This article explains how Swap Global ships cross-border orders that include a $0 line item — such as a free sample, gift-with-purchase, or fully discounted product — without the shipment being rejected by the carrier or incorrectly charged duty by customs.
📌 This feature currently applies to Swap Global (cross-border) orders only and is in beta. It's enabled on a per-brand basis — there is no self-serve toggle yet, so contact your Swap account team to request activation for your brand. Self-serve controls are planned for a future release.
Prerequisites
Before you can ship $0 orders through Swap Global:
Ask your Swap account team to enable the feature for your brand. The feature is off by default, and there is currently no self-serve toggle — Swap enables it per brand on request.
Set a cost price in Shopify for any product that might ship at $0. Swap Global uses this cost price as the declared value on the commercial invoice. If a product has no cost price set, Swap Global still ships the order, but substitutes a default value of 3.75 GBP instead of the product's real cost.
What counts as a $0 order
A $0 order is any cross-border order where a line item is declared at $0.00: a free sample, a gift-with-purchase, an influencer or PR kit, a fully discounted item, or a zero-priced catalogue insert.
Two problems follow from a $0.00 declared value:
Carriers reject it. Cross-border carriers can reject a commercial invoice when a line is declared at $0.00, so the booking fails.
Customs can charge duty on it. Without context, customs can assess duty or VAT on an item the customer never paid for.
Swap Global solves both by replacing the $0.00 value with a realistic declared value and adding a note that tells customs the item is promotional.
How it works
Once the feature is enabled for your brand, Swap Global handles $0 lines automatically at label time — no extra steps at checkout or fulfilment. For each line item declared at $0.00:
Declared value. Swap Global substitutes the product's cost price from Shopify in place of $0.00. If no cost price is set, it applies a default value of 3.75 GBP instead.
Customs description. Swap Global keeps the product's real description and appends a promotional note, so customs can see why a value has been added to an item the customer wasn't charged for.
Commercial invoice. The commercial invoice shows the same substituted value and the same description-plus-note that the carrier and customs receive.
This is designed to tell customs the item is promotional rather than a sale, so the line does not incur duty or VAT. Swap is validating this outcome against live shipments as they clear customs.
Example: a free 1.5 mL sample shipped as a gift-with-purchase.
Description | Qty | Unit value |
Sample 1.5 mL organic lavender lotion — promotional item, no charge to customer | 1 | $3.00 |
Shipping | – | $4.99 |
Things to know
This feature is in beta. Coverage and behaviour may still change as more brands and order types are validated.
Duty and VAT treatment is still being validated. The promotional note is intended to stop the substituted line from being charged duty or VAT, but this hasn't yet been confirmed across a volume of live shipments. Contact your Swap account team if a promotional line is charged unexpectedly.
Global orders only. The feature only applies to Swap Global (cross-border) orders. It has no effect on orders placed through any other Swap product.
It doesn't work with bypass shipping rates. Orders that rely on bypass rates (no shipping line set in Shopify) aren't covered by this feature.
Only the $0 line is affected. In a mixed order, paid items keep their real declared price — the substitution and customs note only apply to the $0 line.
A cost price gives the most accurate declaration. Without one, Swap Global applies the 3.75 GBP default so the order still ships, but the declared value won't reflect the product's real cost.
Self-serve controls are planned. A future release will let you enable the feature and set your own default value directly, without needing Swap to enable it manually.