We all know the ubiquitous UPC/EAN codes that retail products have, so they can be identified and that way be named and priced right. This barcode is primarily for use by the store.
To provide additional information to customers, beyond what can be printed, such can be added via a separate code that can either contain a link to a site (usually) or arbitrary text.
If such a code contains a link to a CliqTags site you can that way provide information about ingredients, allergic effects, producer, contact information, feedback forms, contests and much more, and the content can be changed at any time. Each CliqTags site has a unique ID warranting reference consistency. With scheduling on a site or page level you can provide different information at different times without manual intervention.
We promote QR codes for such information, as most people are used to them today, and CliqTags automatically creates one per site, but also e.g. DataMatrix could be used in the same way, as well as NFC tags.
GS1 provides more details about how they expect QR Codes etc to be used in retail: 2D barcodes at retail point-of-sale
In USA you can see products with SmartLabel, that provides a standard format for what information to provide and how it should look. CliqTags can be used to create sites in that format too. It’s our hope that also Europe and other regions create similar efforts to standardize the product information.