A Sunrise 2027 checklist you can actually work through

Updated July 2026

Ordering matters here more than completeness. Several of these steps are expensive to redo if taken out of sequence.

Data — do this first, it gates everything

1. Export your full product catalog as text, not as a spreadsheet that has already mangled the identifiers.
2. Validate every GTIN. Check digits, lengths, leading zeros. Nothing downstream is worth doing until this passes.
3. Find duplicates. Two products sharing a GTIN is a data problem that becomes an inventory and recall problem.
4. Confirm the GTIN on each package matches the GTIN in your system. They diverge more often than anyone expects.

Decisions — cheap now, expensive later

5. Choose your identification level. Product-level for most. Batch or item-level only if traceability, expiry, or recalls justify variable-data printing.
6. Choose your domain. A subdomain you own. This is the one decision you cannot reverse after printing.
7. Decide what a scan should show for each audience — consumer, trading partner, regulator.

Build

8. Generate Digital Link URLs and verify they resolve before anything reaches artwork.
9. Generate symbols at print resolution with correct physical dimensions and a full quiet zone.
10. Preflight the artwork — size, quiet zone, contrast, and encoded data versus catalog.

Physical — the step people skip

11. Print a sample and scan it with a real POS-style scanner and with phones. Digital checks cannot predict ink behaviour on your substrate.
12. Confirm with your retail partners before the full run. Their requirements are the ones that are actually enforceable.

Then keep it alive

A code printed today may be scanned in 2032. Monitor that destinations still resolve, certificates stay valid, and links do not rot as your website is redesigned. This is the part that has no end date.