We are a book store selling hard covers, ebooks and audiobooks. We have a website where we accept credit cards for online payment from customers. We also have an iOS and Android app where user can read/listen the purchased books.
Now we want to sell the ebooks and audiobooks via our iOS native application (and Android app as well in future). Customers will be able to buy ebooks/audio books from our app and can download and read them in all the platforms. We have a pretty large number of book titles, 50K+ and its extending.
What would be the best way to implement this?
Is in-app purchase mandatory for this? Or should we use the existing credit card payment system?
Apple requires non-physical purchases to go through the In-App purchase feature.
The examples they give are:
- App premium features
- Magazine app that lets users purchase and download new issues
- A game that offers new levels to explore
- An online game that allows players to purchase virtual property
Audiobooks and ebooks fit that description. That means the app has to use IAP and Apple will get 30%.
Note that some apps manage to get around it (Kindle app for example) by not providing the ability to purchase ebooks in the app (not even links to the website). The app has to be a simple reader. This is what you have now, if I understand correctly.
In my experience, you won't be allowed to use your own credit card payment system unless it is for physical goods, so you can sell you hard covers this way, but not the ebooks or audiobooks.
To manage thousands of books with IAPs, you might want to create generic consumable IAPs as described in this question: Using generic in-app purchase items for a dynamic range of digital products.
Disclaimer: Am not a legal person so you have to read the terms yourself.
You have to give an option to buy books using In-App Purchase, this is mandatory. Also, you cannot redirect the buy button to a web payment from within the app. This it the same rules for any digital good that is consumed within the App ecosystem.
So you have to give an option for users to buy from within the app using IAP, obviously on a higher cost. Then send emailers to your customers to move them to web payments for lower prices and discounts. This is what many book sellers do.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39031572/is-in-app-purchase-applicable-for-ebooks-audiobooks