Product swap automation replaces a product in your subscribers' subscriptions on its own. Use it when you stop selling a product, can't get it in time, or want to move subscribers to another product after their first orders. You set it up in Journeys as a swap rule: you choose the products to replace, the products to replace them with, and when the swap runs.
Product swaps are included in the Business Premium plan and higher. If they're locked for your store, Product swaps doesn't appear on the Journeys page and the swap templates show Locked. See the FAQs at the end.
Add a swap rule
In your Shopify admin, go to Appstle Subscription → Journeys. If Journeys isn't in the sidebar, click View more.
In the Product swaps card, click Add swap rule. If the page shows Build your first journey instead, your store has no journeys yet. Create your first rule from the template described below the table; after that, the Product swaps card appears.
Optional: enter a Rule name. If you leave it empty, Appstle names the rule after the products, for example "Replace House Blend Coffee with Colombia Coffee".
Under When to run, choose Every recurring order or A specific order. The form starts with A specific order and After the 2nd order selected. For a specific order, pick it from the list.
Under Products to replace, click Select products, tick the products, and click Done.
Under Replacement products, click Select products, tick the products, and click Done. For each replacement product, choose Default to keep the quantity the subscriber already has, or Fixed and enter the number in Qty.
Under Discounts, choose how to handle subscription discounts. The options are explained in the table below.
Under Notification, leave Email customers about the swap ticked to tell customers about the change, or untick it to swap without an email.
Optional: under Only when, click Add a condition to limit the rule to some subscriptions. Choose whether all or any of the conditions must match, click Add condition, and pick a field such as Selling plan, Customer tag, Billing country or Next order date. Without a condition, the rule applies to every subscription that has the products to replace.
Click Save and activate. The rule appears in the Product swaps list with the status Active.
The Journeys page. Click Product swaps at the top to open the full list, or Add swap rule in the Product swaps card to add a rule.
The top of the Add swap rule form: the rule name, when to run, and the products to replace.
The rest of the form: replacement products, discounts, notification and conditions.
You must choose at least one product to replace, at least one replacement product, and a discount option before you can save the rule. The discount options work like this:
Option | What happens to the replacement product |
Don't transfer any discounts | No subscription discount is applied. |
Keep customer's current subscription discount | It keeps the discount the subscriber's current plan gave. |
Use the new product's subscription discount | It gets the discount from its own subscription plan. |
Try new product's discount first, else current | It gets the discount from its own subscription plan. If it has none, the subscriber keeps their current discount. |
You can also start from a template. Click Create journey at the top right of the Journeys page and choose Swap a product after an order. The journey builder opens with the swap steps in place. Click each step to fill in the same settings as in the form above, then click Save journey. The journey is active as soon as you save it. To keep the same products and only lower how many subscribers receive, choose Change product quantity after an order instead.
When the swap runs
A swap rule runs after an order is placed on a subscription. The change applies from the subscription's next order onward, so the order that triggers the rule still has the original products.
Every recurring order runs the rule after every order, including a new subscription's first order. New subscribers who buy a product you replace get the replacement from their second order. A specific order runs the rule only after the order you pick, for example After the 2nd order.
The rule changes only subscriptions that have all the Products to replace. If you pick more than one, they are replaced as a set, and the subscription must have the same quantity of each. To cover alternatives, add a separate rule for each product.
Only Active rules run. A rule with the status Draft does nothing until you click Activate on its row.
If several rules would replace the same product after the same order, only the rule with the lowest number in the Priority column swaps it. To change the order, type a new number in the rule's Priority box and press Enter.
Swap current subscriptions right away
Because a rule runs after an order, your current subscribers' next order still ships the original product. To change subscriptions that already exist, use Apply now on the rule.
What Apply now changes depends on When to run. With Every recurring order, it swaps every current subscription that has the products to replace. With A specific order, it swaps only subscriptions that have had exactly that many orders so far. To reach all current subscribers, set the rule to Every recurring order first; it then also runs after every future order.
