SSCC Pallet Labels Explained: How to Generate and Meet Retailer Requirements

If you’re shipping to Walmart, Target, Amazon, Kroger, Home Depot, or basically any large distribution center, your pallets need an SSCC label — and that label has to agree with your EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice down to the digit. Get it right and the pallet glides through receiving in seconds. Get it wrong and it gets pulled aside, processed by hand, and billed back to you.

What Is an SSCC?

SSCC stands for Serial Shipping Container Code. It’s an 18-digit number that uniquely identifies a single shipping container — in most supply chain conversations, a pallet. No two SSCCs anywhere in the world should ever be the same, and that global uniqueness is the whole point.

It’s a GS1 standard, and it’s built from four pieces. Tap any one for the plain-English version:

Extension digit (1 digit)

A single digit from 0 to 9 that sits at the front of the SSCC, typically 0. It exists to give you extra numbering capacity within a given company prefix. Most suppliers leave it at 0 and never think about it again.

GS1 Company Prefix

The number GS1 assigned to your company — the same prefix that lives inside your product GTINs. It’s what ties every SSCC you generate back to your business, and it’s why two different companies can never accidentally mint the same code.

Serial reference

The digits you assign to make each pallet unique. Start at 1, increment by one for every pallet, and never repeat a number. This is the part your system counts up, pallet after pallet, shipment after shipment.

Check digit (1 digit)

A single calculated digit at the end, produced by the standard GS1 check digit algorithm (the formula and a calculator live on GS1’s website). It lets a scanner instantly catch a mis-keyed or damaged number. You don’t invent it — it’s math on the other 17 digits.

Stack those together and you get one globally unique 18-digit identifier, encoded in a GS1-128 barcode using Application Identifier (00).

Why Retailers Insist on Them

Modern distribution centers are heavily automated, and they don’t like surprises. Before your truck even shows up, the retailer’s inbound system already knows what’s coming — because your EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice told it. The ASN lists every pallet, what’s on each one, and where it should go in the building.

When the dock scans your SSCC label, the system matches that code to the ASN and instantly confirms four things: what’s on the pallet, which purchase order it fills, which SKUs and quantities it holds, and where to route it. Scan, match, done.

Break that chain — a barcode that won’t read, or an SSCC that isn’t on the ASN — and the automation stalls. The pallet gets quarantined for manual processing, which costs the retailer time and labor, and that cost comes back to you.

What Goes on a GS1-Standard Pallet Label

GS1 defines the standard layout, and most US retailers follow the recommended four-section format on a 4” × 6” label — the shipping-label standard. Reading top to bottom:

• Section 1 — Carrier information. Ship-to and ship-from names and addresses, purchase order number, carrier, and PRO/BOL number. Human-readable text.
• Section 2 — Retailer data. Whatever the specific trading partner requires: store number, DC number, department, mark-for location. This section changes from retailer to retailer.
• Section 3 — Item data. What’s actually on the pallet: GTIN, quantity, item description. Often carries a GS1-128 barcode encoding the GTIN (AI 01) and quantity (AI 37).
• Section 4 — SSCC. The main event: a GS1-128 barcode encoding the 18-digit SSCC (AI 00). It’s the biggest barcode on the label, spans the full width of the bottom, and shows the SSCC in human-readable form too. This is the one the dock scanner reads at receiving, so it needs a clean print and a proper quiet zone around it.

How to Generate the Numbers

You build SSCCs from your GS1 Company Prefix. The mechanics:

1. Start with your Company Prefix (the number GS1 assigned you).
2. Add the one-digit extension digit (usually 0).
3. Add a serial reference — a unique number you assign, starting at 1 and incrementing for each pallet.
4. Calculate the check digit with the standard GS1 algorithm.
5. The resulting 18-digit string is your SSCC.

In the real world, almost nobody does this by hand. Your ERP, WMS, or EDI software keeps a counter, increments it per pallet, and constructs the SSCC automatically — and a lot of label printing software has SSCC generation built in. Manual generation is fine for a handful of shipments; GS1’s website has the tools and the check-digit formula if you go that route. But the moment volume picks up, let a system own the counter so a human can’t fat-finger a digit.

The Part Everyone Underestimates: SSCC ↔ ASN

The pallet label and the EDI 856 ASN are two halves of one transaction, and they have to match exactly. Not “close.” Exactly.

Your ASN says something like: “Shipment 123 contains three pallets, SSCCs X, Y, and Z. Pallet X holds 40 cases of GTIN 00012345678901. Pallet Y holds 40 cases of GTIN 00012345678918…” Then your physical shipment shows up with labels X, Y, and Z on the pallets. The DC scans X, pulls the ASN, confirms the contents, and the receipt is clean.

But if the label reads SSCC X while the ASN lists SSCC Q — or the barcode won’t scan at all — the system can’t make the match. Cue manual processing, delay, and chargeback.

Where SSCC Labels Go Wrong

Most failures aren’t exotic. They cluster into a short list, and every one is preventable:

The barcode won't scan

Usually low print quality, not enough quiet zone, or a label stuck on a seam, buried under stretch wrap, or placed too high or too low. Fix it with ANSI/ISO barcode verification before the pallet ships and placement per the routing guide — commonly 15” to 45” from the floor.

The SSCC doesn't match the ASN

A data error, either in how the SSCC was generated or how the ASN was populated. The cure is structural: make sure SSCC generation and ASN population are driven by the same system, with no human retyping a number in between.

The label is placed wrong

SSCC labels typically go on all four sides of the pallet (some retailers accept two) and must be readable through the stretch wrap. A label facing inward or wrapped over won’t scan at the dock door, no matter how perfect the barcode is.

The label is the wrong size

Most retailers require the standard 4” × 6” format. Shrink it and you may not leave room for a properly sized SSCC barcode with an adequate quiet zone — which lands you right back at “won’t scan.”

A reused SSCC

Every SSCC must be unique, globally and permanently. Never recycle one from a past shipment, even years later. GS1 recommends keeping each SSCC unique for at least one year after delivery — most operations just never reuse them, period.

How to Order Yours

There are two practical ways to put SSCCs on a label, depending on how your operation runs:

Variable data labels — a unique SSCC printed on every label. This is the standard approach for serialized pallet tracking: you supply the SSCC data file and we print each label with its own number and barcode. (It’s the same variable data printing approach used for serialized and barcoded work generally.)

Static template with in-house printing — some operations print a static label design and drop the SSCC on via a desktop thermal printer at shipping time. We can supply the base label, or blank thermal stock configured for your printer — and as an authorized Zebra® and Datamax® dealer, we can make sure the stock and the machine actually get along.

Either way, every SSCC label we produce runs through ANSI/ISO barcode verification before it leaves the building, so a scan failure at the retailer’s dock isn’t the first time anyone checks it.

The Bottom Line

SSCC labels aren’t complicated once the structure clicks: 18 digits, four sections, one barcode the DC scanner actually cares about, and an ASN that has to agree with it. The mechanics are simple. The consequences of a mismatch at a major retailer are what make it worth getting right the first time.

We produce GS1-standard SSCC pallet labels for suppliers shipping to Walmart, Target, Amazon, Kroger, Home Depot, and other major retailers, and we’ve been printing GS1-compliant shipping and pallet labels since 1986. Send us your routing guide and we’ll confirm the format matches your trading partner’s requirements before you ever run a shipment.

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Need SSCC pallet labels for a retail shipment? Call (908) 495-6235 or request a quote — share your trading partner’s routing guide and we’ll make sure the label passes at the dock, not just on the press.