Will-call looks like easy money. The customer comes to you. No delivery cost. No freight coordination. No driver time. Just pull the material, load their truck, and collect payment. Except it never works that cleanly.
The customer shows up at 4:45 PM on a Friday wanting three items that are not staged. Your warehouse crew is trying to close out the day. The forklift operator has to pull a coil off the top of a three-high stack to get to the one underneath. The customer's truck is too small for the order, so they take half and say they will come back Monday for the rest, which means you have to restage and track a split pickup.
The Hidden Costs of Will-Call
Time a few will-call transactions from the moment the customer arrives to the moment they drive away. Most service centers are shocked to find that will-call pickups take 35 to 55 minutes of warehouse labor per transaction. The customer waits while someone finds the order, verifies it, pulls and stages the material, loads it, generates the BOL, and collects a signature.
At $28 per hour fully loaded warehouse labor, a 45-minute will-call pickup costs $21 in direct labor. Add $5 for the paperwork and overhead, and you are at $26 per transaction. If the order is small, say 1,500 pounds of flat bar at $0.04 per pound margin, your gross margin is $60 and your will-call handling cost just ate 43% of it.
Staging Makes Everything Better
The single biggest improvement you can make to will-call operations is requiring advance notice and pre-staging material. Set a policy: will-call orders must be placed by 2 PM for same-day pickup, or by end of day for next-morning pickup. This gives your warehouse team time to pull and stage during normal workflow instead of dropping everything when someone walks in unannounced.
Designate a specific area near your will-call door for staged pickups. Label each staged order clearly with the customer name, order number, and number of pieces. When the customer arrives, the transaction becomes a verification and loading exercise instead of a full pull-and-pick operation. Staged pickups take 10 to 15 minutes instead of 45.
Will-Call Hours and Policies
Set specific will-call hours and enforce them. Most service centers run will-call from 7 AM to 3:30 PM. After-hours pickups require advance arrangement and carry a surcharge. This is not about being difficult. It is about managing your warehouse labor efficiently. A will-call customer arriving at 4:50 PM costs you overtime for two warehouse employees.
Implement a will-call window system for high-volume will-call customers. Assign them a pickup window (for example, Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8 and 10 AM) and have their regular orders staged and ready. This turns a chaotic, unpredictable operation into a scheduled, efficient one. Your warehouse team knows exactly what to prepare and when.
Pricing Will-Call Correctly
Some service centers offer a will-call discount because the customer is providing their own transportation. That makes sense on large orders. On small orders, will-call actually costs you more per pound than delivery because delivery orders are batched and routed efficiently, while will-call orders are handled one at a time.
Consider a minimum will-call order size. A 500-pound minimum is reasonable for most operations. Below that, the handling cost per pound makes the transaction unprofitable regardless of margin. Customers picking up small quantities can consolidate their needs into fewer, larger pickups, which is better for both of you.
Will-call should be a convenient service that certain customers prefer. It should not be a source of warehouse chaos and hidden losses. Structure it right and it becomes one of your most efficient channels.