WooCommerce handling fees: Increase average order value

WooCommerce handling fees: Increase average order value

Charging handling fees allows your business to pass on extra operating costs to customers — without increasing the standard product prices or shipping rates. In this tutorial, I'll show you step-by-step how to add a WooCommerce handling fee to your online store in less than five minutes.

Looking for a way to charge handling fees per order in WooCommerce?

Handling charges — think: rush processing fees, small-value fees, special packing charges, etc. — can help recover extra costs and boost your business' revenue.

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The default WooCommerce install doesn't include the option to add handling fees per order. So to set this up, we'll use the powerful WooCommerce Product Options plugin.

First things first, let's make sure we're on the same page about what handling fees actually are.

What is a handling fee in WooCommerce?

In WooCommerce, handling fees are extra charges added to a customer's order to cover costs that aren't directly included in the standard product prices. Think: packaging and processing costs, administrative expenses, and other operational overheads.

Handling fees are different from shipping fees in that they are focused on costs related to order preparation and management rather than transportation.

The ability to assign handling fees to orders is important for many businesses, notably those shipping custom, oversized, or fragile products. For products like these, consumers expect shipping costs to be higher than normal due to the higher standard of product. While customers don’t like seeing extra fees, smart ecommerce sellers can use the handling fee as a way to reinforce the product value and a more personal purchase experience.

Greg ZakowiczSr. Ecommerce Expert at Omnisend

Types of WooCommerce handling fees

Adding a fixed handling fee per product or per order helps ensure extra costs are accounted for without raising product prices across the board or absorbing them (which can eat into your profit margins).

Here are common examples of where handling fees might be appropriate:

Fragile items

Products that require special care — think: glassware, artwork, ceramics, etc. — tend to require bubble wrap, reinforced boxes, or additional manpower to be packed safely. Adding a handling fee ensures these costs are covered and your products are delivered intact.

Low-value orders

Some order operation and fulfillment costs — think: packaging, payment gateway fees, labor, etc. — are fixed, regardless of order values. Charging a nominal handling fee on carts under a specific threshold helps nudge customers to spend more so that small-value orders remain viable.

Custom or personalized products

Personalized products — think: engraved jewelry, personalized printed mugs, custom-designed t-shirts, etc. — require additional labor, materials, or both. Charging even a nominal handling fee helps compensate for the extra time and effort involved.

Bulky items

Big-sized products — think: large furniture, heavy electric appliances, full-sized mattresses, etc. — often demand special handling, such as additional packing materials and more labor to prepare the items for shipping.

Gift wrapping or rush processing

If you offer optional "upgradable" services — think: gift wrapping, expedited order processing, eco-friendly packing, etc. — charging handling fees help make sure you’re compensated for the added value provided.

Shipping to remote or international locations

Similar to bulky or fragile items, processing orders to be shipped off to rural areas or international destinations often involves additional administrative work, higher shipping rates, or specialized logistics.

Since these can increase your costs, adding a handling fee helps prevent these orders from chipping away at your profit margins.

The best WooCommerce handling fee plugin

WooCommerce Product Options is the best plugin for adding handling fees in WooCommerce. It enables you to use various methods to charge handling fees: flat rate, percentage-based, conditional handling fees, etc.

With it, you can create and apply unlimited types of handling fees, such as:

  • Additional handling fees for fragile items.
  • Rush order processing charges for expedited order preparation.
  • Weight-based charges for bulky products.
  • Size-based fees for oversized items.

WooCommerce Product Options lets you choose how to add handling fees: globally, for specific categories, or for individual products. This enables you to tailor fees to your business model.

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Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to configure fees even if you're not tech-savvy. You can label each fee clearly — for example, "Special Handling," "Oversized Item Fee," "Express Service", etc. — so customers know exactly what they're paying for. This transparency reduces cart abandonment and builds trust.

Plus, it integrates seamlessly with your WooCommerce store's cart and checkout system and ensures that customers see all their selected options and additional costs before placing their orders.

