How can I add a handling fee to customer orders?

[SWEA]

Hello,

I need to add a handling fee to each order. We do not have shipping. customers pick up their orders on a specific date, but we need to start charging for handling.

I have tried to add it under ‘manage shipping’. I have two levels. Sales under $50 are charged $5 handling, orders over $50 are charged $10 for handling.

The problems:

1. Only the $5 handling shows up in our check-out.

2. When you try to actually check-out you get a message that this product can’t be shipped to my address.

3. On the screen it says ‘shipping’ and not ‘handling’ in the column on the right. Can I change this wording to handling. I don’t want it to say ‘shipping’ as the customer will be picking up the order in person.

Thanks for your help,

Lisa

[Elias]

Hello, @SWEA .

Thank you for reaching out and posting these questions!

I understand that your store doesn’t ship any orders and you’re looking to set up a handling fee on pickup orders. Since the local pickup feature doesn’t support adding a fee, then I can see why you’d want to use the shipping rates to create a handling fee and I’ll try my best to answer each of your questions in a similar form.

1. It’s difficult to pinpoint where the issue might be without being able to see your shipping settings. However, you’ll need to make sure that you have the correct conditions set up for each of the flat rates.

   

2. You can resolve this issue by setting up shipping zones for your state or province. However, this method isn’t recommended if you need to limit the pickup within your city or using zip codes, and the customers will still need to enter their information twice during the checkout. Instead, we’d recommend using some third-party apps, such as Zapiet - Pickup + Delivery or UpCharge: Surcharges and Fees.

3. Depending on the page (eg. product page, cart, or checkout) that this message is appearing on, you can use the language editor to change the default wording on those pages. From there, you can try searching for the field or by looking under specific tabs.

I noticed that you’re a new member of our Shopify Community! I’d love to hear more about your business and share some resources to help you get started. What kinds of products are you selling? Do you have a marketing plan prepared for your store?

[SWEA]

Thank you for your reply Elias.

I have managed to change the flat handling/processing fee. We actually decided to only have one $5 flat fee.

I have also managed to change the wording to ‘processing fee" instead of the "shipping’ like before.

Still have the issue of the message coming that it can’t be shipped to this address.

I have set the zone to include all of Canada, but it did not take care of it.

I think there might be an issue of a setting within the product set-up. Does that make sense.

Before we had that ‘this is a digital product’ as this took care of the ‘no shipping cost’ dilemma. Since all the orders are picked up in person, it worked for us.

Now when I have the processing fee added within the shipping, I have to change it to “Physical product” in order for the ‘processing fee’ showing up in the order summary.

I must be doing something wrong. Can I do something different?

I tried to include a couple of screen shots, but this program won’t accept them. Is there a different way I can send you the pictures? When I try to convert our .png file to .csv the excel file won’t show the picture.

About our business.

We are a not-for-profit organization that every year for 42 years organize a BIG Christmas Fair in Toronto. When Covid caused us to lock-down and therefor were unable to run our regular Christmas Fair we took to Shopify and sold all of our Swedish goods on it instead.

We sell during the summer. Add up all the sales and put an order in to Sweden i September. A container get shipped and arrives in early November. We pack all the orders and customers pick them up in person at the warehouse at a set date.

We now have a ‘live’ Christmas Fair, but also combine it with the webshop as it was so successful and popular with our customers.

Unfortunately due to the raising cost of everything we now feel like we need to charge a processing fee to cover some of this increase in our cost.

I hope you can help us.

Lisa

[SWEA]

I figured it out!

Thanks for your help and time.

Lisa

[Elias]

Hey, @SWEA .

Thanks so much for following up and keeping us posted!

I’m delighted to hear that you were able to change the wording using the language editor. However, can you confirm if you were able to resolve the issue where no shipping rates were appearing for the addresses?

Since you mentioned that customers will be picking up their orders, I assumed that the products are physical products as marking the products (eg “This is a physical product”) is required for the checkout to present the shipping rates. Digital products do not require shipping so the checkout will skip the customer’s shipping address and shipping method pages.

I understand that you had to add the handling fee to cover the ever-increasing costs of running a business. However, as some customers may not like seeing a separate charge on their invoices, raising the prices on the products directly may be more subtle and you wouldn’t need to tinker with shipping rates. This way, you can also raise the prices based on the actual costs of production.

If you’re still experiencing issues and you need to share screenshots, then we’d recommend using .PNG, .JPG, or .PDF as many other formats aren’t supported on the Shopify Community. On the other hand, if you need account-specific support, then we’d be happy to further assist you through live chats via the Shopify Help Center.

That being said, it’s awesome to hear that your company was able to adapt from the covid pandemic and successfully expand online. Congratulations! If your store doesn’t have a marketing plan planned for this year, then this might be something that can help grow your business further!

[SWEA]

Thanks for your help Elias.

It is all good now.

I will take a look at the marketing plan.