Handling Fee

[Former_Member]

Currently I purchase insurance for International orders only. For Domestic orders I ship Priority Mail if the item price is over $25 since PO gives $50 of free insurance with PM.

I would really like to see a separate handling fee for Domestic shipments and International shipments. I would use the International handling fee to cover the cost of insurance.

Is this planned for Calculated shipping?

[Former_Member]

Jeanie Handlin from VintageSewingParts says:

Currently I purchase insurance for International orders only. For Domestic orders I ship Priority Mail if the item price is over $25 since PO gives $50 of free insurance with PM.

I would really like to see a separate handling fee for Domestic shipments and International shipments. I would use the International handling fee to cover the cost of insurance.

Is this planned for Calculated shipping?

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Hi Jeanie,

Thanks very much for your feedback. At this time it is not possible to have one handling fee for domestic shipments and another for international.

We appreciate hearing how you'd like to have handling fees work for you and will take what you've shared into account as we continue our work on calculated shipping.

[LaurasLastDitch]

Another reason to charge a higher handling fee for international shipments is because of the extra Direct Checkout and Paypal fees incurred because of the higher shipping costs. Something that costs me $40 to ship instead of $10 to ship is going to cost me about $1 in extra fees.

Perhaps adding handling costs as a percentage of the shipping price would solve this problem. I also saw other sellers saying that the cost of supplies goes up with the size of the package, so this might help alleviate their problem, too.

[calialater]

Thanks Last Ditch Laura! Your point is definitely in line with some of the feedback we've heard in prototype.

We've seen that sellers price insurance differently, so it's helpful for us to hear from sellers more about the ways they determine insurance costs.

[OffThePedestal]

If I might add, it would be really super nice to someday have the ability to use a different handling fee for each different type of shipping offered, not just international vs domestic. In addition to differences in insurance and processing fees, there can also be a difference in packaging materials. When I use Priority Mail, I don't want to charge any handling fee, because most all of those shipping supplies are free. When I use First Class, a small fee might be in order, as it would mostly be low cost bubble envelopes and small boxes. For Parcel, a slightly larger fee would make sense, since the larger boxes cost more, and if it's fragile, the cost of bubble wrap and other protecting packing can add up quickly.

[silvervine]

I never ship without insurance added, even in the US. I would like to see the option for adding insurance to the shipping fees, and I would like to have the ability to make insurance mandatory wherever it's available.

[Former_Member]

Any update or progress on this point? Love the idea of calculated shipping especially with the new change in postal prices, but having an international shipping fee would help a HUGE amount in giving an accurate shipping price to the customer. A handling fee of $1.50, for example, covers domestic shipping, but I would need closer to $6 for International. That is a huge difference to eat the cost on the domestic side or to charge domestic in order to cover international.

Agreed with Last Ditch Laura on having the handling fee be a percentage of the total price instead of a flat rate. It would make a huge difference.

[Former_Member]

I'm with H. Gray on inquiring about updates.

With all the new rate/zone changes, I'd have to start over from scratch manually working out shipping to all the zones in the US and Canada -and- all the other countries I regularly ship to - so I'd thought I'd try the calculated option here finally to save a lot of time. But I just find it incredibly lacking in needed features: separate handling fees for domestic and international is a must, and the percentage of total price would be quite nice.
(Woocommerce w/ the USPS calculator plug-in seems to do shiping costs perfectly if you'd like to compare that system and see if it'd work on this site.)

Right now, I'm considering just reopening my etsy shop to US customers only, but I'd hate to disclude all other places (which is 1/4-1/3 of sales for me.)