Whenever you checkout at a grocery store, your cashier will scan the barcodes of your items and their prices are automatically added to the total.
The tech is rather simple. Each barcode scanned is equivalent to some unique sequence of numbers that exists as the ID of the product.
That ID (aka UPC or Universal Product Code) is used to lookup the product’s name, price, weight, and other data from the store’s local database.
Additionally, that UPC exists in the global scope as well. For example, a specific banana has the same UPC in every store across the world.
But, how can the stores know they’re not going to choose a UPC that’s already in use by apples?
How can interoperability exist between brands?
What about other products like books or shirts?
Enter, Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN).
UPC was the original, but it’s successor GTIN covers a lot more.
The GTIN standard has incorporated the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), International Standard Music Number (ISMN), International Article Number (which includes the European Article Number and Japanese Article Number) and some Universal Product Codes (UPCs), into a universal number space.
Wikipedia
In order to ensure that there are no collisions, individual brands register for a Company Prefix that they can use to denominate all products under.
Specifically, GTIN is managed by a centralized company called GS1 that approves and manages the entire GTIN database.
Blockchain was made for this
So, GTIN is a numeral based standard that requires a central trust to regulate that users don’t interfere with each other’s namespace.
In the same way that ENS allows for a trustless registrar for domain names, a blockchain solution for allowing companies to register and manage the product information within their portfolio while simultaneously preventing conflicting usage and unsanctioned modifications.
For example: if I wanted to register my product with a GTIN, I need to pay GS1 every year for the Company Prefix so I could create GTIN’s within its scope.
Instead, using blockchain, I could use my wallet to transact directly with a smart contract to create a new product GTIN as a 100% unique UUID and manage the metadata associated with it directly.
I would be able to create a product GTIN for the cost of a transaction fee, add pricing data, name, and even logistics data to the public blockchain without ever paying a middle man.
Then, I would print my products with a QR code of its blockchain address.
Graciously, I’m assuming for international tech support for QR code product scanners that interact with the blockchain, but hey we’ve switched before and we can do it again. Progress isn’t painless.
Thoughts?
All codes that exists are unique thanks to GS1 right?
How do you make a new code that is unique against the GS1 codes all while GS1 continues to issue more codes.
So the question is how can the transition be accomplished without an abrupt “every one switch to new codes at the same time”?
Great question! At the core of most new technology advancements is the simple requirement for demand. There needs to be either a strong benefit to using this tech or a downwind legal/policy enforcement to do so.
Notably, you can leverage both at the same time in a transition period – I would be a fool to revoke my GS1 UPC from my retail products and replace them as the first and only user of a new blockchain solution. Alternatively, if I also add my blockchain tracking alongside my GS1, I can onramp over time with the rest of the world.
In any case, it would take significant effort or dumbfounded virality to achieve switching the global package tracking protocol 🙂