How to Handle Swap Orders

Managing product returns and especially swap orders is one of the most complex tasks when running an online store. They usually burden your team with a lot of manual processes, add friction to the customer experience and mess up your business metrics.

But don't worry: RetentionX helps you fix the last issue. We automatically detect swap orders and make sure they don't distort your data. Let's see how this works.

Swap Order Detection

An order is identified as a swap when a customer re-purchases a product after the same or another variant of the product has already been returned within the last 30 days.

Swap order detection is exclusively available for custom integrations,  , and .

In the following example, a customer has bought a T-shirt in light green. Although he loves the fit, he is not happy with the color. Therefore, he returns the shirt and exchanges it for the same one in dark red. The order for the red T-shirt is considered a swap order - if placed within 30 days after the initial order.

As soon as an swap is detected, the order is labeled as such.

The information on swap orders can be used to segment your customers as well:

Handling of Swap Orders

Now, we understand, for example, that a new customer ordered a product, but exchanged it for the same product in a different color shortly thereafter. Technically, this customer has placed two orders with you, but does that make them a repeat buyer?

No, and this is exactly why we do not count swap orders as repeat purchases in the following analysis:

• Customer Economics
  EXCLUDED FOR CUSTOMERS WITH REPURCHASE AND AVG. ORDERS
  

• Customer Persona 
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS
  

• RFM Analysis
  EXCLUDED FOR RECENCY AND FREQUENCY
  

• Percentile Analysis
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS
  

• Repeat Purchase Rate

• Repeat Purchase Development
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS AND CUSTOMERS
  

• Time Between Purchases

• Customer Cohorts
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS, RETURN RATE, AND ITEMS
  

• Cohorts By Retention Rate

• Cohorts By Repeat Purchase Rate

• Order Count Distribution

• AOV per Order Count

• All Products 
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS LEADING TO A FOLLOW-UP STATS
  

• All Variants
  EXCLUDED FOR ORDERS LEADING TO A FOLLOW-UP STATS
  

• Follow-Up Purchases

• Best Coupon Codes
  EXCLUDED FOR REPEAT PURCHASE RATE

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