Bonus: WooCommerce Product Options is a multi-purpose plugin that lets you enable shoppers to select extra options and add-ons to customize products, preview their chosen selections, offer upsells to increase average order values, and much more. Check out its additional landing page for more details of its additional use cases.

WooCommerce Product Options' top features

Various kinds of fee options

The handling charge plugin supports multiple pricing types, including flat fees, percentage-based fees, and even conditional fees:

  • Flat handling fees e.g. a flat rate of $5 per product.
  • Percentage-based fees e.g. 2% of the product price.
  • Conditional fees e.g. $10 for products that weigh more than 5kg.

This flexibility allows you to match the kind of handling fees your business charges to your specific business model.

Multiple field types

There are a variety of options to choose from to display handling fees on product detail pages. This allows you to present the fees in ways that are clear and intuitive for your customers. For instance, you can use:

  • Radio buttons to make fees more visually prominent and easy to select.
  • Checkboxes for optional services like premium packaging.
  • Dropdown menus to let customers choose between different service levels, such as "Standard Processing (Free)" or "Priority Processing ($10)."

To add a simple and clearly labelled handling charge, I recommend using radio buttons. Add a single "Handling charge" radio button (with whichever label you want), pre-select it, and mark it as required so that customers can't de-select it. This will appear on the product page so that customers can see they're paying an extra handling fee.

Alternatively, add extra radio buttons to give customers a choice of handling charges (e.g. based on timescale and priority).

Conditional logic

You can use conditional logic to add handling fees only when relevant. For instance, if your store offers custom engraving that requires extra processing, then you can add and display a $10 handling fee field only when the “Custom Engraving” method is selected. This helps improve your site's user experience (UX).

Custom price formulas

Some products require handling fees to be calculated using advanced methods based on specific criteria. You can create advanced pricing formulas to calculate handling fees for these products.

Flexible placement

Finally, you can create unlimited types of handling fees and apply them to products with different levels of targeting:

  • Storewide. Apply the same handling fee to all products.
  • Per category. Apply the same handling fee to all the products in a particular category.
  • Per product or variation. Apply the same handling fee to specific products or variations.

How to add a handling fee in WooCommerce

Next, I'll show you how to get the Product Options plugin up and running to charge flat rate, percentage-based or conditional handling fees in WooCommerce.

Follow these steps.

How to add flat-rate handling fees in WooCommerce

Here, we'll apply a flat $10 handling fee to a fragile product to account for extra packing charges. We'll present it using a radio button field on product detail pages and set it as mandatory to ensure that customers can't deselect it.

I'll assume that you want to add a pre-selected, mandatory handling fee radio button which the customer can't remove. However, you can add different styles and additional choices as required.

Step 1: Create a new product option group

  1. Get the WooCommerce Product Options plugin and add it to your site.
  2. In your site's admin sidebar, navigate to Product Options Add New.
  3. Give the option group a name, such as "Fragile item handling fee". Make sure you don't check the "Display" box.
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  4. Under the "Visibility" section, decide which products this handling fee should apply to. If you select "Show on specific categories or products", you'll need to use the "Inclusions" and "Exclusions" search bars to find and select applicable products.

Step 2: Add a flat-rate WooCommerce handling fee

  1. In the "Options" section, click "Add option" to create a new option.
  2. Select the field type. Here, I'm selecting "Radio buttons".
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  3. Update the details in the "Choices" section to configure the fields:
    • Label: Enter something like, "Fragile Item Handling Fee".
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    • Price Type: Select "Flat fee".
    • Pricing: Enter the flat fee amount, e.g., $10.
    • Selected by default: This option is hidden by default so click on the blue cog to the top right of the table of choices, add the column to the table, and then select it.
  4. Highly recommended: Add a brief explanation of what the handling fee is for in the "Description" field, such as "This item requires special packaging to ensure safe delivery."
  5. Mark the field as "Required" to make sure customers cannot deselect it.
  6. Create additional options as desired (if necessary). For example, a "Standard" option with no cost to give customers the option to opt out of the handling fee. Important: If you only want one handling fee option, skip this and don't create additional options.
  7. Hit "Save changes" at the bottom of the page. You can then visit its product detail page on the front end and add the product to your cart to test out your settings.
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That's it. In the screenshot above, notice that the flat $10 handling fee is added to the total product price and reflected in the cart when the product is selected.

