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• Miva Docs
• Reference Guide
• Miva 10 Product Charges and Fees

Product Charges and Fees Module

Miva’s Product Charges and Fees Module helps you manage additional fees and charges that may be associated with specific products or groups of products. This functionality is helpful for managing things like simple Environmental Fees to complex Automotive Core Charges that are assessed for certain products.

The Miva admin manages Product Charges in a unique way.

• Charges and Fees are “inactive” products. Customers will not find them within your catalog.
• Charges and Fees are “child” products, associated with a “parent” product.
• When a parent product is added to a shopper’s cart, the child product is also added automatically.

However, because of this, without additional updates to the Shadows, a shopper’s basket will reflect an incorrect number of items – in this case, two items; the parent product and the child product – when it should only reflect the parent product, while displaying the child product as an added charge or fee.

The functionality works correctly, however shoppers could be confused by the seemingly inaccurate number of items in their basket. So Shadows updates to the following display items can alleviate that confusion:

• Anywhere the number of basket items is displayed.
• Anywhere the charges and fees are displayed, so they are associated with the parent product and not displayed as a standalone product.

Again, the functionality works correctly, so these updates are not required, but they are recommended for the best user experience.

For specific information about the changes needed for this particular Shadows update, visit the Product Charges & Fees Developer page.

On this Page

• Installation and Use
• Assigning Charges/Fees to Products/Collections
• Shopper Experience
• Use Cases

Installation and Use

1. To use the module you first have to install it. Navigate to Settings>Modules. Then select the Product Charges and Fees module from the list, and click Install.

2. After the module is installed, a Charges & Fees tab is available on the Catalog page. Clicking on the tab is how you add a desired charge or fee.

3. Click the Add Charge Type, enter a name and select a type from the dropdown: Core, Fee or Other.

4. On the page that opens, set the price, and decide if the charge will be taxable or not.

5. In the text field, give the charge a description. When a shopper on your website clicks the tool tip icon next to the charge or fee associated with the product, the description you enter here will display.

6. Next, set Payment Rules and Shipping Rules. Because charges and fees are not tangible products, the use case for the rules is pretty limited. There are some very unique situations where you may need to alter these, though it is unlikely. For example, if your store is using Price Based Shipping, you would want to exclude a fee or charge associated with a product so the cost isn’t included in the calculated price that determines shipping.

7.When finished, click Update.

Assigning Charges/Fees to Products/Collections

After the charge or fee is established, you will need to assign it to a product or products. You can also assign the charge or fee to an entire collection of products, which can be more efficient than assigning it to one product at a time.

1. To assign a charge, navigate to Catalog>Charges & Fees.

2. Select a charge to assign.

3. On the page that opens, select either the Products tab or the Collections tab.

4. For the Products tab, click the Assign Products button. Then select the product(s) in the box that opens, and click Continue. If you want to Override the charge price for a particular product, click the slider and set the new amount. When done, click Assign Products.

5. For the Collections tab, the process is the same as the Products tab. Select a collection, decide on the override, click Assign Collection.

Charges and Fees and Interactions with Price Groups

The addition of the Charges and Fees capability to the Miva admin can have impacts far beyond just the associated product. In particular, charges and fees can impact the behavior of Price Groups. Because of this, some forethought is recommended when implementing charges and fees.

If using a Price Group where you have to explicitly include products, it’s up to you to include charges and fees, which are created in the Miva admin as “Inactive” products.

If you are using a Price Group with the option, “Apply to All Products Unless excluded," that WILL include the charges and fees.

To exclude Charges and Fees in that instance, you either have to exclude each individual charge/fee product, or you could put all of your charges and fees into a collection and then exclude the collection.

To make that easier, we suggest adding a code to charges and fees, which allows you to quickly find them using filters. For example, using “CHG-“ as a prefix for Charges, or “FEE-“ as a prefix for Fees, can help you find all of your charges and/or fees and then assign them to a collection.

Shopper Experience

When a customer chooses an item with an associated charge or fee, that charge or fee is added into their shopping basket, separate from, cost of the new item being purchased. This makes the core charge completely transparent for shoppers and eliminates any confusion on the cost of the new item itself.

Clicking on the info icon next to “Battery Core” opens a box that explains to the shopper what the charge is.

The shopper's basket will then look like this; showing the product, in this case the car battery, along with the charge, in this case reflected as "Battery Core." The basket quantity should reflect one.

Use Cases

Automotive

Probably the most well-known product charges are for automotive parts, like batteries or for certain parts like alternators, water pumps, starters and other parts. This encourages consumers to return the used part, known as a core, for recycling or manufacturing.

In this case, if a customer goes to a store a buys a new car battery, when they buy the battery, they pay the cost of the new battery, and then a core charge is assessed in addition to the cost. When the customer brings the old battery back to the store, they are refunded the amount of the core charge.

Environmental or Recycling fee

Electronics or appliances may include environmental handling fees to cover the cost of recycling or proper disposal, as mandated by local laws.

In this case, the fee would show up on the customer’s order as a separate item in their basket. Fees, unlike core charges, are not typically refunded so a customer simply sees the fee that is assessed at purchase.

Other Fees

• Hazardous Materials fee: A fee can be added for things like chemicals or aerosol type products that require special handling or have tighter regulations.
• A customization or personalization fee: If a customer is buying a team t-shirt for example, and want the name and number of their favorite player on the back of the shirt, a flat fee could be assessed for that.
• Assembly fee: If a customer is ordering something like a gas grill, and wants the store to assemble it in addition to delivering it, they could assess a flat fee for assembly on top of any shipping charges.