UPC -vs- Product Code in New Product Configuration

What is the difference between a UPC & a Product Code?



A lot of my suppliers provide me with either just a Product Code or both a Product Code and a UPC.



This issue was brought to my attention when I recently tried to export my product feed to Google Base. Google “disapproved” all of my products stating they all contained “Invalid UPC Values”.



Apparently, in my CS-Cart export, the Item # is being used as the Product Code.



Is there a certain method of export I should be using such as a different selection of exported attributes?



Does my new installation of the SEO Addon affect the product feeds in any way?



I also have a lot of books that I will be putting up on my website soon. How would the ISBN tie in to this dilemma?



When creating a new product in the Admin, there is only one area to insert in a product ID. Is this where I should be putting in the UPC, Product Code, or ISBN?



Screenshot of current settings attached.



Thank you so much for your help!











[quote name=‘Chef_Joe’]What is the difference between a UPC & a Product Code?



A lot of my suppliers provide me with either just a Product Code or both a Product Code and a UPC.



This issue was brought to my attention when I recently tried to export my product feed to Google Base. Google “disapproved” all of my products stating they all contained “Invalid UPC Values”.



Apparently, in my CS-Cart export, the Item # is being used as the Product Code.



Is there a certain method of export I should be using such as a different selection of exported attributes?



Does my new installation of the SEO Addon affect the product feeds in any way?



I also have a lot of books that I will be putting up on my website soon. How would the ISBN tie in to this dilemma?



When creating a new product in the Admin, there is only one area to insert in a product ID. Is this where I should be putting in the UPC, Product Code, or ISBN?



Screenshot of current settings attached.



Thank you so much for your help!











[/QUOTE]



Wondering the same thing…

Most times they are the same, but it depends on your customer base.



A UPC (universal product code) is the numeric code that is used in bar-coders, etc. They are registered to a particular product so if you know the code, you can always find the product information.



However, many people use the product_code field to store the Manufacturer Model Number (eg. ABC-123) which is much easier on the eyes but has no guarantee of uniqueness, not even with the Manufacturer.



So most people use the MMN for the product_code and “might” have a UPC Product Feature to store the UPC.



But in my experience most merchants simply ignore the UPC unless they use barcoding or have other reasons to reference a product by UPC (like ordering from a distributor).



Many shopping aggregators want both a MMN and a UPC (like Google, Amazon, etc.) and if it’s a book or DVD, they want an ISBN.



If you’re going to display the Product code on your site, I would suggest putting the MMN into the product_code field and using features for UPC and ISBN.



Hope that explains it for you.

I don’t want to use ISBN or anything related to the product it self.



When you have 5,000 products in an excel spreadsheet and manage that with QuickBooks, you REALLY need a way to have 1 product (e.g. a pair of shoes) which don’t have 20 products, each with a different size in your store (sizes: 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, 11, 11.5, 12, 13.)



So instead of having 20 products, each with a different Product Code, we would have ONE product, with 20 variants, EACH VARIANT with its own Product Code I[/I] and/or Barcode I[/I]…



What and where would we need to change in order to achieve this? Before our client purchases the software, we would need to know that this would be a simple task.



Can anyone offer some insight as to which files/templates would require changing so that entry of new data into new columns in the VARIANTS page can be created, so that they are linked to the rest of the system?


  • Pages required to be modified to show in front end?
  • Pages required to be modified to show in back end?
  • Pages required to be modified so that fields can be used to export/import products?
  • Database changes?



    :slight_smile:

    Thank you VERY much in advance!



    p.s. Interspire Shopping Cart supports this feature by default, however CS-Cart offers a few more features that we require, that are not available in Interspire!

[quote name=‘tbirnseth’]Most times they are the same, but it depends on your customer base.



A UPC (universal product code) is the numeric code that is used in bar-coders, etc. They are registered to a particular product so if you know the code, you can always find the product information.



However, many people use the product_code field to store the Manufacturer Model Number (eg. ABC-123) which is much easier on the eyes but has no guarantee of uniqueness, not even with the Manufacturer.



