Addresses for Digital Subscriptions

This section contains the following subsections:

• Bypassing distribution verification

The number one request we get for implementing addressless customers and subscriptions, are due to digitally distributed subscription products. The argument usually revolves around the fact that the barrier for entry needs to be non-existent (i.e. give your email and password and you are good to go).

Note
If you just want the users details (no subscription involved), consider using the user register module which only requires Name, Email and Password to create a new user.

Lets set aside for a moment that the barrier argument is strange in that at the same time we request the customers electronic payment details (Credit Card), an issue remains: What are you going to do when the electronic payment means given turns out the be fake or blocks the payment due to insufficient funds or similar?

The traditional response has been to temporarily give the subscriber a credit period; letting the subscription continue and then just send them a paper invoice to their address (and reminding them their payment details are invalid). Since there is no address that is not an option. Instead you have to terminate the subscription immediately, with a possible lost subscriber as a result (not an uncommon solution, just not very common with newspaper businesses)

We want to support this type of scenario in the future, and are working on it, currently it is not supported though, and a such a fake address is needed to emulate this functionality. Bear in mind the consequences because often the business logic is set up to allow for a rather long credit period before stopping the subscription due to bad payments.

Caution
Before implementing a solution with a fake address, consult with the business, make sure they understand the consequences and that it is an acceptable solution for them (often they are the ones with the low-barrier argument in the first place).

Bypassing distribution verification

For digital subscriptions, the system now supports disabling the distribution/address validation. An address is still required, but the verification against the distributors details are ignored. The requirements are that product sold is configured as electronic only, and any change to a subscription to a product that is not only electronic will trigger a distribution verification.

Important
The business should make sure invoices can be delivered regardless of spelling, and/or that the rules for unpaid periods are adjusted to suit acceptable tolerance levels for electronic products.

Disabling distribution verification must be done in the administrative interface, there is no exposure of this in the API.

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