Using mobile barcode scanner in your Ecwid app

With your Ecwid mobile app for iOS or Android, you can scan barcodes on products to add new items to the catalog, attach barcodes to existing products, and quickly find items and orders in your store. You can also scan barcodes on shipping labels to attach tracking numbers to shipped orders.

Barcodes come in handy if you run a business with a large catalog since it helps keep stocks neat and tidy and look up for products in a matter of seconds.

Understanding barcodes

Barcode is the small image of lines (bars) and spaces with digits for tracking trade items in stores and postage in mail services. You can find barcodes on retail store items, books, shipping labels, etc.

Generally, barcodes are not mandatory, and you can sell products in Ecwid without them. Barcodes are required only if you sell on Amazon or your country has legal requirements for the business to sell with barcodes.

Barcodes vary depending on the country and type of items. In the US and Canada, barcodes are called UPC (Universal Product Code), in Europe—EAN, in Japan—JAN. Depending on the country, a barcode can have different number of digits: 8, 12, or 13. Books have unique barcodes that are called ISBN and are assigned to each separate book edition and variation. With your Ecwid mobile app, you can scan any type of barcode.

If you sell items from other manufacturers, you will usually find a barcode on a product box or packaging so you don’t have to create one. If you sell hand-made or unique items, you may want to create a barcode for products (to better manage your catalog or sell items to retailers).

There is no built-in option to generate UPC codes in Ecwid. Yet, if your products don’t have a barcode, but you want to create one, you can do so by using a 3rd-party service: Aspose barcode generator, Online barcode generator, or any other website you can google.

All items with barcodes in your Ecwid online store get a number that is displayed as a UPC product attribute:

Adding new products with barcode scanner

You can add a new product to your online store by scanning its barcode with the Ecwid mobile app on your smartphone or tablet. It’s convenient when you have received a new batch of goods in your warehouse and need to update your catalog.

To add a new product with its barcode to your online catalog:

That’s it. Now you can search for this item in your catalog by scanning the barcode.

Adding the barcode to an existing product

You can add a barcode to any existing item in your Ecwid store to easily track and update your stock further on. It’s especially useful if you run a large store with hundreds or thousands items stored on your warehouse shelves.

To add the barcode to an existing item in your Ecwid store:

Now you can quickly find the item in your catalog by scanning its barcode.

Adding barcode to a product variation

You can assign barcodes to product variations. Having separate barcodes for different variations of a product makes it easier to manage your store. For example, you received new blouses for your store but only L and M sizes. Scan the unique UPC codes for L and M-sized blouses to quickly open these variations’ details in your online catalog and update their quantity specifically.

To add the barcode to an existing product variation in your Ecwid store:

Now you can scan different barcodes for different item variations with the Ecwid mobile app and edit each of them on the go.

Finding products in your store

With the mobile barcode scanner, you can easily find a particular product in your Ecwid store. For example, you received products from your supplier, and need to update your stock. A mobile barcode scanner turns this time-consuming marathon into a 5-minute task. Just scan the barcode of an item with the Ecwid mobile app, enter the new quantity—and it’s done.

To find an item from your store shelf:

Finding orders

You can easily find an order in your store with the help of the Ecwid mobile barcode scanner to update payment or fulfillment status.

Let’s say you prepared 10 orders for shipping and printed out the invoices to put them in the box. You can now update the fulfillment status of all the orders from Awaiting processing to Shipped or Ready to pickup by scanning the barcodes on the invoices and changing status on the go with the Ecwid app.

Customers who prefer pickup can show you barcodes on their invoices so you can scan them and quickly find the order. And at the same time, update the order status to Delivered.

You can use the Ecwid mobile barcode scanner to find an order after it has been placed. Just open the invoice on the screen or its printed version and hover a smartphone or tablet camera to a barcode:

As a result, your Ecwid mobile app will open the page with this order on your device. You can update this order right away: change the payment or fulfillment status, add a note for staff, or print the invoice.