How to add a percentage-based handling fee in WooCommerce

Alternatively, you might want to charge a percentage-based handling fee. For example, this could automatically add 10% of the product price when customers select the "Rush processing" option. Again, I recommend presenting this using a radio button field on product detail pages and setting it as mandatory to ensure that customers can't deselect it.

Follow the instructions above to create the radio button. Select the pricing type as "Percentage increase" instead of a fixed price.

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Add a conditional WooCommerce handling fee

Finally, you can create custom price formulas which calculate the WooCommerce handling fee based on more advanced criteria.

This time, follow the above instructions to add whichever options you require to the product(s) where you will be charging a handling fee. After that:

  1. Click "Add option" again and select "Price formula".
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  2. Create a price formula in the "Formula" section. For this tutorial, I'll show you two examples of formulas. However, there are tons of ways you can use this. Check the documentation for more ideas of what you can do:
    • Heavy products. This formula charges a $25 "Heavy Item Fee" if the product weight exceeds 10 kg. No handling fee is added to products that weigh less than 10kg: IF( [product_weight] > 10, 25, 0 )
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    • Oversized items. This formula applies a $30 fee if either the width or length exceeds 100 cm: IF( OR( [field_width] > 100, [field_length] > 100 ), 30, 0 )
  3. Hit "Save changes" at the bottom of the page.

Unlike the previous sections of this tutorial, the price formula won't add any visible options to the page. Instead, the price formula will change the product price based on which other options the customer selects.

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Best practices for charging WooCommerce handling fees

No one likes paying extra — your customers included. These best practices will help you successfully implement handling fees in your WooCommerce store.

Be transparent about fees

Explain why the handling fee exists on product detail pages so customers know what the charge is for before they choose to add the product to their carts.

This has been proven to be beneficial: a Which? report found that 81% of online shoppers say that fees are more acceptable if they are shown upfront in the buying process.

You can even go a step further and add a dedicated section to your "FAQ" or "Shipping Policy" pages to address common questions like:

  • Why are handling fees charged?
  • How are they calculated?
  • Which products or orders are affected?

Customers are more willing to pay handling fees when they understand the value. Plus, this goes a long way toward reducing abandoned cart rates and increasing customer satisfaction.

Pro tip: Use descriptive labels like “Fragile Item Handling Fee” or “Oversized Item Fee” and add brief explanations within WooCommerce Product Options to add details about handling fees to product pages.

Charge fair rates

Make sure handling fees reflect actual costs, such as extra packaging materials, labor, shipping complexity, etc.

Charging exorbitant handling fees can lead to negative customer reviews and damage customers' trust in your business.

Evaluate the impact of handling fees

Extra charges (including handling fees) make products cost more and can influence your store's performance. Monitor WooCommerce’s reports and analytics to track key metrics like:

  • Products with the highest handling fee charges.
  • Revenue changes after implementing handling fees.
  • Cart abandonment rates at checkout.

If you notice a dip in your store's performance after introducing handling fees, investigate further. You might find that the fee needs better justification or should be lowered.

Add handling fees per order in WooCommerce

Handling fees are handy in situations where you want to charge customers for extra costs to prepare and process their orders, without bundling the additional costs into standard product prices or shipping rates.

There is no default setting within WooCommerce for applying handling fees. But you can easily add it with the help of a plugin like WooCommerce Product Options.

WooCommerce Product Options is the best plugin for adding flat rate, percentage-based, conditional, and other kinds of handling fees to your online store. It is super easy to use and works well for various kinds of handling fees, including fragile item fees, expedited processing fees, oversized items fees, etc.

Plus, it seamlessly integrates with your store's cart and checkout system to enable customers to see what fees have been added before placing their orders.

Get WooCommerce Product Options and start charging handling fees in five minutes or less!

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