Readers have noticed a change in the bar codes on some coupons and wrote to ask about them.
Q - I have used coupons for many years but I notice that most coupons now have two bar codes on them. Why are there two?
A - The two sets of bar codes on manufacturer coupons have been in place for a while. However, in the months ahead you'll see coupons going back to a single bar code.
What is going on? If you like, grab any manufacturer coupon and follow along. The bar code you see on the left of a manufacturer-supplied coupon is the traditional, GTIN-12 Universal Price Code that has been in use since 1974.
This code revolutionized supermarket shopping and coupon redemption, because it allowed cashiers to automatically scan products and coupons at checkout time versus manually entering prices and coupon values.
The bar code at right is the newer GS1 DataBar. The GS1 bar codes started appearing on coupons in 2007 alongside the traditional bar codes. In 2010, a phaseout of the traditional 12-digit UPC is planned and once it's complete we'll no longer see the old-style bar codes on coupons.
Why the switch? The newer system offers more features for stores and manufacturers to track and monitor sales. With the current UPC, coupons are limited in the values that can be assigned to them. The old bar code doesn't offer enough ways to configure data to offer the widest possible variety of redemption amounts. The new system will allow customized coupon values in any amount up to $999.99 (which would be a very valuable coupon, indeed.)
The new bar code also contains the expiration date for the coupon, a valuable tool for stores and cashiers who previously had to verify expiration dates manually. Current bar codes do not validate the expiration date, so this is an improvement to help reduce coupon fraud for retailers.
Additionally, the GS1 DataBar carries a wider range of information specific to the product that the coupon is to be used for. The older UPC uses a system of "family codes" to help the register determine which item or items the coupon can be scanned with.
However, this system has been abused, both accidentally and intentionally, by shoppers. With the old family codes, the register notes if the product purchased falls into a matching family of products made by the manufacturer.
In many cases, more than one product may be recognized as a "match" if the product also happens to be part of the same family. This left the door open for coupon abuse. Let's say you have a coupon for a box of cereal "16 ounces or larger." When you get to the store, you grab the 12-ounce box by mistake, use your coupon and it scans just fine.
Whether you intended to or not, you've committed coupon fraud, using a coupon on an item it wasn't specified for. Mistakes like this do happen.
Where UPC family codes become a real problem, though, is when people intentionally determine what other (often unrelated) products they might be able to use a coupon for. One of the most flagrant abuses was detailed in a popular coupon blog. People supposedly used $10 coupons for teeth-whitening strips to buy baby diapers. The same company made both products and the coupons for whitening strips scanned through when diapers were bought instead. If shoppers successfully slipped their coupons by unsuspecting cashiers, they fraudulently enjoyed huge savings on diapers instead of whitening strips.
The new GS1 DataBar will eliminate this kind of "off-label" coupon use, since the new bar code carries detailed information about the type, size and variety of product the coupon is good for. It can contain information about what geographical region the coupon is to be redeemed in, even limiting use to a specific store.
Stores are now moving to the new system. Having both sets of bar codes on coupons ensures coupons will scan, during the transition, at the register.
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