Patterned barcodes are used when products are moved within a warehouse that contain barcodes with embed data such as weight or production date, but do not comply with the GS1 standard. 

The patterned barcode feature enables you to teach the system the barcode structure, instructing what data is important and how to parse it.

Understanding the barcode structure

Before you begin, you will need an actual barcode of the product. The first step is to understand how the barcode is structured, but no worries, only the data you want to keep is important. Below is an example explained step by step:

This factory uses a non GS1 standard to generate the barcode, it's fairly easy to understand what data each of the characters respresent:

In this example, the first 8 digits (purple) contains the product MFR (Supplier SKU), 4 digits with unknown / NA data, 4 digits (blue) with the case weight in KG, 6 digits (green) with the production date and 8 digits with unknown / NA data. 

In order to be sure that you have analysed the barcode correctly, compare it with a different case of the same product. 

Teaching TradePeg the barcode

On your TradePeg account, navigate to the product, in the product details page, go to the "Relations" tab, click on the "New Barcode Parser", you are then asked to enter a "sample barcode", using the example above, enter the full barcode you see on the case (101202802225212308111609190215) and click 'OK'

When a dialog shows, in the "Sample Barcode" field:

  1. Select the characters "2225" and click the "Optional" button, (this step lets the system know that these selected characters are optional and the same product might not have these characters on a different case, however the first 8 characters '10120280' must show on each case for this product type). 
  2. Select the weight (KG) characters "2123" and click the "Net weight KG" button. 
  3. Select "081116" and click the "Production Date" button. 
  4. Select the "09190215" characters and click on the "Optional" button.

The end results should look like this:

At this point, you can test your parsing with another case from this product by entering the barcode in the "Test another barcode" field. If the barcode matches what it has been taught, the system will let you know what the weight and date the second case should have.

Once complete, click the save button and you're ready to parse the next product.