The Shop Now bonus gives customers extra value to spend when they exchange their return for something new, instead of taking a refund or a gift card. This article explains how the bonus is calculated, what happens when items are added or removed during a return, how it appears in Shopify, and when it does not apply.
💡 The Shop Now bonus is a discount, not store credit. When a customer chooses Shop Now, the bonus reduces the price they pay for their exchange item. It is not added to a credit balance and it is not issued as a gift card. Your dashboard records it in exactly those terms — the activity log on a return reads "Shop Now Bonus discount of £19.00 applied to return".
⚠️ Because the bonus adds value on top of the return, customers can keep exchanging for higher-value items. To control this, use advanced rules.
What the Shop Now bonus is
When a customer chooses Shop Now, a percentage you set is applied to the value of the items they are returning. That percentage becomes a discount on the items they exchange for, so they can spend more than their return was worth.
The bonus is applied the moment the customer chooses Shop Now, before they pick an exchange item. It is a Shopify-native discount, visible on the order in Shopify to both you and your customer.
Shop Later has its own separate incentive, set independently — see Understanding Shop Now and Shop Later.
Where to set it
Go to Returns → Settings → Exchanges. In the Exchange options panel:
Turn on Add a discount for the 'Shop Now' option.
Set Discount (up to % of return value) to the percentage you want to offer.
The field's own description confirms how it behaves: Applied as a discount on the exchange order at checkout.
💡 The setting is labelled a discount and the rest of the dashboard calls the same thing a bonus — on the RMA, in your advanced rules, and in your returns analytics. They are the same feature.
Key terms
Base credit: the value of the returned items, before any bonus.
Bonus rate: the percentage you set, for example 10%.
Shop Now bonus: the amount the bonus rate adds, applied as a discount on the exchange items.
Total value: base credit plus the Shop Now bonus. This is the figure the customer has to spend.
How the bonus is calculated
Swap works from a single pool of value. The total value is calculated and stored the moment the customer chooses Shop Now, and every change to the return or the exchange updates that same figure. This keeps the maths consistent no matter how many times the customer changes their mind.
Total value = (return items − exchange items) × (1 + bonus rate)
When the customer selects an exchange item after choosing Shop Now:
The value of the exchange item is subtracted from the total value.
Swap recalculates the base credit and the bonus from what is left:
Base credit = total value ÷ (1 + bonus rate)
Shop Now bonus = total value − base credit
When the customer adds a return item after choosing Shop Now, the bonus rate is applied to that item too, and its value including bonus is added to the pool.
What customers see in the portal
Before they reach the exchange page, customers see:
The base credit amount with a line through it
The discounted price, including the bonus
The remaining discount still available to spend
If value is left over after they have chosen their exchange items, they can shop for more, take the remainder as Shop Later credit, or request a refund. Only the base credit is refundable — see When the bonus does not apply below.
How the bonus appears in Shopify
How the bonus is recorded depends on whether you use Shopify's native Exchange API.
Without the Exchange API (zero-value exchanges)
Swap creates the exchange as a separate order in Shopify and adjusts the exchange item's price directly. The item is added at the discounted price — the original price minus the Shop Now bonus.
Because the price stored in Shopify is already the discounted amount, any refund issued if the customer returns that item reflects the correct value automatically.
With the Exchange API
Swap adds a discount line to the exchange order. The item keeps its original price and the Shop Now bonus appears as a separate line.
If the exchange item is returned, Shopify calculates the refund against the discounted amount, so the correct refund is issued.
💡 In both setups the bonus is a native Shopify discount and is visible on the exchange order. It is not applied through a third-party app and it is not issued as store credit or a gift card.
On the return itself, the bonus appears in the Return balance summary as Shop now Bonus used, alongside the returns subtotal, exchange subtotal and any handling fee.
When the bonus does not apply
Refunds. Only the base credit is refundable. The bonus is an incentive to exchange, not cash, so it is not refunded. See example 2 below.
Equal or higher-value exchanges chosen first. If the value of the exchange items already matches or exceeds the value of the returned items, no bonus is applied. Where the exchange is worth more, an additional payment is required instead.
Items that already carry a discount, if you have chosen to exclude them. The Do not allow shop now bonus setting stops customers applying the Shop Now bonus to items that already have another discount, and applies to both order-level and product-level carry-over discounts. See Exchange Discounts: Carrying Over Original Discount.
Taxes and duties. These are excluded from the calculation, so the bonus is applied to the item value only. This is worth knowing if your figures look lower than expected.
Overriding the bonus
You can change the bonus away from your store-wide percentage in two places:
Per rule, using advanced rules. The Set Shop Now Bonus % action sets a bonus of 0–100% for returns that match a rule, so you can offer more or less depending on the order. See Understanding advanced rules.
Per return, on the RMA. You can adjust the bonus on an individual return after it has been submitted. See How to adjust the credit bonus on an RMA.
Examples
Example 1: the bonus on its own
Return value: £100
Bonus rate: 10%
Total value = 100 × 1.1 = £110
Base credit is £100 and the Shop Now bonus is £10. The customer has £110 to spend on their exchange.
Example 2: a bonus, an exchange and a refund
The customer returns €100. A 10% bonus is applied.
→ Total value = €110 (base credit €100, bonus €10)
The customer selects an exchange item worth €80, which is deducted from the total value.
→ Remaining total value = €30
The customer asks for the remainder as a refund. Only the base credit is refundable, so Swap extracts the base value from what is left:
30 ÷ 1.1 = 27.27
Outcome: a refund of €27.27. The remaining €2.73 is the bonus and is not refunded.
Example 3: choosing an exchange item
Return value: £160
Bonus rate: 10%
Exchange item selected: £50
Total value = 160 × 1.1 = £176
New total value = 176 − 50 = £126
Base credit = 126 ÷ 1.1 = £114.55
Shop Now bonus = 126 − 114.55 = £11.45
Example 4: adding a return item afterwards
Continuing from example 3, where the total value is £126:
Return item added: £80
New total value = (80 × 1.1) + 126 = 88 + 126 = £214
Base credit = 214 ÷ 1.1 = £194.55
Shop Now bonus = 214 − 194.55 = £19.45