A handling fee is an additional charge added on top of the product price, taxes, and shipping costs at checkout.
You can charge a handling fee if you want to cover the cost of any additional expenses related to the order fulfillment, e.g. shipping materials, gift wrap, parcel insurance, rush delivery, etc.
To add a handling fee:
- Go to your store Control Panel → Shipping & Pickup.
- Click Set Up Handling Fee in the Settings block.
- Fill out the Title, Amount and Description fields.
- Click Submit.
The handling fee rate will be applied at checkout to all orders that require shipping or pickup.
Keep your handling fees as low as possible to avoid cart abandonment. For carrier-calculated shipping methods you can add a hidden surcharge with the help of the Shipping Markup option.The handling fee will be cleared and won’t show up at checkout in case:
- All items in cart have free delivery
The shipping step will be skipped at checkout, when the free delivery is enabled for all the goods in the cart.
You can manage the free delivery for particular items under the Tax and Shipping tab on the product details page in your store Control Panel → Catalog → Products. - A free shipping discount coupon is used
When a free shipping coupon is applied in the cart, the shipping step will be skipped at checkout.
You can manage your discount coupons in your store Control Panel → Discounts → Discount Coupons. - All items in cart are e-goods
E-goods or digital products do not require physical delivery and the shipping step will be skipped at checkout.
You can mark a product as digital, if you uncheck the option Requires shipping or pickup under General tab on the product details page in your store Control Panel → Catalog → Products.