piatkow - 10:55 pm on Jan 4, 2013 (gmt 0)

it may make sense to go ahead and use QR codes from the start.

That choice will be dictated by your customers, barcode readers are well established and reliable. Leosghost's suggestion on buying barcodes from a third party is good if you only need a fairly small block. You will need to check out the issuing authority for barcodes in your own country to get the costs of full registration.

All this discussion is relating to barcodes for "widgets", there are special rules for books and magazines.