Lulu Direct

Shipping errors: Lulu should be applying the lowest available shipping rate, per their documentation, but this doesn't work in practice, it's not "set and forget", and the head-scratching caveats essentially mean you can't manage shipping effectively unless you're on the Shopify Advanced or Plus plans.

Phone number required by Lulu: There's no way to collect phone numbers for one product in Shopify, so if you're not *only* selling books then you'd be forced to collect phone numbers for every product, which is a total disaster for digital product sell-through. It's not Lulu's fault per se, because the global phone number setting is Shopify's decision, but I'm sure Lulu could find some way to collect phone numbers via their app instead.

So... I mean, technically it is an app that works, so yay. The caveats are critical though.

UPDATED: To the response: This is a good note to read because it's not clearly documented in the support docs that the phone number is the key to the automatic shipping assignation.

I highly recommend the Lulu Direct app. The setup took just a few minutes, and now every order flows straight to Lulu for printing and fulfillment with zero manual work on my end. Print quality is consistently excellent, shipping is quick, and customers get tracking updates automatically.

I’ve tried other POD services, but Lulu Direct is the only one that delivers the same high quality every time and ships reliably worldwide. If you’re a small publisher looking for a dependable fulfillment partner, Lulu is hands-down the best choice.

i wish i could speak to a live person quicker an more direct

Lulu is a disaster. Their service and support is atrocious. I am trying to create a Book for publishing, have printed samples with other providers to Shopify so I can assess all quality, service and delivery times etc.

The minute I requested help - You are sent on an AI loop, that keeps asking you to send the error message or to re-read their guides.

You eventually raise a ticket and the support person asks the same thing. Attach a copy of the error message. (even after you begged in the ticket for them to access your account and assist)

I am trying to build my store - and the amount of time I have wasted with Lulu is ridiculous.

They have fundamentally broken this App after the recent "update", by removing mapped shipping and not implementing an equal alternative.

Essentially useless as a hands off print on demand service, where you now have to baby every single order to make sure the shipping method is correct, otherwise it defaults to a more expensive method and you lose money on the sale.

Pre update this was a very useful service that ran perfect for many years.

Lulu has been incredibly helpful!! We thank them so much for their responsiveness with their support staff, ability to fix the issues, their patience and understanding were great. We received our first printed, full color books and they were outstanding quality! Thank you

When i am trying to connect Lulu direct to my shopify store and open the app, it fails to load and brings up a new tab saying unable to find correct link to website. So this leaves me unable to use Lulu direct for my needs. If anyone could help me out on this situation, I would be very grateful thankyou.

This was originally a ONE STAR review. I will say that tech support fixed it. Please note there is NO HELP during holidays for this international company so schedule your drops accordingly. I can say there was a problem with their plugin on my account that didn't exist before. Thank you for fixing this LULU.

I am noticing a very inconsistent product when ordering. I ordered 3 copies of a book entitled "Life's A Journey" that should have been printed in an 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" book format. I received 3 books in 8 1/2" x 11" format. As I didn't need them immediately I didn't open the package until to longer after the order.

Then I ordered a 2nd book entitled The Wonderfully Wacky World of those Crazy Critters Around Us!". Again 8 1/2" x 8 1/2", color book. It came in the correct size but was in B/W. LuLu's put in a request to reprint it with expedited shipping. Shipping was delayed, it arrived in color, whoever, the shipper had managed to mangle the book.

I am now attempting to secure an updated version of the 2nd book; however, the system isn't allowing me to connect it to the right item. Therefore, I can't get it in their system so I can request a printed copy to see what I might get this time.

More than a bit annoyed at the lack of quality. I can see how my customers would feel if getting charged for a product that didn't arrive as specified and requested.

I am having the hardest time getting my products properly linked / set up through Lulu Direct. All of the instructional videos are out of date, so all the information and instructions that they are giving doesn't apply to this new format, making it a huge pain to set up. If you update your entire structure, you need to update your videos too. Otherwise, you are just leaving people in the dark, which doesn't make for very happy customers / users of your platform.