Digital goods are non-physical goods that require the use of location-based evidence (and other relevant information) to calculate tax and liability.

Requirements

Each request needs to include the following information for a digital good (more information is required like buyer details, amounts, and so on):

• The product_class=D field is added to your requests to identify the type of goods as digital. This is explained in the Product Classes topic.
• The location evidence needs to be added. This is explained the Location Evidence topic.

Transaction processing

The following graphic shows an example of how digital goods can be processed:

The steps are:

1. Buyer purchases digital goods on the merchant's store.
2. Transaction details including location evidence are sent in the Store Transaction request.
3. The service verifies the evidence and if successful, a transaction and transaction key is created. The transaction key is returned in the response.
4. Buyer confirms the purchase. The merchant implemented the Confirm Transaction request to be triggered once payment is confirmed. Here, the buyer confirms the payment and the Confirm Transaction request is sent to the service. This request is a URL that contains the transaction key that was generated in the previous step.
5. Transaction key sent to Vertex. The Confirm Transaction request is a URL that contains the transaction key that was generated in the previous step.
6. Transaction details returned.
7. The invoice is sent by the service.
8. Buyer receives invoice.

Location evidence

To facilitate the sale of digital goods, the service can collect different types of location evidence, depending on your needs. Details are provided in the Location Evidence topic.