Overview: What Is Gift Swapping?
Gift swapping gives recipients the freedom to choose what they really want — and it's something you control entirely from the Partners portal with no engineering required.
Gift swapping is a feature that lets e-gift recipients exchange the product their gifter chose for a different item on the same storefront. The gifter's payment is not changed, and you decide which products are available for swapping, which storefronts support it, and what happens when inventory runs low.
Note: Swapping is available for digital e-gifts only and is turned on by default for all storefronts.
How the Recipient Swap Experience Works
When a recipient opens their e-gift link, they see the product their gifter selected. If swapping is enabled on your storefront and eligible alternatives exist, a Swap button appears.
Here's the full recipient journey:
The recipient opens their e-gift link and views the gifted product.
They click Swap to browse eligible alternatives.
They select a replacement. If the product has variants — like size or color — they choose their preferred option.
They accept the gift by entering their shipping address and choosing a delivery date.
The Shopify order is created only after the recipient accepts, so the swap happens entirely before fulfillment begins.
If the gifted product has multiple variants (for example: clothing sizes), recipients can also select their preferred variant without swapping to a different product entirely. This is especially useful for apparel or other products where the gifter may not know the recipient's exact preferences.
Best practice: Recipients see a static list of options with no sorting or filtering capability. Limit your storefronts to approximately 12 SKUs to keep the swap experience clear and avoid overwhelming recipients with too many choices.
Price Rules for Swapping (The 10% Threshold)
To keep swapping fair, Zest applies a price rule to every recipient-initiated swap: recipients can only swap to products that cost the same as or up to 10% less than the original gift's total cost — never more expensive.
The price comparison is based on the combined product price plus shipping price.
For example:
A gift with a $100 product price and $10 shipping has a total cost of $110.
The recipient can swap to any product where (product price + shipping) is between $99.00 and $110.00.
Swapping up to a higher-priced item is not allowed.
If the recipient selects a less expensive item, no refund is issued to the gifter — your brand keeps the difference.
Note: Changes to shipping costs after the original purchase can shift which products appear as eligible swap options.
Pricing Edge Cases Worth Knowing
Heavily discounted orders: Orders placed with a very large discount (for example, 95–100% off) may produce a price range with very few or no eligible swap options, resulting in a limited swap experience.
Bulk shipping discounts: If your storefront uses volume-based shipping discounts, Zest factors those into the swap calculation based on the total number of gifts in the order.
Unique price points: If a product has a unique price with no catalog items within 10% below it, recipients will have zero swap options. Consider adding products at similar price points to ensure recipients always have alternatives.
Price changes after purchase: If product prices or shipping costs change after the original gift was purchased, the 10% range is recalculated against the updated totals. This can cause previously eligible products — including the original variant — to fall outside the swap range.
Configuring Swapping Settings
You control swapping at two levels: the storefront level and the individual product level. No code changes or engineering work is required for either.
Enable or disable swapping per storefront
In the Partners Portal, go to Storefronts and select the storefront you want to configure.
Open Settings and scroll to Advanced Settings.
Toggle Allow e-gift recipients to swap their gifts on or off.
Click Save.
You can enable swapping on one storefront and keep it off on another — each storefront is independent.
Control swapping at the product level
For more granular control, you can configure individual products to prevent them from appearing as swap options or to lock recipients into accepting exactly what was gifted.
In the Products page, click the three dots to the right to open the product settings and find the Prevent from being swapped checkbox:
When enabled, the product will not appear as a swap option for recipients browsing alternatives.
When the original gifted product has this setting enabled, recipients cannot swap away from it to a different product. They can still select a different variant of the same product (for example, a different size or color).
Hide E-gifts from Recipients
Use this setting for physical add-ons that are included in the shipment but should not appear in the digital gift reveal — for example, custom note cards, branded belly bands, or gift wrapping.
In the Products page, open the product settings and enable Hide from e-gift recipients.
The product will not display to the recipient as part of their e-gift.
It is still included in the physical shipment — it just won't show up in the digital acceptance flow.
This setting is separate from swap controls. If you also want to prevent the product from appearing as a swap option, enable Prevent from being swapped as well.
What Happens When a Product Is Out of Stock?
Zest handles out-of-stock scenarios so recipients always have a clear path forward:
If the original gifted product is out of stock when a recipient opens their gift, Zest automatically prompts them to choose an eligible alternative within the 10% price range on the same storefront.
If no swap options are available — for example, due to a unique price point or limited catalog — the recipient sees a notification to contact your brand directly.
Out-of-stock products will not appear as swap options, unless Shopify's Continue selling when out of stock setting is enabled for that product.
Tip: Use the Outstanding Inventory report in the Partners Portal to proactively monitor unaccepted e-gifts with at-risk inventory. You can manually swap products before recipients encounter an issue.
Manually Swapping Products for Unaccepted E-Gifts
You can manually swap the product on unaccepted e-gifts directly from the Partners Portal — no action from the recipient required.
To manually swap a product:
Open the order in the Partners Portal dashboard.
Find the product you want to replace within the Items send in this order section, and click the kebab menu (three vertical dots) beside the quantity.
Select Swap product in pending orders.
Choose a replacement product from your catalog and confirm.
Important things to know:
This action swaps the product for all unaccepted e-gifts in the order — it is not limited to a single recipient.
Orders already accepted and synced to your ecommerce system are not affected.
All prices and taxes from the original item transfer to the new item unchanged.
No automatic notification is sent to recipients or the original gifter. Best practice is to notify the gifter before making the change.
Manual swaps from the Partners Portal have no price restriction — you can swap to any available product in your catalog.
Frequently Asked Questions and Troubleshooting
Can recipients select product variants like size or color when accepting an e-gift?
Yes. For products with variants — like size, color, or grind type — recipients can select their preferred variant before confirming. The gifter picks the product; the recipient personalizes the details.
Is there additional payment when a recipient swaps?
No. Payment is completed at the time of purchase. Recipients cannot upgrade to a more expensive item, so no additional payment is ever collected. If they choose a less expensive alternative, your brand keeps the difference — no refund is issued to the gifter.
Can recipients sort or filter swap options?
No. Recipients see a static list of eligible products with no sorting or filtering. Best practice is to limit storefronts to approximately 12 SKUs for the best experience.
Who can perform a swap — the recipient, the gifter, or support?
Recipients can swap when accepting their e-gift using the Swap button.
Brand partners can manually swap products from the Partners Portal using Swap product in pending orders. Manual swaps have no price restriction.
Customer support can also perform manual swaps from the admin dashboard, with no price restriction.
What is the difference between gift swapping and Choice Gifts?
Gift swapping is the standard experience: the gifter selects one product and the recipient can optionally swap it for an alternative within the 10% price range. Choice gifts are a separate feature where the gifter curates a specific set of 2–3 products for the recipient to choose from.
Choice gifts require more setup but give you tighter control over the selection. Products set up as choice gifts are not included in the standard swap pool.
Swapping is enabled, but recipients aren't seeing swap options. What should I check?
Confirm swapping is enabled on the storefront under Settings > Advanced Settings.
Check that the gifted product does not have Prevent from being swapped enabled.
Verify that eligible products exist on the storefront within the 10% price range, are in stock, and are not marked as non-swappable.
If your storefront uses the Invoice externally setting, all product prices are set to zero, which breaks swap eligibility. Turn off Invoice externally for testing, or use a high-discount-percentage approach instead.
If you're on a secondary storefront, confirm your full product catalog is assigned to that storefront. A known issue previously caused the full catalog not to display for swaps on secondary storefronts — check with your account team if this seems to be occurring.