How Swap Is Streamlining Brand Operations Through Unified Commerce

2025 is proving to be a year of reckoning for fashion e-commerce businesses. Geopolitical shifts and the consequent disruption to global trade policies mean there is a greater need for consolidated supply chains — and a more unified approach to commerce.

Uncertainty around the Trump administration’s tariffs has created turmoil for companies in the fashion industry. Smaller, independent brands with large portions of customers in the US and production overseas are especially at risk due to fluctuating policies.

To address the challenges and overarching uncertainty facing small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) today, Swap Commerce — an e-commerce operating system (OS) that helps brands manage logistics and operations across borders — seeks to unlock a unified approach to business.

A London-based startup founded in 2022 by Sam Atkinson and Zach Bailet, Swap Commerce’s support encompasses shipping and returns to inventory, customs and tax compliance — all within a single platform. With pre-built integrations for Shopify, Klaviyo, UPS and FedEx, Swap Commerce enables users to streamline complex back-end tasks, including delivered duty paid (DDP) shipping, automated tax remittance, and express customs clearance. Its tools are designed to help brands quickly adapt their supply chains to tariff shifts and geopolitical disruptions.

Swap Commerce partners with 500+ brands worldwide, with annual sales typically ranging from $20 million to $100 million. In the fashion and eyewear sectors, notable partners include Phillip Lim, Sandy Liang, Ed Hardy, Pangaia, The Frankie Shop and Odd Muse. The company is expanding into new areas such as beauty and home goods, collaborating with brands like Joseph Joseph, while venturing into consumer technology.

Following a $40 million Series B funding round in early 2025, Swap Commerce aims for further growth in the US, EU, Australia and Canada. Indeed, Swap Commerce grew its revenue sevenfold between March 2024 and March 2025.

With new AI-powered tools, including Swap Commerce Inventory — an intelligent forecasting and replenishment engine — Swap Commerce helps brands optimise stock levels and reduce overproduction. Meanwhile, Clear by Swap Global — a B2B2C solution focused on pricing transparency — provides customers with a clear breakdown of duties and taxes upfront, thereby reducing friction at checkout. Another timely offering is the US Domestic Tax Filing solution, which provides assistance in remaining compliant with tax laws in all 50 states.

These services are designed to provide SMEs with the tools to navigate the current climate, from communicating price fluctuations with the end consumer to staying up-to-date with tariff shifts or upcoming sustainability regulations.

Now, BoF sits down with Swap Commerce’s co-founder and CEO Sam Atkinson to understand the value that the company’s all-in-one ecosystem can offer fashion and luxury brands in a fragmented value chain and an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape.

What motivated the founding of Swap Commerce?

Before founding Swap Commerce, I ran my own e-commerce business, and many of the features we built at Swap Commerce aim to solve the pain points I experienced when running that business. For instance, we would ship internationally to the UK, then distribute goods back out to other international markets — which, obviously, created all sorts of issues around tax and compliance.

I then started a job at McKinsey, where I worked with a number of large retailers on setting up their operations. Swap Commerce also took inspiration from how big businesses approach operations, and looked at how that could be scaled down effectively for smaller businesses. Those were the two main inspirations for Swap Commerce and rendered exactly what we needed to do to support retailers.

If you look at what Shopify has done for e-commerce, it has tried to unify many of the different tools that a brand might have used separately. What we have done, similar to Shopify, is to offer the same unification but for your back-office operations. This includes the parts that feel slightly less exciting, but are really fundamental to your business, whether that is tax and compliance, how you manage your inventory, how you manage your returns, or how you manage what stock should be in which location.

What do you believe sets Swap Commerce apart from other tools available for SMEs?

First, the user interface that we have built, compared to some of the more legacy providers, is really strong. We also provide connectivity across tools. For example, if you are using the software platform NetSuite for your accounting, we can integrate it seamlessly within Swap Commerce. Any tax calculation we perform for you at Swap Commerce will also be reflected in your NetSuite or other accounting softwares.

