Lulu Direct

Working with LuLu and creating books directly on their website is easy and the quality of the books is superb. I gave the app 2 stars because it is more expensive to go through the app with a fulfillment charge on top of that. Better off going directly through LuLu website, it is free as well. I also found that I can't connect my LuLu books already made online into shopify without having to redo the entire process of creating a book through the app.

At first I was intimidated by Lulu’s self-publishing platform because I had never published a book and am not proficient in Adobe Suite products which several of the templates require. My customer support expert, Tim S, was fantastic. He answered all my many questions, in detail, within 1-2 business days and was helpful in sending me templates to help me format my book. He even helped prepare my files when I ran into a printing issue with certain images not printing correctly - he helped me understand what the problem was with my file and fixed the issues for me so that my books would print correctly. When I received a damaged book I ordered for myself as a sample, he issued me a refund so that I could get a new sample book clear of shipping damage, which was considerate. He was always professional, positive, responsive, and immensely helpful in the setup process of my book. I am so grateful to have had his support through the file creation process and initial ordering process to help me get my book set up online correctly. I'm proud to now officially be a published author and happy the quality of the books looks very nice. I can't speak to other customer rep experiences at Lulu but Tim S. was 5 stars! Thank you Tim!!

Extremely happy indie publisher here! Last year I launched my first print book which wouldn't have been possible at all without Lulu. Being able to seamlessly ship thousands of books without the headaches of inventory and managing the mail is a huge benefit. We've had some small issues, mostly with a very small percent of orders not being received, but the Lulu customer support has been excellent and responsive about solving these problems quickly and fairly. It's not 100% automated, but it's 99% of the way there, which is good for me!

Recommended. The app works well. So far, all orders have been fulfulled properly. There have been one or two minor problems which customer service have handled well and promptly. In general customer service is excellent. [EDIT - over one year later, customer service continues to be excellent]

There are some downsides to consider before using the app:

- Orders to some locations seem to arrive very slowly... some took around three weeks. Need to let customers know about this, especially if they are expecting Amazon fulfillment times. Customers see the shipping time when they order, but this doesn't include production time to actually print the book, so from their point of view the book often arrives later than scheduled.

- There is basically no functionality for looking through your own orders and gathering data, even just how much you've actually given Lulu. You have to email them to ask for a csv file (which they do provide promptly). In general the app is very poor for looking at data, looking at past orders etc. Searching for past orders is glitchy.

- More costly than manually ordering from Lulu or making a bulk order. They add a fulfillment charge for orders through Lulu Direct.

However I am glad I am using the app, despite these limitations

I'm a small (2 product) self publisher of natural history field guides (BYOGUIDES) who was badly burned a few years back by Shipwire. The combination of Shopify / Lulu has allowed me to relaunch my business without the hassle of warehousing and arbitrarily changing Shipwire policies. The Shopify / Lulu interface / model is not 'simple' to understand or navigate initially, especially if you are trying to distribute globally to small oceanic territories as well as the big ones (e.g. North America). So if you are not a web / developer type I would say you should find someone with solid Shopify store building experience before discovering the many rough edges. I would have rate the Lulu App 3 stars but for Lulu tech support haven been STELLAR and patient as we beat a path (together) to the solution I needed for my customers. I am seeing evidence of constant improvement in the APP but there are still numerous rough edges must navigated daily. For example: there are form field character limits in the Lulu world that are NOT surfaced to the customer in Shopify world. Consequently, orders constantly crash because there is one-too-many characters in a field. The SHOPIFY system doesn't tell you this so they need to discovered by manually checking the Lulu app after each order arrives and hand managed through by me and sometimes tech support. It's a hassle but it is getting better as time goes by.... I could go on esp. w.r.t. to having to manually set up multiple freight rates around for every country you MIGHT sell to - this was auto-magic with my previous solution. But the bottom line is that the system is viable and getting better and there is good support. But if your time is worth anything (or you want to go holidays and relax) make sure you partner with a developer with Shopify store building experience and focus on doing a bunch of test orders that mimic who, and where, your customers are - especially if they are outside the US and EU. Finally, Lulu printing itself, while efficient and of excellent quality does have format limitations. For example, a limited selection of paperweights such that everything feels like a coffee-table book when you might need something with more heft for practical purposes. Also, if you coil bind you can not get a straight run of pages and are forced to have a blank page at the front and back of you book. Otherwise great.

We're issuing "how to" mini-books and this is a convenient and streamlined way to deliver our products straight to customers.

Lulu has been great to work with! We print and ship around 100+ books per month. Very few issues with that volume of orders and when there have been any issues Kristen with customer support has very quickly fixed the issue (even when the error was due to customer issues and not Lulu). Highly recommend!

(SECOND REVIEW - 9/21/2020): Production times are over a month. I have customers complaining daily, asking where their orders are. This is not an issue of the USPS or Fedex, this is a production/manufacturing issue that Lulu has faced since we began working with them.

We get the same old runaround from customer service about how they are working on it. We have been working with Lulu for about a year now and it has just been painful from start to finish.

If you're serious about starting a print-on-demand product, look elsewhere. It will save you a lot of headache in the long run for your business. Do not be fooled by Lulu's flashy interface and design. It's all smoke and mirrors. Behind the scenes it's a mess.

(FIRST REVIEW - 4/27/2020): If you are planning to start a business around selling books, be vary wary before jumping in head first with this app. There are issues with the app as well as print quality control.

We have been using the Lulu Xpress App for about 4 months now to print thousands of books. Our library consists of about 90 titles and we have spent thousands of dollars with Lulu.

The app is riddled with bugs and issues. It is finicky and breaks easily. Many times it feels like wrestling a bear to get the app to do what it is supposed to.

Whether you're trying to view your orders or trying to upload/update a book, a new error or bug will present itself. The app requires various workarounds to avoid these bugs, but regardless a new one will pop up in its place, bringing production to a halt. "Internal Server Errors" seem to never go away. We hold our breath every time we launch the app, cringing at what broken mess we're going to run into.

This is not something that a business can afford to deal with on a weekly basis. As it stands, we have not been able to access the app at all in over a week.

We have been working with customer service to solve these issues. This is an additional problem in itself. The line of communication is not efficient. You will be in contact through an email support ticket chain. With this chain, your customer service rep will relay or mediate your issue to a "developer" who is "working on the problem."

It is just flat out inefficient and we expected more support and competency considering the volume we are producing and future plans of growth for our business.

To their defense, customer service does reply fairly quickly. They do try and it seems they are sincere in their efforts to help in whatever way they can. Unfortunately, they're dealing with a broken app.

The backend development of this app has a long way to go. The errors and bugs shouldn't exist to begin with.

Because we are in this far, we will continue using Lulu for the time being, in hopes that they are able to iron out these issues soon. I will update this review once they do. Until then, I would not recommend this app.

I am new to the Lulu xPress app, and I have had more than 100 orders go thru the app in the past 2 weeks. The problem is, I can only see my most recent 20 orders within the Lulu app, if I try to click beyond the first 2 pages - it does not show the rest. I am not able to access the status, tracking or customer information for those orders via the app and this is a potential nightmare waiting to happen during the holiday season.

We’d highly recommend this app! Lulu xPress does all the printing and ships right to the customer. All we have to do on our end is fulfill the order, then Lulu xPress takes over. Seamless! It saves us time and we don’t have to carry inventory. Lulu xPress is a user-friendly app that walks you through the whole process of uploading your book and they have friendly and helpful tech staff who quickly assist with any questions. Five stars!