Product Schema - Not supported if you don't actually sell the product online...

[EEE3]

Based on this answer from Google, http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146750 you can't use the product schema if a customer has to make the purchase offline or at another retailer.

Does anyone know why they set it up this way? Has anyone ever tried to use product markup on a website when the product is purchased offline?

Also, is there another solution or another markup that would apply?

Thanks!

[sprynewmedia]

I took this to mean that they won't show a snippet unless they find all the ingredients - not that  you "can't" so much.  I still did the mark up exercise because at least it was a start in communicating the nature of the page content.

I'd love to hear what others think however.