So most people use the MMN for the product_code and “might” have a UPC Product Feature to store the UPC.



But in my experience most merchants simply ignore the UPC unless they use barcoding or have other reasons to reference a product by UPC (like ordering from a distributor).



Many shopping aggregators want both a MMN and a UPC (like Google, Amazon, etc.) and if it’s a book or DVD, they want an ISBN.



If you’re going to display the Product code on your site, I would suggest putting the MMN into the product_code field and using features for UPC and ISBN.



Hope that explains it for you.[/QUOTE]



The problem with this is that Google now wants both the product code and the UPC for all products. There currently is no option for that in the google product feed export in the admin.



There should be options for BOTH product code AND upc when entering in a new product, and both of those values should be part of the google base export.



Any idea how to do this?

We have not resolved the Google feed issue yet, but to make it work for other shopping comparison sites we just created a “feature” that was called “UPC” and another one called “ISBN” and we use those when we upload to the other comparison sites. We have not figured out how to get this same information in to the Google feed yet.

[quote]

Any idea how to do this?

[/quote]

Not within the standard Google CSV stuff done in the cart.

You could always use my XML data feeds addon which allows you to utilize features, product table fields or literal values for any of these types of fields.

[font=“Verdana”]Great to see other people also require TWO fields for product code and product number i[/i].



I’m really struggling with this, as having to concatenate fields and do A LOT of modifications within Excel whem exporting to CSV for import.



Is there anything better?

Can Google Base do something that I’m not aware of?

What on earth does it do anyway? :P



I’d be happy to receive some support and 3rd party services to assist me in loading:

  • Products (i.e. Widget),
  • Widget’s Colours (different Product Codes for each colour),
  • Widget’s Sizes (different Product Codes for each size),
  • Sizes + Colours → Combinations in CSC.



    I’ve tried using Google Base and when exporting from CS-Cart (with Google base details configured) it says can’t connect to server…



    Could anyone please offer a solution to the problem, and recommend the best method of uploading several thousand items?



    e.g. a couple thousand items if using Product Combinations, or many thousands via individual products and no variations!



    I cannot find any way to upload both UPC and PRODUCT CODE via either of these methods



    Thank you VERY much in advance![/font]

Try http://www.ez-ms.com/addonproducts/xml-data-feeds.html

The documentation is in the attachments tab.



It can utilize product features and/or columns in the products table in the database.

It also handles the new Google Categories.

[font=“Verdana”]So it's more than just an area to manage data in a central “repository”, syncronising or “feeding” the data to various sources?



I couldn't manage to do anything within Google Base, and when we connected it with our CS-Cart installation, CS-Cart just popped up an error at the top right about an error… :S



Perhaps I've misunderstood what I “skimmed” through…[/font]

[quote name='UniDevelopers' timestamp='1314842004' post='120742']

[font=“Verdana”]

I cannot find any way to upload both UPC and PRODUCT CODE via either of these methods

[/quote]



I am looking through version 2.2.2, isn't there supposed to be a different field for Product Code and UPC? I see the old Product Code field, but I do not see the UPC. Can anyone point to where it is?



When I go to the export>>Google base it already shows the “UPC” code as one of the options to export, I just cannot figure out where the heck we would fill in the UPC on the actual product.

It's not possible with the standard installation to pull features for Google Base. I posted my modifications for the google base export that included the code to pull features. Do a search for Google Base thread that I started.

That is correct Tool. I understand that I cannot export “features” with the standard Google Base tool. That is not what I am asking or trying to figure out.



On the new version (2.2.2) if you try to use the Google Base tool there is an exported field there that says “UPC”. Here is a link to a screen shot of mine…



whole page — http://screencast.com/t/YGmKngbzdt

actual word UPC — http://screencast.com/t/KlEdfzkfW6JE



If you look in the “exported fields” you will see 3 fields highlighted in blue. The middle field says “UPC” (which is link 2 above. That is the one I am trying to figure out where it is pulling from. It looks like it is pulling the UPC from some place to send to Google, but I don't know where.



