How sales tax and shipping apply to in-person orders

An order taken at a merchandise table has no billing address — the buyer is standing in front of you. Soapbox Engage Onsite therefore works out sales tax differently from your online store, and does not charge shipping at all.

Shipping is never charged

In-person orders are not charged shipping. The buyer is taking the goods with them, so no shipping is added whatever your online store's shipping rules say. Nothing needs configuring, and nothing your team does at the table can add it.

How sales tax is worked out

Because there is no billing address to read a tax region from, the app uses your store's published tax regions:

A single-venue organization with one tax region needs to do nothing — the one rate applies.

Important: If your store publishes two or more tax regions and no default state is set, in-person orders are charged no sales tax at all. The app does not guess a rate, because guessing from an unrelated region would be worse than charging none. If you operate in more than one state, set the default before your event.

To set the default state:

1. Open the Shop app in the administrator.
2. Click Configuration.
3. For State/Prov/Reg Default Value, enter the state your event is held in.
4. Click Save.

This is the same value your online store pre-fills into the billing form, so a cart taxed at the table and the same cart taxed on your website come to the same figure.

Donations are not taxed

A donation added to an in-person order is exempt. Sales tax is calculated on the product lines only.

Checking before an event

Ring up a test order for a typical item before doors open and confirm the tax line is what you expect. It is a two-minute check that prevents an evening of wrong totals.

Related articles:

• Preparing your Shop for in-person selling
• Selling products at an in-person point of sale
• Where in-person orders and receipts appear