🔍 Understanding & Decoding Random Weight Barcodes

📚 This is a longer article. If you’d like to skip to a specific section, you can jump ahead using the links below:

Random weight barcodes link an item to its price based on weight, allowing the price to adjust automatically as the weight changes.
These barcodes come in a few different formats to suit various suppliers and product types — especially useful for higher-value or variable-weight items.

In this article, we’ll walk through an example and explain how to set up random weight barcodes for two common cases:

Pre-packed supplier items, and
In-store deli items (for stores using a deli scale).

🏷️ Random Weight Barcodes (Externally Supplied Pre-Packed Items)

This section includes two explanation styles to suit your preference:

A detailed explanation for those who want to fully understand how these barcodes work
A simple explanation for quick setup guidance

👉 If you’d prefer to skip the details, jump to the Simple Explanation section.

🧠 Detailed Explanation

When trying to understand how random weight barcodes work, the best approach is to compare two identical products that have different prices.

We’re decoding the barcode to figure out which portion stays the same, so we can correctly match the item in your system and ensure it scans with the correct price.

The easiest way to do this is to compare two of the exact same product that have different prices.

Example

Let’s say you have two packs of Biltong Sticks:

Product	Price	Barcode
Left	$19.44	`2700187719447`
Right	$93.23	`2700187993236`

If you look closely at the barcodes, you’ll see some numbers are the same and others are different — especially near the end, where the price is embedded.

Let's break this down:

Step 1: Line up the barcodes

2700187719447
2700187993236

Step 2: Break the barcode into sections

We can break each barcode into logical chunks to isolate what stays the same:

27 | 00187 | 7 | 1944 | 7
27 | 00187 | 9 | 9323 | 6

Here's what each section means:

27 → Prefix (identifies this as a random weight barcode — one of several possible prefixes)
00187 → PLU number (represents the product — same for both)
7 / 9 → Internal use

1944 / 9323 → Price
7 / 6 → Check digit (automatically calculated by the system)

Step 3: Writing the APN

Now that you know which part stays the same (2700187), you can construct the APN for your system:

2700187000000

Replace the changing price portion with six zeroes. This allows the register scanner to use the full barcode to calculate the price dynamically at checkout.

💡 Why zeroes at the end?
Adding six zeroes tells the system to pull the price from the last digits of the barcode. This is essential for random weight items.

Step 4: Enter the APN

Enter the APN in the Details tab under the APN section.
The system may add a check digit at the end (e.g. 27001870000005) — this is expected and won’t affect scanning.

✅ Once done, send the item to the registers and test to confirm it scans correctly.

Now that you understand how the barcode works behind the scenes, let’s move on to the Simple Explanation — a quicker way to get your APN set up without the deep dive.

✂️ Simple Explanation

Here’s a quick way to add random weight barcodes to your item setup:

Grab 3 of the exact same item with different prices
Example: 2700187719447, 2700187993236, and 2700187608502
Look at all 3 barcodes and find how many digits match before the first difference
Example: 2700187 is the same on all 3 barcodes
Use those matching digits, then add enough zeros (0) to make the barcode 13 digits long
Example: 2700187000000 → 7 matching digits + 6 zeroes = 13 digits
Enter this into the APN field in the item details
(Don’t worry about the number that gets added at the end — that’s the check digit)

✅ Once done, send the item to the registers and test to confirm it scans correctly.

🏪 In-Store Deli Printed Items

Now that you understand how random weight barcodes work, setting them up for your in-store deli scales is extremely simple.

All in-store random weight barcodes use the barcode identifier prefix 02.
This is used only for in-store deli printing — suppliers will not use this format — so we always know to start with 02 when creating the barcode.

It’s also worth noting that when creating the PLU for deli items, it’s best to keep it to 5 digits or fewer. Most scales and barcode systems expect this length.

👉 For a more detailed explanation on setting up deli items, see: Creating Deli Scale Items

Example

The items PLU is: 102

Since this PLU only has 3 digits, we’ll add two leading zeroes to make it 5 digits:
→ 00102

Next, we add the prefix 02, giving us:
→ 0200102

To complete the 13-digit barcode, we add six zeroes to the end:
→ 0200102000000

Barcode Formula

To summarise, here’s the formula used for deli items:

02 | 5-digit PLU | 6 × 0’s

Example result: 0200102000000

This is what it looks like when entered into the APN field:

Barcode APN 3

🔍 Note:
The system may strip the first 0 and add a digit to the end — this is a check digit and is expected. It does not mean the APN was entered incorrectly.

Once the APN is added, send the item to the registers and your deli scales, then print a label and scan it to test.
✅ If it doesn’t scan, it likely wasn’t sent to the scale with the APN attached.

📝 Takeaway Notes

Random weight barcodes can be tricky to understand — we hope this article helped!
If you're still unsure or your barcode doesn’t scan, please submit a ticket in our support portal.
In the first example, the price was represented by 4 digits in the barcode.
This means the maximum value the item can reach is $99.99.
If you need an item to exceed this, please submit a ticket in our support portal.
In both examples (the pre-packed and in-store deli items), we used barcode prefixes like ‘27’ and ‘02’.
These are just two of many possible barcode identifiers (prefixes). Others might include ‘20’, ‘22’, ‘24’, or ‘29’ — often used to avoid barcode conflicts across suppliers or to allow more room for pricing data.
If a barcode isn’t scanning, the prefix may need to be registered with the system — please submit a ticket in our support portal.
Even if a deli item is sold by the each, you still need to create a random weight barcode.
The total price will still vary depending on how many are purchased, so the barcode must support that.