Registering with BlackBerry World

When you submit an application for review in the vendor portal for the BlackBerry World storefront, you must also add the details about the digital goods that your application offers. You must provide the name, the SKU (the unique identifier for the digital goods), the license model (consumable or one-time payment), the pricing tier, and a description of the digital goods in each language that your application is available.

If it is impractical to create a separate name and SKU for each of your digital goods, you can use the same name and SKU for multiple digital goods. For example, if you sell streaming video through your application, you can use one name and SKU for the digital goods that you sell at a particular price tier. In this scenario, you might register digital goods with the name "Video $4.99" and use the same SKU for every streaming video that you sell at the $4.99 pricing tier. This way you can update the purchase options without submitting a new version of your application. When you call the   PaymentManager::requestPurchase() function in your app, you can pass a metadata argument that allows you to differentiate between digital goods that reference the same SKU.

For more information about submitting applications and digital goods, see the  BlackBerry World documentation.

Add digital goods to an application

Before you begin using the Payment Service, you must add the details about your app to BlackBerry World. 
  1. In the BlackBerry World vendor portal, in the left pane, click Manage Products. 
  2. On the Manage Products screen, in the Goods column, click Add next to the application that you want to add digital goods to. 
  3. On the Add a Virtual Good screen, complete the instructions. 
  4. To save the information about the digital good, click Save. 
  5. To save the information about the digital good and add another digital good, click Save and Add Another.

Submission information for digital goods

Here's what you must specify when you submit digital goods in the BlackBerry World vendor portal.

Name of good
This field specifies the name that identifies the digital goods that you sell in an application. You can change how the name appears in your application using setApplicationName().
SKU
This field specifies the SKU that you can use to identify the digital goods that you sell in an application. When a user initiates purchases of digital goods in your application, the Payment Service server can use the SKU to identify the digital goods. If you want to use one SKU to identify multiple digital goods, you can differentiate between the digital goods by including the  purchaseMetadata   argument in requestPurchase(digitalGoodId, digitalGoodSku, digitalGoodName, purchaseMetadata, &extraParameters).
License type
This field specifies a license type for the digital good. You can select one of the following options:
  • Non-consumable: This license type permits users to purchase a digital good only once. If you use this license type, you must make sure that the digital goods are available for the minimum time period after the user downloads the application that the digital goods are associated with. For more information about the minimum period that is defined in the license agreement, visit na.blackberry.com/developers/legal.jsp.

    You must also make sure that digital goods are still available if the user reinstalls the application or switches devices. Digital goods aren't restored automatically, so it's up to you to make sure that users can download these digital goods again.

  • Consumable: This license type permits users to purchase the same digital goods more than once.
  • 7-day subscription: This license type permits users to purchase subscription-based digital goods that have a renewal period of 7 days.
  • 30-day subscription: This license type permits users to purchase subscription-based digital goods that have a renewal period of 30 days.
Initial trial period (in days)
This field specifies the duration of the initial usage period for subscription-based digital goods. This field appears only if the "7-day subscription" option or "30-day subscription" option is selected in the License type field.
Price
This field specifies the price that users pay for the digital goods. You can specify a price from a list of pricing levels that BlackBerry World provides. For subscription-based digital goods, the price that you specify in this field indicates the price of the initial trial period. You can provide a free trial for your subscription-based digital goods by specifying a price of $0.00.
Renewal price
This field specifies the price that users are charged for subscription-based digital goods. Users are charged this amount after the initial trial period expires and every 7 days or 30 days thereafter, based on the license type of the subscription-based digital goods. This field appears only if the "7-day subscription" option or "30-day subscription" option is selected in the License type field.
License model
This field specifies how the license keys that users require to use digital goods are distributed. You can select one of the following options:
  • Static: Users do not require a license key.
  • Single: You must provide a single license key that all users can use.
  • Dynamic: You must provide a web address for a website that generates license keys. After a user purchases the digital goods, the Payment Service server connects to the website, retrieves the license key, and provides the user with the license key. This license model is required if you want your content server to receive notifications when users make purchases in your application.

    For more information about dynamic licensing, visit the BlackBerry World FAQ.

  • Pool: You must provide a pool of unique license keys that BlackBerry World can use to distribute a license key to each user. The pool must contain at least 100 license keys.

    If the number of license keys in a pool decreases to 50, BlackBerry World sends you an email message that instructs you to add more license keys. If the number of license keys in a pool decreases to 10, BlackBerry World cancels distribution of the digital goods and sends you an email message that notifies you to add more license keys.

Last modified: 2013-03-21