This number serves many purposes. Its primary use is to track sales of your product through Soundscan. (Soundscan is the company that tracks retail sales for Billboard Magazine. The number one album on Billboard is, in turn, the album that reported the most sales to Soundscan. A bar code must first be registered with Soundscan before any sales can be tallied. This registration is free of charge and is as simple as faxing a single piece of paper.) It is highly unlikely that independent releases will make it onto the Billboard charts. However, if an album begins selling well and is registering a good amount of sales, this will catch the attention of those major labels looking to sign new artists. Other uses of the bar code lie within the retail outlets themselves for purposes such as inventory. Some outlets will not accept that product that does not have a bar code.

Catalog or Selection Number: The catalog or selection number is the number that one would see on the "spine" of their product. While not as important an element as the bar code, the catalog number is an essential part to a retail ready product. Many retailers will reference this number when placing orders. This number has no set standards. It does, however, need to reflect the record company and/or artist. For example, the number can directly reflect to certain numbers in the bar code or can be a sequential number in relation to how many CDs that the label or artist has released. In any case, the number should be somewhat unique to that product.