BTW, I have learned how to use the “features” tab on inventory quite well and have also learned how to use the data feed function which has turned out to be awesome. We did find out the data feed does not work with Shopzilla for some reason, but we have been able to get several other feeds set up and running. Shopzilla keeps some of the “quotes” around some of the fields of the uploaded feed and cannot seem to understand what it is. I haven't given up on it yet though.

UPC = Product Code.



If you look at the source code, “Product Code” (Either from product or option combinations) is UPC in the code.



:(





Hmm I guess I don’t need data feeds or google base etc.

Really just need a method of adding heaps of products and combinations.



The time it took me to import 8 products and setup the single set of product options (just colour!) took far too long from Excel → CSV → CS-Cart → CSV → Excel, Add more details, → CSV → CS-Cart…



Perhaps if we create a custom field, then modify approx 20+ files for Customer template, and then modify another 50 files on Admin template, we can get this working properly…

Whomever edited that file last screwed it up. That portion of code has always been UPN (User Product Number) not UPC (Universal Product Code)



I have actually edited the upn for mpn (manufacturer product number) which is an attribute for Google Base.


'price' => array (
'table' => 'product_prices',
'db_field' => 'price',
'process_get' => array('fn_exim_google_format_field', '#this', 'price', '#key', '@discounts')
),
'upc' => array (
'db_field' => 'product_code',
'required' => true
),
'title' => array (
'table' => 'product_descriptions',
'db_field' => 'product',
'process_get' => array('fn_exim_google_format_field', '#this', 'title'),
),

So it sounds like CS didn't really fix the Google feed, but instead put a used bandaid on it?



@Tool

So basically, CS has the wrong code and they are pulling the same number for both of these fields? So does your fix here change the “upn” to “mpn” but does it still not allow us to upload BOTH the UPC and our product code? It sounds like it is being called the same thing and pulling the from the same field. The interesting part is most of my vendors don't even use the “mpn” and the “upc” as the same thing. Most (if not all) use 2 different numbers just like we do.



This gets a little confusing.

[quote name='clips' timestamp='1314980038' post='120861']

So it sounds like CS didn't really fix the Google feed, but instead put a used bandaid on it?



@Tool

So basically, CS has the wrong code and they are pulling the same number for both of these fields? So does your fix here change the “upn” to “mpn” but does it still not allow us to upload BOTH the UPC and our product code? It sounds like it is being called the same thing and pulling the from the same field. The interesting part is most of my vendors don't even use the “mpn” and the “upc” as the same thing. Most (if not all) use 2 different numbers just like we do.



This gets a little confusing.

[/quote]



Most of the vendors I deal with use UPC codes but the MPN is only part of the info included in the UPC such as a short description.

[font=“Verdana”]Code = Alpha-Numeric

Number = Numeric

PN = Part Number!



UPC vs UPN = business choice or personal opinion!



What is more important is that we need two fields that can be imported and exported… an INTERNAL PRODUCT CODE and a MANUFACTURE/ALTERNATE PRODUCT CODE. (What to re-order when stock is low, or the email that is sent to the supplier - almost automated from CSCart.



If we used our suppliers product codes we'd have so many products that overlap due to retarded suppliers overseas.



The same with barcodes. I came accross ANOTHER item the other day which had the same barcode as another totally different product we have in stock!



You use to have to apply and get your own barcode prefix from some company years ago… I wonder if that still applies!?





My Wish List:


  1. Can a second product code / product number (UPN/UPC → Manufacturer) field be created, and used accross the entire software, just as the existing product code (or UPC as per source code in CS-Cart)??


  2. Can a third field be added so all products have the ability of having bar codes + bar code type - being displayed on Sales Order / Paper work to be sent to Warehouse staff for product and part picking?

    e.g. displaying an EAN-13 barcode next to each product name, the variation(s), and the quantity, etc…[/font]

Just wanted to update this post somewhat. I am using the latest version now, and still cannot upload to Google base with out the error “Disapproved or invalid”

Personally, we do not use the Google Feed that CS created anymore. We created new “fields” for what information Google wanted and then created a new “Data Feed” and do our uploads from the Data Feed. Works like a charm so far.