3.1 Marketplace tax requirements

As a marketplace facilitator that lists products from multiple sellers, processes payment, and transmits funds, OnAnthem is legally required to collect and remit sales tax centrally under U.S. state law.

Cart permalinks route checkout through individual merchant Shopify stores, where tax is calculated under each merchant’s registrations. This would leave OnAnthem out of compliance with marketplace facilitator obligations.

OnAnthem’s current architecture leverages Shopify’s documented mechanism for marketplace tax remittance: the channelLiable field on TaxLine, which lets a channel declare itself as the party responsible for remittance. Shopify’s 2021-07 changelog describes this field as supporting the case where “most marketplaces are the liable party for sales tax, and should be excluded from merchant sales tax filings” — which matches OnAnthem’s use directly.

3.2 Multi-merchant transaction structure

OnAnthem operates a single checkout that spans multiple participating merchants. This single-transaction structure is inseparable from the marketplace-facilitator posture in Section 3.1.

Cart permalinks are merchant-scoped by construction and do not support multi-merchant carts. Supporting OnAnthem’s model would require separate checkout sessions per merchant, resulting in fragmented transactions across multiple payments, tax calculations, shipping inputs, and confirmations that do not satisfy the single-transaction requirement.

For Shopify-connected merchants, OnAnthem executes the multi-merchant checkout as a single buyer-facing transaction and creates corresponding orders in each merchant’s Shopify store via the orderCreate mutation (Section 4.6), preserving merchant-level records while maintaining a unified marketplace purchase.

3.3 Marketplace settlement model

OnAnthem is contractually obligated to execute revenue-sharing agreements between participating merchants and event partners (e.g., artist–venue splits, team revenue shares). These agreements define how each transaction is allocated across the merchant, the partner, and OnAnthem.

Cart permalinks do not support multi-party settlement at point of sale. This would leave OnAnthem unable to honor the contractual splits.

OnAnthem executes these splits at the point of sale (Section 4.4), allocating funds to the merchant, partner, and OnAnthem within a single transaction.

4.1 Channel configuration

The sales channel is defined via a channel config extension at extensions/channel-config/specifications/anthem-us.toml:

handle = "anthem-us"
productFeedManagement = "automatic"

[requirements]
expectsOnlineStoreParity = false
merchantOfRecord = "merchant"

This configuration establishes OnAnthem as a non-parity sales channel with merchant-level settlement attribution.

4.2 Product publishing

OnAnthem synchronizes catalog and inventory data using Shopify Sales Channel product feeds and the Admin GraphQL API. Merchants publish products from Shopify admin to the OnAnthem sales channel following OAuth installation.

Shopify remains the system of record for catalog and inventory data; inventory is reserved during checkout via draft order holds.

4.3 Checkout execution

Checkout is executed in the OnAnthem sales channel environment at onanthem.com.

Card data is captured via Stripe Elements; OnAnthem does not receive or process card data.

This supports a single buyer-facing transaction that may include products from multiple Shopify merchants. Order creation and fulfillment occur per merchant in Shopify following payment capture (Sections 4.6–4.7).

4.4 Payment

Payment is processed via Stripe Connect using Stripe Elements at checkout.

Each merchant is designated as the settlement merchant via on_behalf_of: <merchant Stripe Connect account>, so the merchant appears on the cardholder statement, consistent with merchantOfRecord = "merchant" (Section 4.1).

4.5 Tax

Under its marketplace facilitator registration, OnAnthem calculates its own tax liability using Stripe Tax and remits it centrally (Section 3.1).

Tax liability is recorded on Shopify orders using channelLiable: true on TaxLine (Section 4.6).

4.6 Order synchronization to Shopify

After payment capture, OnAnthem creates orders in each participating merchant’s Shopify store via the Admin GraphQL orderCreate mutation. Each order includes:

• • attribution to the OnAnthem sales channel in Shopify admin
• • financialStatus: PAID
• • channelLiable: true on tax and shipping tax lines
• • idempotency tag derived from (orderId, merchantId)
• • customer and line-level metadata for routing back to OnAnthem

4.7 Fulfillment

For Shopify-connected merchants, fulfillment remains merchant-managed within Shopify, using Shopify’s native fulfillment routing.

OnAnthem omits locationId and fulfillmentService on orderCreate, so Shopify’s native fulfillment routing applies. The buyer is served Shopify’s native order status page for the order, and OnAnthem subscribes to fulfillments/create webhooks to keep its own order records in sync with shipment status.

4.8 Refunds

For Shopify-connected merchants, refunds initiated from the merchant’s Shopify admin flow to OnAnthem via the refunds/create webhook. All refunds are processed exclusively against the original payment, satisfying App Store requirement 1.1.15.

4.9 Merchant onboarding and payouts

Merchant onboarding and identity verification are handled through Stripe Connect onboarding. Eligible merchant and partner payouts are executed via Stripe Connect on a post-fulfillment schedule.

5.1 Marketplace settlement is not an app charge

This model is consistent with Shopify’s sales channel guidance: “Most sales channel apps don’t require a separate billing arrangement with merchants. The channels themselves typically have their own fee structures — advertising fees, referral fees, or success-based commissions — that merchants pay directly to the channel platform.”

OnAnthem is the sales channel platform, connecting merchants to a marketplace where they already have a commercial relationship with OnAnthem. The commission relates to settlement of marketplace transactions, not access to or use of the Shopify app.

The fee structures described in this guidance are paid by merchants to the channel platform. OnAnthem’s commission works the same way in substance, through the marketplace settlement: it is retained from the buyer’s payment before funds settle to the merchant. The merchant is not separately invoiced or charged; the commission is simply the marketplace’s share of the transaction.

As described in Section 3.1, OnAnthem operates as a marketplace facilitator. When a buyer purchases a product through the OnAnthem marketplace, the buyer-paid transaction amount is allocated among the merchant payout, OnAnthem’s marketplace commission, payment processing, and applicable taxes within the settlement flow described in Sections 4.4 and 6. Payment processing reflects the payment processor’s standard fee for handling the transaction. None of these amounts is billed to the merchant separately from the sale; each is settled from the buyer’s payment.

OnAnthem’s marketplace commission is netted from buyer-paid transaction proceeds before funds are settled to the merchant. It is not invoiced to the merchant, charged to the merchant’s card or account, or assessed as a fee for installing, accessing, or using the Shopify app.

Accordingly, no charge is made through the Shopify Billing API or through any off-platform merchant billing mechanism. The relevant funds flow is marketplace settlement of a buyer transaction, not merchant billing for app access or app usage.

5.2 Payout setup is not billing

During onboarding, a merchant connects a bank account through OnAnthem’s payment processor. This step exists so that OnAnthem can send the merchant their sales proceeds: the merchant provides the account that receives payouts. Funds flow to the merchant, not from the merchant to OnAnthem.

As part of enabling those payouts, the payment processor performs standard identity verification on the account, consistent with its own regulatory requirements. This verification is a condition of receiving funds, not a charge. No fee is assessed to the merchant at this step, and it is separate from the settlement of marketplace transactions described above.