Lulu Direct

I think the book printing drop-shipping model is a fantastic idea, and I would use it for many books, but both test copies I've received have been printed incorrectly. There is an issue with the templates that make seemingly centered designs print off-center. The other issue is that our customers don't want to wait 20 days to receive their book. For these customers to get their package in a timely manner, the book would then cost three times what it should, rendering it a useless product.

While we'd love to work with this platform, and while we think that printing one book at a time instead of ordering in bulk would be amazing, this app has a while to go before we feel comfortable using it.

We'd need to proof every single customer's order, and that would take way too much time.

Once the templates are adjusted, and once the shipping rates change, this app will be AMAZING.

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.

L'app funziona bene e non abbiamo avuto reclami sulla qualità di stampa dei libri. Per ora ha solo cambiato nome rispetto alla versione precedente. Rimane il problema che non memorizza, nelle impostazioni, la regione di provenienza del mittente e ha tempi di produzione e spedizione un po lenti per gli standart attuali. Non ci pare che siano disponibili 3.000 formati! Sarebbe utile fossero più complementari a quelli richiesti da Amazon, ci tocca produrre i libri in due formati alla volta.

This app simply does NOT work! I've actually reached out to their support team TWO times over the course of 3 months and they haven't responded... it's a shame because I actually use their website to print my books...

Serious excited to print my first book! THANKS LULU

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.

While the product creation was fine, and the order process appeared to go smoothly, I've ordered a total of 5 books between two orders, and haven't received a single one.

**edit**

Customer service via Joseph has been very helpful with my initial problem, my review has gone from 1 to 3 stars after resolving the misunderstandings that were easily resolved. Holding off for the exciting conclusion to give a final review.

**second edit**

After some swift service from Joseph, my initial order was reprocessed and I finally had 3 copies of our book in hand, and they're absolutely beautiful. Far exceeded my expectations.

I'm hesitant to give the full five stars, because there was definitely some kind of mix-up in shipping with the first order, but the quality of the books and customer service is four stars well earned. I've reinstalled the app and will be giving it another go.

I appreciate the fact that this app helps save time in submitting and fulfilling orders, but the print cost / revenue shown on the Lulu.com website is inaccurate with the cost to actually sell a book in Shopify. The Lulu Direct print cost is about 20% higher than the Lulu book store cost--they say that's to cover fulfillment costs. But yet they ALSO charge an extra $1.50 PER BOOK on Shopify, listed as a fulfillment fee. That's crazy, and I'm looking into ways to get around this because having to mark up a notebook over $3.00 just to get any profit it all is not sustainable.

11/1/2023
I updated my review from a 2 to 4 after receiving a helpful email directly from Lulu about how to configure the Shopify checkout to ensure tracking auto-populates an order. The problem should be fixed now.

My other concern regarding error notifications is already being addressed in an upcoming app update. There is no ETA when the new features will be available, but it is being worked on by the development team.

Also, I would like to say the printing quality of the book is beautiful and a lot better than what Amazon can produce.

I applaud Lulu for their excellent customer service and ability to address their customer concerns in a timely manner. I look forward to using the new updates.

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Old Previous review....

The app is easy to use, and the prices for printing are double that of Amazon, but overall, it works well and gives the seller full control over their paperback book profits. Another good feature of this APP is the orders are processed automatically.

Now for the negatives. The APP does fall short. A developer can't state that an APP is integrated with Shopify if it is missing critical key features that are common across all Shopify APPS.

What is missing is error logging and notification. If an order is invalid or fails to process, it is critical this information is sent automatically to the Shopify Admin. I should not have to check my order page daily to find errors. This lack of notification support can cause customer service issues.

Secondly, your APP does not update tracking information or notify the customer when their package is shipped. The Admin gets notified, which is strange because I get notified of a shipping notification but not for order errors.

I have to add the tracking information to an order manually, which is another large gap in the design of your APP. These are common things that are in every APP.

These gaps need to be fixed and are large enough to cause my rating to drop from a five to a two. Your APP completely misses the customer service part of the Shopify business. Your design does not support the sellers properly.

Please correct this in your next update to the app. The features are not hard to implement and need to be integrated ASAP. I will update my review when these features are implemented.

Thank you for taking the time to read my review and input. I am open to assisting with developing or testing these features when ready.

Poor quality control. Poor customer support. I placed orders for several samples from LuLu (both in Shopify via the app and through xpress.lulu.com). The gloss cover paperback was fine, but the matte covers on three different paperbacks were badly curled. I also contacted support about the customized packing slip: LuLu acknowledged that there was an issue and said its developers were investigating, but it's been three weeks now and I still haven't heard back... It's a pity, because done properly I think this service would be a tremendous success (many small publishers would welcome the ability to have a third party process single book orders for them from their own websites) — but there is no way I could sell such a shoddy product to customers.