The European Article Number (EAN) is a 13-digit international barcode standard used to identify retail products in most of the world outside North America. It is administered by GS1, the same global body behind the UPC, and each EAN is unique to a single product across all sellers. The modern standard is officially called EAN-13, and it is fully compatible with the broader GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) system.
How it works
An EAN-13 code is made up of a GS1 company prefix (assigned to the brand or manufacturer), an item reference the company assigns to each product, and a final check digit that validates the number mathematically. The digits sit under a scannable barcode. Because the prefix is licensed to one company, no two different products should ever share the same EAN. A shorter EAN-8 variant exists for very small packaging.
Why it matters
For B2B sellers, a clean EAN on every product is what lets buyers, distributors, and marketplaces reference the exact item without ambiguity. Purchasing teams often quote and reorder by EAN rather than by your internal SKU, since the EAN is stable across suppliers. In Shopify, the EAN is stored in the barcode field on each product variant, which feeds inventory, POS scanning, and channel feeds like Google and Amazon.
Example
A buyer in Germany requests a quote and lists the products they want by their 13-digit EANs. Because the EAN maps to one specific variant, you can match each line to the right Shopify variant without guessing between similar sizes or colors.
When you build a quote in Shopify from variants that carry EANs, the barcodes carry through to the draft order and invoice, so the buyer sees exactly the item they asked for. See the B2B quoting glossary for related terms like SKU and GTIN.