OT(ish): Selling software downloads - sales tax?

Thu Mar 17 19:21:51 EDT 2016

> Am 17.03.2016 um 22:45 schrieb Graham Samuel <livfoss at mac.com <mailto:livfoss at mac.com>>:
> 
> Thanks to Matthias and Camm for your quick replies.
> 
> Matthias, your method looks like a very good solution to me, especially as we have already decided to use Zygodact.
> 
> I have more questions, for example about the link between KAGI and a web site which describes the product and offers a ‘contact us’ service etc - you have this; but I couldn’t understand how that works from my first look at the KAGI site. I also think you do your own fulfilment - providing the actual downloads to the user - although I see that KAGI offers to do it, presumably for a fee. I’d like to know how you made that decision.
> 

I am using KAGI only for the order process which includes the ordering, payment and delivering the serial key be email to the customer.

The reasons why my website offers the download of the software are that i have the website anyway and my software can be used in demo mode until it´s unlocked. So the user can download and try before buy. When the users decide to buy, they can either click on my website the link to my KAGI shop or click in my software a “purchase” button which then opens the link to my KAGI shop  in the default browser.
If you haven´t a website then maybe using KAGI for providing the download of your software might be a solution. 

But for me that was never an option, because updates of my software are available for download immediately after i uploaded it to my server. 
Maybe this would also be the fact using KAGI for storing the software, but i do not know.

Btw, Kagi is providing you a template stack which you have to modify a little bit (adding the key generator stack and calling it and so on) to get it working with Zygodact. If you need further information how i managed that, please let me know. If this of interest for others in the list we can discuss it here or just send me an email offlist.

Matthias

> If you haven’t the time to explain this in more detail I will just start talking to KAGI - but of course it’s really interesting to hear from someone in the LiveCode community.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Graham
> 
>> On 17 Mar 2016, at 19:55, Matthias Rebbe <matthias_livecode_150811 at m-r-d.de <mailto:matthias_livecode_150811 at m-r-d.de>> wrote:
>> 
>> Graham,
>> 
>> if you want to go the save way, then you should consider using a service like Fastspring, KAGI or other.
>> They will fulfill the complete order,payment and deliver process for you including VAT if applicable. 
>> 
>> You will get your earnings and do not have to think about VAT.
>> 
>> Since 1st January as an european reseller  you have to use the VAT-rate of the  buyers country when selling digital products like videostreaming, licenses, downloads or whatever.
>> Before that date you could use the VAT-Rate of your country. At least here in Germany the 1st January was the deadline. I am not sure if all european countries already made this mandatory , but it is a european wide thing.
>> 
>> Because of this regulation i switched to KAGI and do not have to worry about the VAT stuff. 
>> 
>> Btw. if you want to protect your app you should think about Zygodact http://www.hyperactivesw.com/solutions_zygodact.html <http://www.hyperactivesw.com/solutions_zygodact.html> <http://www.hyperactivesw.com/solutions_zygodact.html <http://www.hyperactivesw.com/solutions_zygodact.html>> . It provides you an very easy to use registration serial key system to your LiveCode standalone or stack. It creates for each app a separate registration stack and a key generator stack.
>> 
>> I am using Zygodact with KAGI order system. KAGI´s order system supports Livecode stacks. So after successful payment KAGI automatically  to creates the registration key using a stack with key generator substack and sends out the registration info to the customer.  That works like a charm.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Matthias
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Am 17.03.2016 um 19:06 schrieb Graham Samuel <livfoss at mac.com <mailto:livfoss at mac.com> <mailto:livfoss at mac.com <mailto:livfoss at mac.com>>>:
>>> 
>>> I have been discussing the sale of a desktop product (developed with LC, obviously) with a colleague. We’re thinking of direct sales, rather than selling via an agent or an app store type of arrangement. He’s in the US and I’m in the UK, or at any rate the EU. 
>>> 
>>> I think that if I sell a low volume of product purely as a download with no physical fulfilment, I won’t have to charge sales tax anywhere in the European Union. But I am not sure about the US. It seems that some states charge sales tax on everything, while others (California, perhaps?) don’t charge if there is no physical fulfilment. I am not sure if the volume (or more accurately, the total value of sales per year) comes into it or not. It certainly does in Europe.
>>> 
>>> Some people on this list are selling apps, stacks etc in this way - can anyone explain how they see this? 
>>> 
>>> This may not be the right place to discuss the issue, but looking at the only forum topic which seems close - ‘Marketing Your Products’ - it seems pretty dead.
>>> 
>>> TIA
>>> 
>>> Graham
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