Financial Times

Barcodes -- new challenge for exporters
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. the USA based world’s largest retail chain has already announced that all of its suppliers should equip their products with barcode technology by January 2006.

Not only Wal-Mart but also other retail giants like Germany’s Metro and Britain’s Tesco are also requesting their suppliers to adopt barcode technology, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) said last week.

Explaining the importance of barcodes and its role as an authorized body to issue barcodes, the CCC asked why many retailers today, prefer suppliers with barcode technology?

“Barcodes enable retailers to have significant cost savings and efficient supply chain management. Often the most dramatic examples involve operating inventories. In a busy operation, this can be a significant saving of time and money.

The typical error rate of a human on data entry is 1 error per 300 characters. Clerical and data entry errors can be a source of costs and related problems: extra freight costs, unhappy customers and time spent to track down problems are few examples. But those data entry errors can be avoided with barcode scanners, as the error rate for a barcode scanner is 1 error in 36 trillion characters, “it said.

In countries like India and China most exporters as well as retailers have adopted barcode technology. This has created a new challenge for Sri Lankan exporters in the international market place. According to statistics, currently 10% of Sri Lankan exporters use barcode technology.

Exporters who do not use barcode technology face an increased risk of losing international buyers, as bar-coding of products is a must in majority of the international markets.

Usage of barcodes will benefit all types of exporters, including bulk exporters. Traders should be aware that international ports/customs points are well advanced in technology and using barcodes to scan items for clearance, it said.

Barcodes are operated as a unified system called GS1 (Global Standard One) around the world, which is coordinated by head quarters in Brussels, Belgium. In Sri Lanka, the CCC is the authorized body to issue GS1 barcodes.

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