That connectivity — especially as you become a larger brand generating upwards of 50 to hundreds of millions in revenue — becomes critical, as you are likely using several different systems to manage your operations. Our ability to quickly and seamlessly connect to those systems makes our customers’ lives easier.

We also offer a suite of different products, whereas many of our competitors only have one. We have a cross-border product where we are the main provider globally; we have a returns product and we have an inventory forecasting tool that we’re just launching. You can use one product or multiple — but if you do use multiple, the idea is that they are value compounds.

We also leverage data across our different products, so we are able to give you better insights on what you should be doing with your business. Whereas, if you use Global-e for international shipping and Loop for returns management, you’d have to do an integration between both platforms to make them harmonise.

What trade and customs pain points do brands expanding internationally face, and how can Swap Commerce support them in this process?

It depends on the brand. We recently experienced the rollout of tariffs in the US, and for brands manufacturing in China, that means any shipment that had previously been duty-free now faces a 50 to 60 percent tariff. Even understanding what your landed cost will be is a challenge now. What I mean by that is: what is the total cost to get the shipment to your customer? Being able to give a brand clarity on that, and what it means for their profitability, is an intrinsic part of our work.

Internationally, there are all sorts of local tax rules that you need to comply with as well.

[We offer] unification for your back-office operations [...] whether that is tax and compliance, how you manage your inventory, how you manage your returns, or stock allocation.

For example, if you are a brand selling into New York, once you exceed a particular sales threshold, you are required to start collecting state tax. It is these kinds of complexities that, as a brand, you are not focused on. We try to take that headache away from you. We’ll monitor when you cross that threshold, register you for state tax in New York and facilitate the payments on your behalf.

We have also built a duty and tax calculation tool which allows you to estimate the cost of any shipment to any location, including duty and taxes. There are a number of different use-cases for it, whether you are a shipping postal carrier, or you want to communicate to customers how much duty and taxes they must pay.

How does Clear by Swap help brands navigate tariff changes?

Clear enables a brand that has goods made in China to ship to its customers in the United States in a more cost-effective way. It is mostly applicable to UK brands or international brands that also have a US entity.

We can help the brand establish a US entity if they do not already have one, then facilitate an inter-company transfer — moving goods from the UK entity to the US entity.

The US entity purchases the goods from the UK entity at fair market value. That’s typically the manufacturer’s cost price (what you pay in China), plus a reasonable markup — similar to what you might charge a wholesaler in the US.

Tariffs will be charged on that lower price instead of the retail price — so it is a significant saving. If your transfer price for a product is $50 and the tariff is 50 percent, you pay $25. But if your retail price is $150, you’d be paying $75 in tariff. Clear has essentially allowed brands to continue trading while they decide what to do with their setups post-tariffs.

How is Swap Commerce supporting fashion brands specifically?

One of the biggest pain points for e-commerce and retail brands has been how to attract and retain customers in a competitive market — especially as privacy regulations make targeted marketing more difficult.

There are numerous tools available to help with this now, but we are seeing customer retention become a priority for brands over customer acquisition. How do we help solve that challenge? We manage the returns process, and have other post-purchase tools that offer a seamless customer experience, such as a repair and recycle tool for returned inventory.

Looking ahead, what do you believe fashion brands will need from the e-commerce space in the medium term?

As AI becomes more widespread, we are thinking about how it can impact a brand’s day-to-day operations. A lot of technology tends to reach e-commerce later than it does in enterprise software, where companies are often early adopters. So, we’re proactively looking to that space for ideas and innovations we can bring into e-commerce sooner than they might arrive organically.

We are exploring how you could automate the day-to-day of an e-commerce brand using AI or using AI agents. Whether it’s the processing of your orders and returns, or the automation of the tax filing — and that’s more than just filling out the tax form. You could build an agent that would log into the Florida State Tax Portal, submit the form on your behalf, and ensure that all of your filings are done on time, in an automated manner. Our goal is to bring this kind of automation to multiple areas of e-commerce — and that’s where we see the most exciting opportunities ahead.

This is a sponsored featured paid for by Swap Commerce as part of a BoF partnership.