The Deepest UPC Search On Amazon

Before The Product LLM was formed, our company helped Amazon sellers find products through a UPC search application called Margin Geek. Our software found Amazon Listings from UPCs, and we were obsessed with getting the deepest scans with the most results possible.

Early on, we noticed that if we uploaded the same list of UPC codes to different third-party tools, we would get quite different search depths! Naturally, we wondered, "How do we get the deepest UPC search for Amazon?"

Our Answer: pick the right UPC databases to search, process your UPCs correctly, and add in AI search for an extra 30% boost!

Note: If you are not technical, there are existing Amazon UPC search tools out there such as Analyzer.Tools, Source Correct, and Scan Unlimited. Please contact us and we'll try to refer you to the right vendor based on your needs.

UPC databases

The best UPC database for Amazon, not surprisingly, is Amazon. If you have an Amazon store, you can use your login to make requests from the Catalog Items API, and find matches for whatever UPCs you provide. The Catalog Items API documentation is available here, and is intended for developers.

Alternatively, Keepa and the Rainforest API also provide UPC-to-ASIN databases for a charge, and they often find additional listings that Amazon’s database does not find. 

Meanwhile, GS1, the company that developed the UPC standard, has the go-to database for registering UPCs, but their database does not map to Amazon listings.

Process your UPCs

If you search a UPC in the wrong format, the UPC database might not convert to the right format. Thus, you need to process your UPCs correctly or use a tool that does this for you.

A UPC is a 12-digit code. The last digit is a check digit, and the beginning of the code may have leading zeros. To search correctly, you may need to add leading zeros, check digits, or find parent UPCs for alternate packaging configurations.

Given an 11-digit UPC, the check digit (12th digit) is calculated as follows:

1. Add the digits in the odd-numbered positions (1st, 3rd, 5th...)
2. Multiply the result by 3
3. Add the digits in the even-numbered positions (2nd, 4th, 6th...)
4. Add this to the result from step 2
5. Find the number that must be added to this total to reach the next multiple of 10 - that's the check digit

Now that you have the check digit, try searching multiple combinations in the UPC database, based on the specifications from the UPC database:

• Some UPCs are stored in Amazon with check digits and some are stored without 
• Some listings may omit leading zeros, and some may include them. 
• Some listings use different formats (e.g., EAN-13 which embeds the UPC).

If you’re only searching one format, your UPC database search might not find every match. Similarly, if you’re supplying an incorrect check digit, your search may fail.

Pro tip: if you're not sure if your UPC code has a check digit or not, see if the last digit corresponds to the algorithm rules, and you'll be right nine times out of ten. GS1 has more information here for codes of different lengths, and note that when they refer to GTIN-12, that is the same as a UPC code.

Turbo-charge your search with AI

The secret to finding every last match is to combine UPC search with AI search. AI search takes the product description and searches Amazon just like a human would. It generates a query, reviews the results, and searches until it has found enough results.

This solves all the code formatting problems.  If a product is stored under a different product code format, AI search will still find it. If it’s stored under a different package configuration (such as a case), AI search will find it. If it’s not a match, AI search will exclude it.

In our trials, we tend to find 30% more results when we combine UPC search with AI search. That is a massive profit boost for sellers that are looking for listings to sell on!

AI search is easy and affordable to use - try it out for free in our API playground!