Someone recently asked about charging a handling fee when sending
out orders. I used to get upset at companies that charged me a
handling charge until I started shipping out a lot of orders. Up
until this point, I have not charged a handling fee, but have now
decided to come up with a reasonable amount to charge for handling.
I just finished filling and shipping 3 orders, and labeling and
packaging the items took me the entire day - not to mention driving
to FedEx/UPS to drop these off - or paying their fee to pick them up.
During the holiday season I must have spent days packaging orders.
I’ve always just charged the exact amount of shipping and have not
considered my time. If I don’t start charging a small handling fee,
I’m going to be taking a loss on my time spent filling each order. I
don’t have a problem anymore with companies that charge a handling
fee - as long as that fee is reasonable. I have seen companies more
than $10 for a handling fee (on top of shipping), which I think is
ridiculously high.