How Hey Harper grew exchanges 56% and kept 48% more revenue with AfterShip

Hey Harper is known for everyday, waterproof jewelry you never have to take off. The Lisbon-born label helped define a new category—stainless steel finished with a PVD coating that shrugs off showers, sweat, and salt water without tarnishing. The Shopify brand that started as a founder's Instagram experiment now ships to more than 100 countries, has a popular New York City flagship, and sits on shelves at Target.

The Results

• 50% increase in RMA exchange rate
• 56% increase in item exchange rate
• 48% increase in exchange revenue ratio

The Challenge: An Exchange Process With Too Much Friction

Before AfterShip, Hey Harper offered exchanges through other return tools. Moving onto AfterShip Returns was straightforward because the solution is already deeply integrated with Everstox, Hey Harper's fulfillment platform. Everstox orchestrates Hey Harper's warehousing, shipping and returns operations across its logistics network, while AfterShip powers the customer-facing returns and exchange experience. The integration connects the returns portal directly with Hey Harper's fulfillment operations, allowing return data and warehouse updates to flow seamlessly between both systems.

The exchange process was improving, but the flow itself was still fairly manual: in order to complete an exchange, a shopper had to leave the return, go back to the site, and find the replacement themselves. As a result, only about one in ten shoppers requesting a return went through with an exchange. The rest simply took the refund.

The Solution: Recommending the Right Exchange, Automatically

The opportunity was hiding in plain sight. Most of Hey Harper's returns come down to fit or style—a ring that runs small, or a piece that wasn't quite the look the shopper pictured. These aren't necessarily "give me my money back" refund requests.

Within months of onboarding, AfterShip switched on a new feature: AI Exchange Recommendations. The instant a shopper gives a return reason, the model reads it—along with any comment they type—matches it against the brand's catalog and live, in-stock variants, and pre-selects the single best replacement, before the shopper reaches the refund screen.

To measure its effectiveness, AfterShip ran a controlled A/B test on Hey Harper’s store: for one month, shoppers starting a return were randomly assigned in real time to the existing flow (335 returns) or the new AI-powered exchange recommendations (820 returns).

Turning Refunds Into Retained Revenue

The point of an exchange is the revenue it saves. For every $100 of merchandise returned during the test, Hey Harper's control group kept $5.60 as an exchange rather than a refund. With AI Exchange Recommendations, that rose to $8.30—a 48% increase in retained revenue.

That’s money the brand was already writing off. And it's worth more than a new sale: Hey Harper had already paid to acquire the customer and the order, so an exchange keeps the revenue—and the customer—without spending to win either again.

Fewer Refunds, More Exchanges

That revenue came from a simple shift: more shoppers chose to swap. With AI Exchange Recommendations, return requests ending in an exchange increased 50% compared to the control group. When counted by individual item—since one return request can include several pieces—exchanges rose 56%.

Because the model reads the comment, not just the reason—a shopper who wanted something more delicate is shown a thinner, more minimal piece from the catalog—the option in front of them was usually worth taking. And because it only surfaces a recommendation when it's confident of a strong, in-stock match, shoppers weren't handed weak guesses that would have pushed them toward a refund.

Hey Harper gave shoppers the option to exchange; AfterShip’s AI Exchange Recommendations gave them a reason to take it. If your refunds are handing back money shoppers would have happily spent, we'd love to show you what AfterShip can do.