Situation

• Barcodes are not always UPC or EAN codes, they are sometimes MPN or internal warehouse barcodes
  
• Non-UPC/EAN barcode on a LW item will create an error when trying to list that item to eBay

Suggested Solution from Customer Service:

• Run query, download all items, filter by empty barcode and change those to "Does not apply"
• This does not work for us, one of the biggest reasons being that we don't want items to have duplicate barcodes("Does not apply" barcode on hundreds of products)
• Also, manually assigning "Does not apply" would work for a few products, but not for a lot of products or products with many variations

Optimal Solution:

• Allow a setting per configurator in Main Settings-Listing Settings tab with a checkbox option: Use "Does not apply" for UPC when UPC is missing or invalid - this would be the preferred and wider-encompassing option, OR
• Allow a setting in Specifications tab to specify an extended property(Product.barcode or extended property) and default value - this does not solve this issue directly for Barcodes that are not UPC/EAN and might create a double entry in extended properties

I found in Main Settings-Product Identifiers that we can set an extended property for the barcode to be used.

This is still suboptimal for us when the barcode is filled with a non-UPC/EAN number, requiring an additional "Does not apply" value in an extended property.

I suppose we could run query, import and export, but it is extra work and more chance for error.

When you have both UPC and/or EAN barcodes in use, it is best to place that barcode(UPC when available, EAN if not) in the Barcode field in General Tab and not in Product Identifiers Tab, as you cannot specify two or more extended properties for barcodes in configurator Main Settings-Product Identifiers(e.g. ProductIdentifier.EAN, ProductIdentifier.UPC, ProductIdentifier.Custom ID).  The configurator matches the type of barcode in the Barcode field correctly when listing to eBay when you leave this option blank.

So is anyone else facing this challenge and how did you solve it?  Any advise would be greatly appreciated before I embark on this.

Cheers!