How to Prepare Your Packaging for the Next Generation of Product Identity

Packaging artwork changes slowly. A pack designed this year may still be on shelves — and in kitchen cupboards, workshops and bathroom cabinets — several years from now. Over that time your marketing campaigns, website, agency and possibly your e-commerce platform will change. The code on the pack has to keep working through all of it.

This guide sets out seven decisions that make your packaging's identity last. For the step-by-step operational checklist, see the cornerstone GS1 2D readiness checklist for manufacturers.

What is changing

Three shifts are converging on the pack:

• Retail checkouts are learning to read 2D barcodes. The industry's Ambition 2027 (Sunrise 2027) goal is for retail scanners to read the GTIN from 2D codes as well as linear barcodes by the end of 2027. That makes it practical to carry batch, expiry and even serial data on retail packs.
• Product identity is becoming web-addressable. A GS1 Digital Link expresses your product's GS1 identity as a web address, so one code can serve a checkout and a consumer's phone. See what is GS1 Digital Link?
• More parties want product data. Retailers, regulators, recyclers and consumers increasingly expect information tied to a specific product, batch or unit. In the EU, for example, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation has been in force since July 2024 and introduces a Digital Product Passport, applied product group by product group through later measures rather than to everything at once.

None of this requires reprinting tomorrow. All of it rewards decisions made at your next artwork change.

Decision 1: encode identity, not a campaign

The most common mistake is printing a code that points to a campaign: a promotional microsite, a social media page or a link-shortener address. When the campaign ends, the code either breaks or points somewhere stale — on packs that will be scanned for years.

Instead, encode the product's identity: its GTIN, and optionally batch, expiry and serial. Decide separately, and changeably, what that identity leads to. We make the case in why the product identity should outlive the marketing campaign.

Decision 2: use a domain you own

A GS1 Digital Link can use any domain, and GS1 recommends that brands use their own. That matters more than it sounds. If the code on millions of packs uses a domain belonging to an agency or a vendor, you depend on them for as long as those packs exist.

• Use a domain (or subdomain) your company controls and will keep renewing.
• Keep the domain separate from campaign sites, so a website redesign cannot break it.
• Document who owns it, internally — not just in an agency contract.

Decision 3: choose a carrier that serves both audiences

For general retail, GS1 recognises three 2D options for the checkout: GS1 DataMatrix, a QR code carrying a GS1 Digital Link, and a Data Matrix carrying a GS1 Digital Link. If you want consumers to scan with their phone cameras, a QR code with a GS1 Digital Link is the option designed to work for both. Retail use requires the uncompressed form of the Digital Link.

During the transition, GS1 rules require the linear barcode to stay alongside the 2D code, placed near it and encoding the same GTIN. Plan your artwork for two codes, not one. For the trade-offs between carriers, see QR code vs GS1 DataMatrix.

Decision 4: leave room to grow

Even if today's code carries only a GTIN, design for what it might carry later.

• Artwork space. A code carrying batch, expiry and a serial is larger than one carrying a GTIN alone. Reserve a print area that can accommodate it, with a clear margin, near the linear barcode.
• Print position. If data may later change per batch or per unit, the code will usually be printed on the line rather than pre-printed with the artwork. Choose a position your line's coder can reach, on a surface it prints well.
• Data flow. Make sure the systems that know batch and expiry — usually the ERP — can pass them to the line when needed.

Whether you ever add serials — serialization — is a separate decision; see batch-level vs unit-level identification. The point is not to close the door by accident.

Decision 5: route scans through a layer you control

A resolver receives a scanned GS1 Digital Link and connects it to one or more digital destinations — a product page, instructions, a warranty form, a recall notice. GS1's resolver standard describes one default destination per item, with others selectable by type, and lets batch- or serial-level links fall back to product-level ones.

Whether you use a GS1-conformant resolver or a simpler routing service, the principle is the same: the pack stays fixed; the destination stays changeable. You can switch content, languages or partners without touching artwork. See why brands should separate product identity from the digital experience.

Decision 6: get GTIN discipline right first

All of this rests on correct GTINs. Before changing artwork, check:

• every variant a retailer or consumer must distinguish has its own GTIN;
• recent changes to products have been assessed against GS1's GTIN Management Standard, which sets out when a change needs a new GTIN — such as a change in declared net content or formulation;
• your product data is consistent across your GS1 registration, your retailers and your own systems.

A 2D code carrying the wrong GTIN spreads the error to every checkout and every phone that scans it.

Decision 7: plan for events, not just labels

The next generation of product identity is not only about what is printed. It is about what is recorded as the product moves: when it was made, packed, shipped, received or recalled. GS1's EPCIS standard exists to share that event data between trading partners.

You do not need EPCIS on day one. But if you may want traceability later, record production and packing events now in a form you can map to standard events — and keep each unit's or batch's identity consistent between the pack and your records. See the connected product journey from factory to consumer.

A worked example

Maison Ardent, a fictional perfume house, is redesigning its cartons. Its current pack has an EAN-13 barcode and a campaign QR code pointing at a microsite that closed last year.

At the redesign, it replaces the campaign code with a QR code carrying a GS1 Digital Link on a subdomain it owns, placed beside the EAN-13. For now the code is printed with the artwork and carries the GTIN only, routed to a product page. The artwork reserves a larger area beside the barcodes, positioned where the filling line's coder can print later. Eighteen months on, when Maison Ardent starts serializing its premium range to support a loyalty programme, the code moves to on-line printing in the reserved area — and the same domain, routing and product pages carry on working, now with serial-level services added.