Question Regarding UPC Codes

[TFCNMovieServices]

We had to remove all of our items from our store a little over a year ago due to a series of unfortunate health issues in the family. Recently however we are reloading our store here with inventory. We never closed our EBAY store since other people at our corporate office were operating that store which still exists to this day.

With that said, I do have a question that perhaps may or may not be able to be answered by anyone in this forum but I'm going to give it shot to see if anyone knows the answer.

We sell DVDs (lots of them) our warehouse has over 25,000 DVDs in it all with bar-codes from the major studios. However, we also own, manufacture distribute our own line of DVD products all copyrighted by our corporation.

Many have UPC codes but some do not. Rather they have our Product Number. I have tried to enter our product number (example: [!MPN:TFCNPR123456!] and get a red ! in front of the "G" for the Google Attributes. Other times I get the same thing using legitimate GS1 Compliant UPC Codes‎ that Google is not recognizing despite the fact that we paid a lot of money for those UPC codes (they are NOT cheap!) and yet both EBAY and AMAZON recognize those UPC Codes so why isn't Google recognizing them here on eCrater .. which really, when you stop to think about it, doesn't make any sense.

So, the bottom line question is, are the Google Attributes absolutely required to list an item(s) on eCrater as I know there have been some minor changes since the last time I had inventory listed in our eCrater store and I think I read that if Google denies or cannot find any info for any items you list or cannot identify your UPC or MPN then eCrater can and will suspend your store? <-- True or False?

Thank you very much in advance for taking time to read this. If no one knows the answer to this can you kindly direct me to where I can write directly to someone at eCrater for an answer.

[elpereles]

In my opinion. Avoid getting crazy with Google Attributes. Google believe it will rule the world making easy things in difficult things with an add somewhere.

My recommendation. Just use the description area to add different attributes and add important info. I believe it is better have the item in the store more friendly to organic search engines than the stupid Google Attributes.

For example:

[MoonwishesStore]

[cosmicray]

[A-Better-Way]

The only thing I can think of is if you have the correct amount of digits in the UPC.

And no ecrater won't kick you out, BUT if you don't have anything on an item, then you must enter the identifier_exists,,,,,,,,,,false

I guess the whole thing is mainly all for google "shopping"

but ecrater want's it to follow what google wants, hence, google invented the identifier label

The rest is above my head, I don't know about UPC or even having to pay for them. I think I would contact google and ask ecrater. but google is the one that is wanting or verifying the UPC, not here.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

There are several points to remember and thoughts to consider when dealing with Google Attributes for DVDs and selling on eCRATER.

1) A feed of all your items are feed to Google Shopping several times a week at no charge to you.

2) If your item is added to eCRATER in the media category without a GTIN, the eCRATER system will add the red exclamation point to alert you to a problem. Your item will still be added to your store and the marketplace.

3) When you correct the problem, the red exclamation point can remain visible until after a feed to GS and GS accepts the item. I've heard of cases (and personally experienced) where it may take several weeks for the red mark to go away after the problem has been corrected. If you know the information is correct, check GS yourself for the item by title to see if your copy is listed. If it is, I would personally suggest you ignore the red mark for that item.

4) Google Shopping states that a UPC GTIN is required for all items in the media category. In another place they state a GTIN is required for all "NEW" items. They have also added a new feature that states, *For products manufactured by designated brands, 'gtin' and 'brand' are required attributes." They have a list of designated brands available here: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6239390 I don't know if the red mark is triggered by an absence of the brand information.

5) If a media item is submitted that was produced without a UPC, is used, or a custom item, then you use the [!identifier_exists:FALSE!].

6) Google Attributes are needed to have your items included in Google Shopping. Some entire stores are excluded from the Google Shopping. I've never heard of any store being suspended because they refused to add Google Attributes, but that's not to say it's never happened. (I'm just a seller not a staff member with eCRATER.)

7) Check the items to confirm there are no spaces. If you use copy/paste for an attribute and have a leading or ending space in the chart, it will generate an error. If you add your attributes at the end of the description, it's easy to see the spaces.

8 ) If you have added all the required attributes for each item, waited for a couple of feeds and still see the red exclamation points, I would recommend you contact eCRATER to determine the cause of the problem.

[MoonwishesStore]

I've been hearing that a couple other venues will be requiring them as well. I think eBay and amazon both have that in the works which is hard on antique sellers and sellers of anything over a certain age.

I remember a MASH episode once where Radar was passing out Hershey's bars to the patients and you could plainly see the UPC code on them and this was supposed to be 1951-2! Was it the 70's that they came out? Even the ISBN numbers for books has now changed 3 times and these places aren't set up for the Standard book number, much less pre-SBN books.

I certainly agree about the importance of UPCs if you have one, but I run into a problem where at least McCall's has reused UPC numbers as well as reusing pattern numbers which most of the pattern companies have done. So while a UPC should be unique to one item, they will have several items with that code.

Then you have the problems with the lazy thieves who make up or steal a number and then no one can list the correct item against it. I don't think it is possible to ever get them all sorted out.

[ecrater-moon]

Do not make up any required attributes, UPC, MPN etc. Google will disapprove the product and you will have to remove the attributes. Only list valid entries. If the item does not have the required attributes enter the

identifier_exists FALSE

attribute only once for each product.



EM

[cosmicray]

I wish to point out a few realities of life selling physical goods (and I'm not picking a fight, so please bare with me).

Sellers have no control over what the manufacturers decide to put on the products. In a perfect world, every product would have a unique manufacturer defined MPN, and it would relate to a unique UPC, in a 1-to-1 relationship.

MPN should never get reused.

Sadly, that is not the case. I have seen LEGO products, with a particular MPN, which (in different case lots) had different UPC numbers. The cause of this was the country of the included pieces. When LEGO switched batches of parts (made in different countries), they had to change the product label, which triggered a different UPC. It happens.

I have also seen sloppiness at LEGO HQ, where they re-used an MPN, for a totally different product. Each one had it's own UPC, so that adds to the confusion.

LEGO parts have no UPC. They do, in 99% of the instances, have a unique MPN (provided you dig and research long enough to discover it). The newer stuff is easy, the older parts are much harder to determine.

In a perfect world, everything would conform to what Google wants. In the real world it doesn't, so we have to make allowances, and provide the best information we can obtain, and use the identifier_exists FALSE when there is nothing to go on.

[MoonwishesStore]

[TFCNMovieServices]

WOW! So many helpful people. We have UPC's for our company owned, manufactured and distributed line of products. All other Factory Releases have UPCs so we were not really concerned with that as much as we were for some of our company products.

In a 'rush' to get some of those listed (on that 'other site') we used our MPN number (which was technically only a temporary number we assigned to the product until our office manager could get around to assigning a UPC number to the products).

As of right now, I'm getting close to the 200 mark in items in the store but not quite yet ready to open; but will before the end of this month. I've been concentrating for the most part ONLY on Factory Original DVD products because we have so many of them. As for our products, I've only listed 24 of those and they already had UPC numbers. I probably should have clarified my initial post regarding the UPC question --- but all of you were very helpful and I truly appreciate you taking your time to reply to my concerns; in particular this> [!identifier_exists:FALSE!] Which I had no knowledge about.

Thanks Again!!

[thewrightbiz]

[thewrightbiz]

[MoonwishesStore]

[thewrightbiz]