Integrating with Purchases
SureCart abstracts away many of the complexities of integrating with a purchase. This is done through extending our integrations php class and providing the necessary functionality for a purchase's life-cycle events. A Purchase's lifecycle events are created, invoked and revoked.
Why do we use a "Purchase"?
We abstract away many of the complexities that can come with integrating with an ecommerce platform. Instead of needing to keep track of subscription changes, refunds and any other types of actions that can affect "access" to a purchase, we instead abstract them to a [Purchase] model.
In short, you do not need to know or even understand how the entire SureCart system works. Instead, you can use a declarative approach, and declare what you want to do when a purchase is created, invoked, or revoked.
When is a purchase "created"?
A purchase is created the first time a customer completes an order, or a person upgrades or downgrades a subscription.
When is a purchase "revoked"?
A purchase can be revoked either manually by the Merchant, or automatically. A purchase can be manually revoked if it is a 1-time purchase. The merchant will see a "Revoke" button next to the purchase in the Merchant's admin panel.
A purchase can also be automatically revoked. This can happen when a subscription is canceled or expired, but it can also occur when a customer changes their subscription plan, through an upgrade or downgrade for instance. While a new purchase will be created, the old purchase will be revoked.
While Merchants can manually revoke access to a purchase of a one-time product, Merchants cannot manually revoke a purchase that is tied to a subscription. They must cancel the subscription instead, which will revoke the purchase.
This is a safeguard to prevent a subscription from running without giving a customer access to something.
When is a purchase "invoked"?
A purchase is invoked when a purchase has been previously revoked, then un-revoked. This is useful for when a merchant wants to run
a specific action when a purchase is re-instated, but not necessarily when it is first created. A great example of this is a welcome email.
You typically only want to send a welcome email the first time someone purchases a product, and not when it is re-instated after being revoked.
Merchants cannot manually invoke a purchase tied to a canceled subscription. Instead they must have the customer purchase again to create a new subscription.