GTIN, SSCC and logistics labels for apparel buyers

Identification is the part of pack-out that a factory cannot resolve on its own, because the data belongs to the buyer. This page covers what the identifiers are and where they enter the specification. It is not a barcode engineering guide, and it is deliberately short on technical detail a sourcing team does not need.

The standards are GS1's. The current edition of the GS1 General Specifications is version 26.0, published in January 2026, and the specifications are revised annually.

Two keys, two questions

The bracketed values are placeholders, not codes. Identifiers come from the party that holds them and are never invented at the point of packing.

Two consequences follow that are worth holding on to. Every piece of a given size and colour carries the same GTIN, which is what lets a till or a stock system recognise the product. Each SSCC is used once, which is what lets a receiving system know precisely which carton arrived. An identifier that repeats cannot do the second job, and an identifier that is unique per unit cannot do the first.

GS1 is explicit that the SSCC is the key that shall be used to identify a logistic unit, and an individual SSCC must not be reallocated within one year of the shipment date from the assignor to its trading partner. That reuse rule is why SSCCs are managed as a sequence rather than picked.

An SKU is a third thing

Brands maintain internal stock keeping units, and an SKU is not a GTIN. It is a business identifier used inside the brand's own systems, in whatever format that brand chose, and it carries no meaning outside them.

The two often sit side by side on the same sticker and in the same spreadsheet, and both can be useful to a factory: the SKU because it is what the buyer's own team says out loud, the GTIN because it is what a scanner needs. What causes problems is a specification that supplies one and calls it the other, because the value that reaches the label will then be wrong in a way nobody notices until goods are scanned.

Where identifiers come from

Not from the factory. GS1 identification keys are issued within the GS1 system to the party that holds the relevant allocation, so the numbers printed on a garment sticker or a carton label originate with the brand or, in some retail programmes, with the retailer.

A factory asked to supply barcodes has been asked to do something it cannot legitimately do. What it can do is print the values the buyer provides, accurately and in the specified format. Where a brand does not yet hold identifiers, allocation is arranged through GS1 rather than improvised, and it is worth starting early because it is an administrative step with its own lead time.

What a GS1 logistics label actually requires

This surprises people, and it is an often overstated point in packing specifications.

On a GS1 logistics label, the SSCC is the only compulsory data element. It appears both as a barcode carrying application identifier (00) and in human-readable form. Everything else on the label is optional under the specification, and where other data is carried it has to comply with the specification and use application identifiers correctly. Optional elements can include a GTIN, batch or lot information, dates and logistic measurements.

So when a buyer requires a purchase order number, a style, a size breakdown or a carton number on a carton, that is their commercial requirement. It may be entirely reasonable and it should be followed precisely; it is not a GS1 rule, and describing it as one confuses a standard with a routing guide. The two often coexist on the same carton, as covered in cartons, assortments and shipping marks.

Where this enters the pack-out specification

Identification data arrives at three points, and each one is a different list.

1. 1The individual pack. A product identifier per style, colour and size, printed on the bag sticker or the hangtag depending on where the buyer wants it, as covered in folding and polybagging.
2. 2The carton. Whatever the buyer's shipping mark requires, plus a logistics label where the programme uses one. Where SSCCs are involved, who generates the sequence has to be agreed rather than assumed.
3. 3The shipment record. The packing list, which reconciles what was packed against what was specified and, where logistics labels are used, ties carton identifiers to contents.

The middle one is a step often left open. A specification can require a logistics label without saying who produces the SSCCs, and both parties can reasonably assume it is the other. Settle it in the specification.

Barcodes for distributor warehouses and merch web shops

A distributor warehouse or a merch web shop needs one GTIN per colour and size of every style, because that is the unit it books in, stores and picks: a polo in two colours and five sizes is ten GTINs. The numbers are allocated by whoever owns the brand on the garment, through a GS1 member organisation. For a band's or a company's merch that is usually the merch owner; for a distributor's own-label promotional range it is the distributor. A shop that also lists on marketplaces generally needs them anyway, since marketplaces commonly ask for a GTIN per variant.

Placement follows the handling. The GTIN goes on the hangtag or the poly bag label, where a picker scans it, and the SSCC label goes on the carton for the warehouse's goods-in scan. Voyager applies the labels the buyer supplies, matched to the identifier list per variant; printing labels from supplied data is confirmed per project at the quotation stage. The rest of a merch or promotional textiles order is covered on the group pages.

Print quality matters, and it is not decorative

A barcode is only useful if it scans reliably in the conditions where it will be read. Contrast between the bars and the background, the physical size of the symbol, the clear space around it and general print quality all affect whether that happens, and a barcode that scans on a desk can fail on a conveyor.

Where a buyer's programme requires verified print quality to a defined grade, that is a testing requirement and it belongs in the specification with everything else, including who performs it. GS1 publishes the technical guidance and it is the source to work from rather than a supplier's rule of thumb.

The practical version for many programmes is simpler: print on a surface and a label stock the symbol can be read from, do not shrink it below what the buyer's data requires, and check a real sample with a real scanner before the whole order is labelled.