75% of my products are unique and do not have MPN/UPC/GTIN. I have created a variant metafielcd of “internal barcode” for scanning purposes. I have yet to find an app that can generate barcode labels using this metafielcd instead of the MPN/UPC/GTIN field.
Is anyone aware of an app that will allow this or can offer another solution. This is primarily for internal use but I do provide products to a couple of retailers that need to have a barcode.
That’s a really solid setup you have got there. Using a metafield for your internal barcode system makes a lot of sense, especially since most of your catalog doesn’t have standard GTIN/UPC/MPN. The tricky part is that most barcode/label apps are hardwired to pull from Shopify’s default barcode field.
I haven’t seen many apps that natively let you swap in a custom metafield, but there are a couple of ways around it. Some apps can be tweaked to pull metafield data instead, and in other cases, you can map your “internal barcode” into the default barcode slot just for printing purposes while still keeping your catalog structure intact.
Curious, are you mainly trying to streamline internal scanning, or is the bigger need getting retailer-ready labels? That would help narrow down the best direction.
Hi @AlanB61
You have a common challenge with custom products and there are ways to tackle them!
The most compatible solution is to sync your data to the standard barcode field. Use a bulk editing app like Matrixify or a CSV import to perform a one-time copy of the values from your “internal barcode” metafield into Shopify’s default “Barcode” field for all variants. Once this is done, virtually any barcode label app on the App Store will work for you instantly. This is often the simplest and most effective approach.
Alternatively, you can find an app that reads your metafield directly. This requires a more powerful app that allows for label template customization using Liquid, Shopify’s templating language.
In an app like this, you can edit the template to pull the barcode’s value from your specific metafield instead of the default variant.barcode field. Look for apps that advertise “custom Liquid templates” and confirm with their support team that they can meet your needs.
Hope this helps!
Hi @AlanB61 I believe our app EmissarySKU does what you’re after. You can create a variable barcode and assign the value to predefined Product and Variant fields. For Metafields, you choose the variable type of “Custom” and enter the liquid expression to reference it. For example, if you create a Metafield at the Product level called “altbarcode”, you can reference it in our app as:
product.metafields.custom.altbarcode.
Then when you generate the label for that item, it will pull the value you entered as the value for the barcode field. I’ve attached screenshots as well to show how this works. Let me know if you need any more info.
