If you fulfil orders on your own
If you are fulfilling orders on your own, you might not think to add handling costs. However, your time spent is valuable and an overhead to running the business.
Determine the time it takes you to pack an order. Then set the minimum amount you’re willing to earn per hour to pack the items – that’s your hourly rate. Finally, complete the same formula from above:
[Average number of minutes worked to package an item / 60] x hourly rate.
The result is your “opportunity cost”, which is the time you could have spent generating revenue. Use it as your handling fee on orders.
Shipping and handling fees need to be clearly labelled in your order invoices so that your customers don’t think you are overcharging them.