Apply now works only on active rules without an Only when condition. It doesn't skip prepaid subscriptions the way automatic swaps do, so it also changes those that have the products to replace.
To apply a rule:
In Journeys, click Product swaps at the top of the page and find the rule. Its status must be Active.
Click ⋯ at the end of its row, then click Apply now.
Read the message, then click Apply now to confirm.
Apply now starts a bulk update that runs right away and can't be undone automatically. Check the products and the discount option before you confirm. If Email customers about the swap is ticked, every customer whose subscription changes gets the swap email.
The confirmation that appears when you click Apply now.
Manage your swap rules
To manage a rule, click Product swaps at the top of the Journeys page, then click ⋯ at the end of the rule's row:
Action | What it does |
Edit | Opens the rule in the Edit swap rule form. Click Save changes when you're done. |
Open in builder | Opens the rule as a journey in the journey builder. |
Logs | Lists each time the rule ran on a subscription. Runs appear after the rule matches a subscription. |
Apply now | Swaps current subscriptions right away. It appears only for an active rule without an Only when condition. |
Duplicate | Opens a copy of the rule in the form. Change what differs, then click Save and activate. |
Deactivate | Stops the rule without deleting it. The rule goes back to Draft. Click Activate on its row to turn it on again. |
Delete | Deletes the rule permanently. This can't be undone. |
A rule's menu in the Product swaps list.
Changing, deactivating or deleting a rule doesn't undo swaps it has already made.
To activate, deactivate or delete several rules at once, tick their boxes and click Activate, Deactivate or Delete. To download the rules as a CSV file, click Export at the top of the page.
Things to know
Automatic swaps skip prepaid subscriptions where the customer pays for several deliveries at once, and Appstle records the reason in the subscription's activity log. Apply now doesn't skip them.
Swaps do run on Prepaid (Separate Orders) plans. On those plans, the replacement product always keeps the customer's current subscription discount, whatever you choose under Discounts. See Prepaid subscriptions with separate orders.
Product swap rules you created before Journeys existed appear in the Product swaps list automatically.
Only one Apply now update can run at a time. If you see a message that a bulk request is already in progress, wait for it to finish and try again. If you see "Bulk operations is locked", chat with our support team and ask them to unlock bulk operations for your store.
The Product Delivery Forecasting card in Analytics shows each subscription's products as they are now, so a swap appears there after it has run. See Avoid out-of-stock problems with delivery forecasting and product swaps.
FAQs
Why didn't a subscription get swapped?
Check that:
the rule is Active, not Draft
the subscription has all the Products to replace, with the same quantity of each
the order matches When to run
the subscription meets any Only when condition
no rule with a lower Priority number replaced the same product first
it isn't a prepaid subscription where the customer pays for several deliveries at once
To see what the rule has done, click ⋯ on its row in the Product swaps list, then click Logs.
Why did a customer's next order still have the old product?
A rule runs after an order is placed, and its change applies from the next order onward. The order that triggers the rule still has the original products. To change subscriptions that already exist, use Apply now as described above.
Where did product swap automation in More go?
Product swap setup moved to Journeys. In More, the Product & Frequency Swap Automation page now only shows a message that Product Swap has moved, with an Open Journeys button. Your existing swap rules are in the Product swaps list.
Why can't I see Product swaps on the Journeys page?
Product swaps are included in the Business Premium plan and higher, so on a lower plan you need to upgrade first. Some stores on those plans also need our support team to unlock them. If Product swaps is missing from the Journeys page or the Swap a product after an order template shows Locked, chat with us from the app and ask us to unlock product swap automation.
Can I undo a swap?
Appstle doesn't undo swaps. To go back, deactivate the original rule first, or it will swap the products again. Then add a rule that swaps the products the other way, set When to run to Every recurring order, and use Apply now on it. Deactivate the new rule afterwards if you don't want it to keep running.
Need help?
If you have questions about product swaps, email [email protected] or chat with us from the app.