Hi,
I’d like to add a handling fee per transaction but can’t find the ability to do so within the Shopify back-end. I’d also not like to pay for the Order & Product Fees app, as that would null the necessity of the handling fee. Any help would be appreciated!
Best,
Aaron
Hi, @aarleomal .
Morgan here from the Social Team at Shopify.
Thanks for reaching out to discuss the idea of charging a handling fee on your shop. Although natively you are correct, there isn’t a way to add this, there are a few things that can be done. Whether that is to make up those funds elsewhere, or possibly manipulate your settings to add it.
However, before diving into some options I want to double check the reason for adding a handling fee? The main reason we don’t offer this in the admin by default is generally the more additional charges added on to an order at checkout, the more likely the checkout will be abandoned. In turn, lowering conversion rates.
Have you considered increasing your product cost directly, or even increasing shipping rates if you need to include your operating costs there? If you have the option to do either, I recommend adding to your product price. The reason being, it is easier to build value in the price someone is paying for a product they already want and they likely won’t think twice about a few dollars here or there on a products actual cost.
If a customer thinks the product they are buying is $20 and then get to the checkout and have added shipping, handling and taxes, that $20 product can easily come out to $35+. Which generally could result in them abandoning the order entirely. This is also likely for higher ticket items as well, but with higher ticket items it is ever easier to hide those extra costs in the product price.
Ultimately, if you want to add this extra cost at the checkout level, and can’t just change your flat rate shipping prices (if you use carrier calculated shipping rates) you just need to add a flat $ value on top of the estimated rates at checkout. This way the customer will just see the one total which includes the shipping and handling fees. Here’s a bit more on how to do that.
Lastly, the only other solution I can think of is adding the handling fee at the variant level of the product pages. Ie. Customer choose a “4 drawer nightstand” the variant drop down could be (+$10.00), but if they add a “2 drawer nightstand” the variant dropdown could be (+$5.00). This would work if the handling fee differs based on product.
Feel free to let me know if there’s another reason for wanting to add a handling fee and we can look at other options. However, as of now, these are the main ways to regain that operating cost.
All the best,
Hi Morgan,
Thanks for your prompt and thoughtful reply, and I have added a $1 S&H
fee under our Calculated Rates. We aim for transparency about our costs
and do not want to charge more online than we do in our cafe, thus why
we’d like to keep prices the same across all platforms and not increase
product cost on the website. Thanks again for all your help!
Best,
Aaron
Not a problem, @aarleomal . Happy to help!
That makes sense! Aligning prices with your B&M store and online shop is a very good reason to not absorb the cost within your product pricing, for continuity sake. Thanks for replying back to share what worked out for you.
All the best,
Is it possible to assign a handling fee to a particular collection, product or customer group? If so, how?
This is one of the things that bothers me about Shopify, they’re always trying to insert themselves into dictating how you should run your business instead of just being a tool that your business uses. Who are they to decide “generally the more additional charges added on to an order at checkout, the more likely the checkout will be abandoned” and tell us to how to set our pricing.
It’s more of a cop-out answer. The reality is it takes extra design, logic validation, business model validation, dev, QA, support, etc. in multiple cycles to add more functionality. Lots of features, and not enough man-power to get it all done. Life as usual for any dev house. So it becomes someone’s job to get impatient customers to simply accept the current limits.
While much of the accepted answer’s limitations do apply to many use cases, it does not apply to all. For example, we’re trying the “just markup the products” approach, which we can’t continue if we’re expected to price match other vendors online. For some items, Shopify has actually disabled the items because it violates price gouging policies, when all we’re doing is exactly what the accepted answer suggested! (Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, sigh). We also can’t use the “just use a flat shipping rate” approach, because we already use that for another purpose.
The only correct way for our business model to handle this is to leave the product price exactly as it is on other sites, leave the shipping rate as it is, and add a variable service fee (which is basically a % applied to selected products). However, Shopify does not offer the mechanics (or at least none I’ve found yet on my plan) to do this. Per the API, /cart/update is limited to “note, attributes, or line item quantities”, /cart/change is limited to qty, and /cart/add requires an existing variant_id. So there is absolutely no way I can add a custom item on the fly with my precise unit_price, or adjust an existing variant_id to update the unit_price for a cart.
It’s possible I’ve just outlined an edge case, aka “low priority”, aka “will never get done”.
I found that you can add a handling fee to your shipping rate
Go to shipping setting in setting and edit the rate
Note the handling fee (% of order or flat fee) is only available when choosing “Use carrier or app to calculate rates”. It is not available when choosing “Set up your own rates”.
So, how can I add a flat $2.00 for handling if I’m not charging for shipping? That is a terrible flaw Shopify doesn’t allow for a handling fee. So basically I can increase all my prices to cover for the $2.00 but I don’t know which items or how many when all I need is $2.00. Most people will not bail on a $2.00 handling fee especially when they are getting free shipping.
To add a handling fee:
Another option, which might work in your case, is to simply set a flat rate “$2.00” shipping and just rename it to “Shipping and Handling”.
Check out the screenshots here if you’re still stuck.
Best of luck with your store!
@Morgan
Does Shopify charge 2.9% on the handling fees or just the products in the cart?
You would think that if Shopify truly wanted to help their customers they would just simply have their developers add the option just as easy to Flat Custom Rates. I mean all I want to do is add a simple box fee..
Right.. im already paying you $29 now you’re also telling me how to run my business yh what a joke.
Right same I wanna add a $5 fee like damn, $5 barely gets you a McDonalds meal so yh I also don’t think customers will leave their cart for that. -sighs-
Hi all,
Just wanted to throw out one potential approach. We have built an app that adds mandatory fees to the carts that cannot be removed. Our rule builder allows you to pick the products and the cost etc that gets added to the cart. Lots of our clients use the app for environmental fees or deposits. Thought it was worth mentioning:
https://apps.shopify.com/canteen
Let me know if you have any questions - support@sasquatchstudio.co
Cheers!
I want to add a $5 handling fee to the entire order. It’s a convenience fee to order the product ahead and be able to pickup the product without having to wait in line. So, I don’t want a shipping fee that charges per item, because item is not being shipped. I just want a fee of $5 that is added to the entire order, no matter if they order 1 item or 20 items. Any idea what the best approach to this might be?
Use an app called order and product fees. Should do the trick.
Is there a way to do this without buying an app? Or is there a free app that would work? We’re a very small business and summer is not great for sales.
@Picabol is all your items are pick-up only?
You may add a dummy product called priority pickup and give an option at cart page to user to add priority pickup, either through checkbox or through a click on banner/ button etc. This can be achieved with cart page customisation
