already have an app on their smartphone that can read/scan barcodes (if you don't head to your phone's app store and search for 'barcode' you should have many choices to choose from). Open up that app and then point it at your newly printed barcodes if the app can decode the barcode then you should be just fine to label your product and send it to us.