Lulu Direct

App works but so much room for improvement. It's buggy and often hangs and spins. The connected books cannot be easily filtered in a search and requires you manually search page by page to find anything (a real PITA when you have lots of titles!).

The benefit of the app is that it connects shopify orders and, for the most part, it does achieve that. However, it often causes lots of unnecessary frustration in the process.

Hoping the developers continue to work on this app to improve the functionality and ease of use for the end users.

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!

I use Lulu xPress for about two years now. It worked well until several months ago and it became a disaster. Apparently there is 0 quality assurance made at the printing facilities. I have numerous copies of my book delivered with pages empty of content. The support is always helpful and sends a replacement, but in last several weeks I had several clients who received faulty product even on second and THIRD attempt. Unfortunately it damages my relationship, since I really look unprofessional when customer receives a faulty product, then the replacement arrives faulty again and the next one again. It also affects my income since I have to refund such customers. I asked for clarifications when such issues can be fixed but didn't receive concrete answers. If you have an alternative consider avoiding Lulu.

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!

I wanted to sell paperbacks of my own books at a discount independent of the larger companies if you know what I mean. Lulu looked good. I contacted them with my concerns and they assured me I would be pleased and there's no contract. The quality of the books is great. My readers have told me so and I have ordered them myself at cost by momentarily dropping the price on my products page on Shopify.
The only problem left was constantly having to correct shipping prices both foreign and domestic. I contacted Cary Penrose who called me at my request and patiently talked me through setting up live shipping worldwide. It worked and now my readers in England can order delivery any way they want. I find Lulu very convenient and have had no complaints about pricing or delivery. I have just started advertising internationally, so time will tell how this works out when the volume picks up.

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!!