Seller App — Buyer Authentication for Digital Product Licensing

[beesmartclassroom-collab]

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Question / discussion

Hello Etsy Open API Support,

I operate the Etsy shop BeeSmartClassroomCo and have an approved Seller App named bee-smart-license-bridge.

I sell original interactive educational study guides. Customers purchase a product once and access the hosted study guide using a unique license key. No additional payment is required.

My Seller App successfully retrieves receipts and transactions with transactions_r authorization. However, buyer_email is null in the real receipt we've tested.

I need to verify that a customer owns a paid Etsy purchase before issuing their license key.

Could you clarify:

1. Can an approved Seller App authenticate individual Etsy buyers through OAuth and match their identity to buyer_user_id on a receipt?
2. If buyer OAuth requires Personal App access, is switching appropriate for a seller verifying purchases from their own shop?
3. Can Personal App access still retrieve orders from the developer's own shop?
4. What supported buyer-verification approach should we use for guest checkout purchases?
5. Is selling one-time access to an original, externally hosted interactive educational study guide through an Etsy-delivered PDF permitted under Etsy's digital-product policies?

I want to preserve our existing Seller App until we know the correct approach.

Thank you!