The code is only as good as what it opens. These are the rules worth holding to, in rough order of how often they are broken.
Six rules
- HTTPS, always. A browser will warn on anything else, and a warning in a shop aisle ends the scan.
- A page about this product, not a category. If a shopper has to search after scanning, the code failed.
- A page you expect to exist in five years. Printed packs outlive campaigns, microsites and agencies.
- Readable on a phone, on a weak signal, without an app. No PDF as the shopper-facing link; keep PDFs for safety sheets and spec documents behind their own link type.
- No redirect chain. Every hop is a chance to break and a second of waiting. Point at the final address.
- No login wall. Whatever a shopper gets should be readable by a stranger.
More than one language
Point at a page that serves the right language itself, from the browser's own setting. That keeps one link doing the work and avoids a shopper landing in a language they cannot read because of where your server thinks they are.
What about a PDF or a spec sheet?
Give it its own link type rather than making it the default. Safety information, instructions and sustainability documents are exactly what the typed links are for, and a partner's system can ask for one by name without a person opening anything.
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