Pickup terms are set per item, and they are snapshotted onto the order at checkout — so a buyer is held to what they agreed to, and you cannot change it afterwards.
The three settings
How long they have to collect. The default is 72 hours from when you mark the order ready. You can set anywhere from 6 hours to 336 — six hours for something perishable, a fortnight for something that keeps.
The no-show fee, as a percentage of the order. The default is 7%, and you can set anything up to 20%.
Whether it spoils. If you mark an item as spoiling, a no-show is charged at 20% and the item goes back on sale rather than waiting for them.
What the deadline actually becomes
Not simply ready-plus-your-hours. A whole day is added for every day in between that you or the pickup point are closed.
So set your closed days and your point's open days honestly — a point marked open seven days a week when it is really shut on Sundays gives buyers a deadline a day short, and that is the version that produces an unfair fee. What does "collect by" mean?
How to choose the numbers
Hours: as long as you can bear. A generous window costs you storage and almost nothing else, and it prevents most no-shows outright. Short windows are for things that genuinely cannot wait.
Fee: the default, unless you have a reason. 7% is enough to mean something without reading as punitive. The maximum is there for genuinely costly cases, not as a default to reach for.
Spoils: only if it really does. Food, flowers, plants. Marking ordinary stock as spoiling to get the higher fee is the kind of thing that produces reviews you cannot undo.
What to do instead of charging it
Message them before the deadline. Almost every buyer who is told will come. The fee exists for people who simply never came, not as a first response to somebody running late.
A collected order and a waived fee is worth more than a charged fee and a lost buyer.
What a buyer sees
The terms at checkout, before they commit, and a reminder before the deadline. Nothing is sprung on them — which is also what makes the fee defensible when you do charge it. Collecting safely from someone you have not met
Why offer pickup at all
No courier, no packing risk, no delivery charge, and for heavy or fragile stock it is often the only sensible method. The no-show terms are what make it safe for you to offer. How to offer pickup
More: what does "collect by" mean, how to offer pickup, giving each item its own delivery rules.