Often times people think that the GTIN is the same thing as the barcode, but it is not. GTIN can be used by a company to uniquely identify all of its trade items. Meanwhile, barcodes are the actual lines and spaces that you see on the label that are to be read by a scanner at the point of sale.

The GTIN can be used to identify types of products at any packaging level (e.g., consumer unit, inner pack, case, pallet) individual trade items can be uniquely identified using a GTIN plus serial number.

Once a company has assigned a GTIN to a trade item, it provides a common language for all of its entities and trading partners worldwide to uniquely identify the item and easily share information about the item.