# Barcodes for a shop: EAN-13, in-store numbers and carton barcodes > What a shop owner in Iraq needs to know about barcodes: what the EAN-13 digits mean, why the prefix is not the country of origin, in-store numbers, and carton vs piece. By The Dashing team · 2026-09-14 Canonical: https://dashing.krd/en/blog/barcode-basics-shop The barcode is the fastest keyboard in the shop: one scan instead of typing a name and a price. But half of the support questions about barcodes come from a simple misunderstanding: what the digits mean, why a code will not scan, what to do with an item that has no barcode, and how to sell the carton and the piece of the same item. This article answers all of them, and says how Dashing (داشنك) handles each. ![Anatomy of an EAN-13 barcode: the prefix, the company number, the item number, and the check digit](/diagrams/barcode-ean13-en.svg) ## What the thirteen digits mean The barcode printed on most products is **EAN-13**: thirteen digits in four parts. 1. **The prefix (2–3 digits)**: identifies the GS1 organisation that issued the number to the company. 628 Saudi Arabia, 629 UAE, 625 Jordan, 621 Syria, 622 Egypt, 626 Iran, 627 Kuwait, 868–869 Turkey, 528 Lebanon. 2. **The company number**: assigned to the registered company; its length varies. 3. **The item number**: chosen by the company for each product, size and pack. 4. **The check digit**: the last digit is computed from the twelve before it, and lets the scanner detect a misread. **The prefix does not tell you the country of manufacture.** GS1 says plainly that companies can manufacture anywhere and license their numbers from whichever GS1 member they choose. A product with a 629 prefix may be made in China for a company registered in the UAE. And Iraq has no prefix of its own in the GS1 list; Iraqi companies that want a global barcode usually register through a neighbouring member. ## In-store numbers: 20–29 for your shop only Prefixes **20 to 29** are reserved for internal numbers a shop creates for itself: items with no barcode (packed vegetables, bread, loose goods, a local supplier's stock). Two rules: - Never print an internal number on a product sold outside your shop; it may collide with another shop's internal number. - Let the system generate internal numbers rather than typing them, so they never repeat. In Dashing, an item without a barcode is created with a system-generated item code (SKU), and you print a **barcode label** for it from the item page. At the till, the cashier finds the item by code, barcode or name; the field is one. ## Why will the code not scan? - **A damaged or reflective code** on a shiny pack: type the digits into the same search field. - **A 1D scanner and a QR code**: a line scanner does not read squares; you need a 2D scanner. [Setting up a till in Iraq](/blog/till-setup-iraq) compares the two. - **The code is fine but the item is not registered**: add the item with its barcode from the inventory page once, and it is known from then on. - **The code is on the carton, not the piece**: the next section. ## The carton and the piece: two numbers, one item A case of water has a barcode, and the bottle inside has another. In many systems the two are registered as two separate items and the stock goes wrong. The right way: **one item with two units**, each with its own barcode and conversion factor, and stock kept in the base unit (the bottle). In Dashing you define the unit (carton = 12 bottles) once from the item page and give it its barcode; scanning the carton deducts 12 from stock at the carton price, scanning the bottle deducts 1 at the bottle price. Stock reports are in bottles, and you sell by either. ## Variants: size and colour In clothing and shoes every size and colour has its own barcode, but they are all one product. Dashing groups them under a **parent product** with variants, each with its barcode and stock, and a quick picker at the till when the parent is scanned. ## Weighed items Scales that print a barcode put the weight or the price inside the code (usually a 2 prefix, then the item code, then the weight). Dashing does not integrate with scales directly; the weight is typed, or read from the scale's barcode when the scale encodes it, and the item is defined by weight with fractional quantities. ## Printing labels From the item page you print barcode labels with the name and price on a label printer or ordinary label sheets. A thermal receipt printer does not print adhesive labels; if you have many items without barcodes, a small label printer is an investment worth making. ## Sources - GS1 company prefix list (the prefix identifies the issuing GS1 member, not the country of manufacture; 20–29 restricted circulation), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GS1_country_codes (accessed 2026-09-14) - Inventory and units in Dashing, https://dashing.krd/en/features/inventory (2026-09-14) ## Other languages - العربية: https://dashing.krd/blog/barcode-basics-shop --- Dashing · https://dashing.krd/en